Curren t Forthcoming Current Anthropology Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplementary Issues (in order of appearance)

VOLUME 55 SUPPLEMENT 10 DECEMBER 2014

Politics of the Urban Poor. Veena Das and Shalini Randeria, eds. Anthropolog y Current e of the Secret: e Public and Private in Anthropology. Lenore Manderson, Mark Davis, and Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, eds. Integrating Anthropology: Niche Construction, Cultural Institutions, and History. Agustín Fuentes and Polly Wiessner, eds. Anthropology

Previously Published Supplementary Issues THE WENNER-GREN SYMPOSIUM SERIES Working Memory: Beyond Language and Symbolism. omas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge, eds. December 2014 Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas. Setha M. Low and Sally Engle THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF : UNITY, Merry, eds. DIVERSITY, NEW DIRECTIONS Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form. Damani Partridge, Marina Welker, and Rebecca Hardin, eds. GUEST EDITORS: JOEL ROBBINS AND NAOMI HAYNES e Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideas. T. Douglas Price and Ofer The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions Bar-Yosef, eds. The One and the Many: -Centered Innovations V e Biological Anthropology of Living Human Populations: World olume 5 The Heart of the Matter: Christianity, Materiality, and Modernity Histories, National Styles, and International Networks. Susan Lindee and Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism Ricardo Ventura Santos, eds. Becoming the Body of Christ: Sacrificing the Speaking Subject Human Biology and the Origins of Homo. Susan Antón and Leslie C. Aiello, eds. The of Trans-Baikalia Potentiality and Humanness: Revisiting the Anthropological Object in Christianizing Language and the Dis-placement of Culture

Contemporary Biomedicine. Klaus Hoeyer and Karen-Sue Taussig, eds. Supplement 10 Being in Urbanizing China Alternative Pathways to Complexity: Evolutionary Trajectories in the Middle Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age. Steven L. Kuhn and Erella Hovers, eds. Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, Gender in Pentecostal Christianity Crisis, Value, and Hope: Rethinking the . Susana Narotzky and Niko Intimacy, Distance, and the Gender of Saints Besnier, eds. Pilgrimage as Trope for an Anthropology of Christianity Christianity and the Anthropology of Secular Christian Elements in a Vietnamese Syncretistic The Clash of Stances toward Materiality Different “Gifts” Amerindians Receive from Catholics and Evangelicals

Current Anthropology is sponsored by e Page s Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological The Cultural Kindling of Spiritual Experiences Research, a foundation endowed for scientific, Christianity, Anthropology, Politics educational, and charitable purposes. e S000 − Finding the Difference Christianity Makes Foundation, however, is not to be understood as endorsing, by of its financial support, any of

the statements made, or views expressed, herein. S000

0011-3204(201310)54:5+7;1-R

Sponso r e d b y the W enner-Gren Founda tion f o r Anth r opologic a l Rese a r c h

THE UNIVERSIT Y O F CHICAGO PRESS Wenner-Gren Symposium Series Editor: Leslie Aiello Wenner-Gren Symposium Series Managing Editors: Laurie Obbink and Daniel Salas Current Anthropology Editor: Mark Aldenderfer Current Anthropology Managing Editor: Lisa McKamy Book Reviews Editor: Holley Moyes Corresponding Editors: Claudia Briones (IIDyPCa-Universidad Nacional de Rı´o Negro, Argentina; [email protected]), Michalis Kontopodis (Humboldt Universita¨t zu Berlin, Germany; [email protected]), Jose´Luis Lanata (Universidad Nacional de Rı´o Negro San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina; [email protected]), David Palmer (Hong Kong University, China; [email protected]), Anne de Sales (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; [email protected]), Zhang Yinong (Shanghai University, China; [email protected])

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The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions

Leslie C. Aiello The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 10 S155 Introduction Joel Robbins The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions: An Introduction to Supplement 10 S157 Christian Institutions: Church, Denomination, John Barker The One and the Many: Church-Centered Innovations in a Papua New Guinean Community S172 Chris Hann The Heart of the Matter: Christianity, Materiality, and Modernity S182 Jon Bialecki After the Denominozoic: Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism S193 Courtney Handman Becoming the Body of Christ: Sacrificing the Speaking Subject in the Making of the Colonial Lutheran Church in New Guinea S205 Caroline Humphrey Schism, , and Revolution: The Old Believers of Trans-Baikalia S216 Christianity, Space, and Place Bambi B. Schieffelin Christianizing Language and the Dis-placement of Culture in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea S226 Jianbo Huang Being Christians in Urbanizing China: The Epistemological Tensions of the Rural Churches in the City S238 http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA Andreas Bandak Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus: Urban Space and Christian-Muslim Coexistence S248 Christianity and Gender Annelin Eriksen Sarah’s Sinfulness: Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, and Gender in Pentecostal Christianity S262 Maya Mayblin People Like Us: Intimacy, Distance, and the Gender of Saints S271 The Anthropology of Christianity at the Boundaries of Christianity and Beyond Simon Coleman Pilgrimage as Trope for an Anthropology of Christianity S281 Matthew Engelke Christianity and the Anthropology of S292 Janet Alison Hoskins An Unjealous ? Christian Elements in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion S302 Reconsidering Key Topics in the Anthropology of Christianity Webb Keane Rotting Bodies: The Clash of Stances toward Materiality and Its Ethical Affordances S312 Aparecida Vilac¸a Culture and Self: The Different “Gifts” Amerindians Receive from Catholics and Evangelicals S322 Julia L. Cassaniti and Tanya Marie Luhrmann The Cultural Kindling of Spiritual Experiences S333 Ruth Marshall Christianity, Anthropology, Politics S344 Afterword Naomi Haynes Affordances and Audiences: Finding the Difference Christianity Makes S357 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 S155

The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 10

by Leslie C. Aiello

The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Direc- around the conference table and during free time, including tions is the 147th symposium in the Wenner-Gren symposium an apropos afternoon trip to the well-known Catholic pil- series and the tenth symposium to be published as an open- grimage site of Fa´tima. access supplementary issue of the Foundation’s journal, Cur- The “Anthropology of Christianity” symposium resulted in rent Anthropology. The symposium was organized by Joel Rob- a total of 18 contributions, including an extensive introduc- bins (University of Cambridge) and held March 8–15, 2013, tion by Robbins (2014) that provides insightful reflections on at Tivoli Pala´cio de Seteais, Sintra, Portugal (fig. 1). We are the development of the subfield as well as on its future di- pleased to welcome Naomi Haynes (University of Edinburgh) rection and potential. The contributions are divided into five as coeditor of the supplementary issue. Haynes was the rap- sections covering the following topics: (1) Christian institu- porteur for the symposium and authored the afterword for tions, (2) Christianity, space, and place, (3) Christianity and the supplementary issue (Haynes 2014). gender, (4) the boundaries of Christianity, and (5) key topics The subfield known as the anthropology of Christianity has in the anthropology of Christianity and their continued rel- leapt to prominence over the last 15 years, to the degree that evance. Drawing on these articles, as well as on her own work, Robbins (2014) describes it as a child of the new millennium. Haynes in her afterword (2014) outlines a new comparative Some anthropologists debate the claimed novelty of the sub- framework to address how the subfield defines Christianity field, but Robbins defends it, and the timeliness of this sym- as an object of study in view of its highly diverse forms. This posium, on three grounds. First, there has been an exponential is a major concern as the field moves forward. increase in the number of anthropological publications deal- In looking through the archives of the Wenner-Gren Foun- ing with Christianity over this time period. Second, anthro- dation, I find it surprising that the Foundation has not spon- pologists studying Christianity have become “self-conscious” sored previous symposia that specifically address religion, al- about the field, particularly in that they are using ethnographic though both religion in general and Christianity in particular work on Christianity to push anthropological theory in new have undoubtedly been important to broader discussions at directions. And third, the role of religion in the world has Foundation-sponsored meetings. The closest the Foundation changed dramatically over this period. has come has been a series of symposia focusing on various Against this background, the goals of both the symposium aspects of (e.g., MacAloon 1984; Moore and Myerhoff and this CA issue are twofold: to assess the accomplishments 1977; Schechner and Appel 1990; Senft and Basso 2009). From of the anthropology of Christianity as it begins to mature as the Foundation’s point of view, the “Anthropology of Chris- a field and to chart its future through the development of tianity” symposium provided an ideal opportunity to bring new approaches and ideas. This is accomplished by bringing attention to an exciting area in modern anthropology, to aid some of the founders of the young subfield together with (1) in its continued growth and development, and to meet our representatives of the new generation of anthropologists in- major goal of encouraging work on timely, significant, and terested in Christianity as a discipline and (2) anthropologists innovative anthropological issues and trends. familiar with the advances in the anthropology of Christianity We are always looking for new ideas from all areas of an- but whose research lies in other and perhaps complementary thropology for future Foundation-sponsored and Foundation- areas. This mixture of generations and interests resulted in organized symposia and eventual CA publication. We encour- lively discussions throughout the five meeting days, both age anthropologists to contact us with their proposals for future meetings. Information about the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the symposium program, application procedures and deadlines, Leslie C. Aiello is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for and what constitutes a good symposium topic can be found Anthropological Research (470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor North, on the Foundation’s website (http://wennergren.org/programs New York, New York 10016, U.S.A.). /international-symposia).

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0001$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678287 S156 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 References Cited Robbins, Joel. 2014. The anthropology of Christianity: unity, diversity, new directions: an introduction to supplement 10. Current Anthropology Haynes, Naomi. 2014. Affordances and audiences: finding the difference Chris- 55(suppl. 10):S157–S171. tianity makes. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S357–S365. Schechner, Richard, and Willa Appel, eds. 1990. By means of performance: MacAloon, John J., ed. 1984. Rite, drama, festival, spectacle: rehearsals toward a theory intercultural studies of theatre and ritual. New York: Cambridge University of cultural performance. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Press. Moore, Sally Falk, and Barbara G. Myerhoff, eds. 1977. Secular ritual. Assen, Senft, Gunter, and Ellen B. Basso, eds. 2009. Ritual communication. Oxford: Netherlands: Van Gorcum. Berg.

Figure 1. Participants in the symposium “The Anthropology of Christianity.” Front row, from left to right: Chris Hann, Leslie Aiello, Simon Coleman, Maya Mayblin, Bambi Schieffelin, Joel Robbins, Caroline Humphrey, Webb Keane, Laurie Obbink. Middle row: Annelin Eriksen, Naomi Haynes, Tanya Luhrmann, Courtney Handman, Aparecida Vilac¸a, Janet Hoskins, Ruth Marshall. Back row: Matthew Engelke, Jon Bialecki, Andreas Bandak, John Barker. A color version of this figure is available online. Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 S157

The Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions An Introduction to Supplement 10

by Joel Robbins

This article reviews the development of the anthropology of Christianity and considers the new questions and approaches introduced by the articles in this special issue of Current Anthropology. The article first addresses the contested history of the anthropology of Christianity, suggesting that there is intellectual value in seeing it as largely a development of the new century. It goes on to locate the rise of the anthropology of Christianity in relation to a number of important changes both in the place of religion in the world and in the academic study of religion that also occurred during this period. It then considers the foci of the articles collected here. These include such relatively novel topics as the nature of Christian social institutions, social processes, space-making practices, and constructions of gender, as well as questions concerning the boundaries of Christianity. Several articles also focus on considerations of recent developments in the study of long-standing topics in the anthropology of Christianity, such as discontinuity, reflexivity, experience, and materiality. Throughout the discussion of these issues, I take up critical debates around the anthropology of Christianity, for example, the charge that it is wholly idealist in orientation, and consider how these articles contribute to the further development of these discussions.

Sometimes one would like the chance to begin an article twice. the model of “dog years”), this turns out to be middle-aged. This is one of those times. It is one of those times because I The image of middle age fits the contemporary anthropology would like to begin by saying that the anthropology of Chris- of Christianity in several senses. It has gone from being an tianity is 15 years old, and then I would like to go on to make upstart to being respectable (at least in many quarters); it is a point about what it means for an area of academic study less interested in picking fights with more established an- to be that age. But I know from long experience that I cannot thropological programs than it once was; and it is possessed begin quite this way, because as soon as I say the anthropology of a rapidly maturing second generation, the members of of Christianity is about 15 years old, I have to pause to defend which have never been part of a discipline of anthropology this claim against those who argue that it is much older—if that did not pay a good deal of attention to Christianity. But not as old as the discipline of anthropology itself, then at least one sense in which the image of middle age is perhaps slightly as old as the first ethnographic writings focused on Christian inappropriate when applied to a 15-year-old academic trend groups. And once I pause to make that point and address it such as the anthropology of Christianity is that many an- in the detail it deserves, I have lost any momentum my ar- thropological movements never make it much past this age. gument about what it means to be a 15-year-old area of study Often enough, by the time a given anthropological enthusiasm might have had. So what I would like to do at this point is reaches 15 years of age, it is well on its way out of the center announce that in the section that immediately follows I will of disciplinary attention. Middle age, then, is at once a sat- make an argument about why it is reasonable to claim the isfying and worrisome time for any would-be intellectual anthropology of Christianity is roughly 15 years old. And then movement, at least in an academic field as mobile as socio- I would like to be allowed to begin this opening section again cultural anthropology. with the assertion that it is. This issue, like the conference from which it sprang, has The anthropology of Christianity is roughly 15 years old. been designed both to take advantage of the middle-aged In academic years (to be understood here on something like situation in which the anthropology of Christianity finds itself and to consider some of the dangers that come with reaching Joel Robbins is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of this point. At the most general level, the issue’s goals are Social Anthropology of the University of Cambridge (Free School twofold. On the one hand, it aims to assess what the an- Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RF, United Kingdom [[email protected]]). thropology of Christianity has accomplished in terms of pro- This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and ducing new ethnographic materials and new theoretical ar- electronically published 19 XI 14. guments and to ask what novel developments in these areas

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0002$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678289 S158 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 might be on the horizon as a second generation of scholars, uating it in relation to other developments both within and some junior and some more senior but moving in from other outside of anthropology, I want to return to the question of anthropological areas, begins to produce significant work. On how old this trend might reasonably be said to be. the other hand, in a more reflexive mood, it aims to assess whether the anthropology of Christianity as a “movement” Where Did the Anthropology of Christianity or “trend” or “subfield” or however it might best be described Come From, and How Old Is It? ought to continue to develop in the way it has—as something that for at least some of those who have contributed to it has been a self-conscious collective project—or whether the time Having already made much of the age of the anthropology has perhaps arrived for it to become something more diffuse, of Christianity and having noted that this is controversial as arguably happens to most successful middle-aged anthro- topic, it makes sense to begin my discussion of critical ques- pological developments once scholars who once framed much tions bearing on the history, status, and possible future of of their work in trend-relevant terms begin to take as back- this area of research by taking up the question of how old it ground knowledge much of what they have learned from really is. On the face of things, the case for suggesting that being part of a growing movement and go on to pursue new the anthropology of Christianity is more or less a child of the questions. new millennium is not hard to make. The appearance in 2003 From the start, then, this issue has been conceived both as and 2006 of two edited collections entitled The Anthropology a forum for the presentation of the empirical and theoretical of Christianity, one edited by myself (Robbins 2003a) and the results of some current anthropological research on Chris- other by Fenella Cannell (2006a), and the publication also in tianity and as an opportunity to reflect on the anthropology 2006 of a volume edited by Matthew Engelke and Matt Tom- of Christianity as a phenomenon within anthropology. As the linson entitled The Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the issue has turned out, the articles it collects are for the most Anthropology of Christianity, might be taken as marking some- part explicitly engaged in the first of these goals: presenting thing of a watershed (and, indeed, these works have often new developments in the anthropological study of Christian- been treated together in something like these terms in sub- ity. A few of the authors were tasked by the original conference sequent discussions, such as Barker 2008; Hann 2007; Jenkins plan with taking up now established themes in the anthro- 2012; McDoguall 2009b). The editors of all three volumes pology of Christianity, such as those involving materiality, claim that, at the time they were writing, the anthropology cultural change, and the nature of . Others of Christianity was something new and that anthropologists were asked to engage with a host of emergent concerns, in- had in the past largely ignored the study of Christianity, at cluding schism and the nature of Christian social organiza- least relative to the attention they had paid to other religious tion, gender, space, and how anthropologists might study re- traditions, including other world . Furthermore, by ligious (and nonreligious) practices at the boundaries of the time these volumes appeared, many of those scholars who Christianity. In taking up both kinds of topics, contributors would become important figures in the early years of the have understandably focused on making new arguments and anthropology of Christianity had already begun working in presenting new research materials, and with few exceptions this area, and quite a few of them were numbered among the the reflexive side of the design of the conference has been set volumes’ contributors. And, finally, few will dispute that by aside. around 2010 anthropological work on Christianity had begun Yet even as the articles in this issue are mostly focused on to appear in such quantity that it came to occupy a position the presentation of new ethnographic and historical materials of prominence in the discipline of a kind it never had before. and new theoretical arguments concerning Christianity, the The appearance of these volumes in rapid succession, then, conference discussions themselves were, as planned, also rich along with exponential growth in the number of publications in reflexive discussions concerning the nature of the anthro- focused on Christianity that began around the time that they pology of Christianity as a project, its past, and its potential appeared, all contribute to the plausibility of the claim that future viability. In this introduction, I will take up issues the anthropology of Christianity arose as a new development belonging to these reflexive kinds of discussions, drawing on in the early years of this century (for a review of some of the themes that emerged at the conference and those that have literature from this early period, see Bialecki et al. 2008). been raised in the broader anthropological literature on the Yet in spite of how easy it is to make a case that something anthropology of Christianity. I will also consider several of new was afoot about 15 years ago, in casual conversation, and the most important theoretical and empirical developments certainly in the peer review process, those who assert that the charted in these articles, arguing on the basis of these devel- anthropology of Christianity is a recent arrival are familiar opments that the anthropology of Christianity is perhaps set with the retort that in fact there is nothing new about it. to transform itself in important ways that might justify it Anthropologists, the argument goes, have been producing hanging around for at least one more turn around the very work on Christians for a very long time. From anthropological fast track of live anthropological concerns. First, though, by work on African Independent Churches that has been growing way of introducing the anthropology of Christianity and sit- apace since the 1960s (Fernandez 1978) to studies of European Robbins Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions S159 communities in which Christianity is the dominant religion, around the turn of the millennium, beyond the simple fact there are many ethnographic works focused on Christian pop- that it is appearing in much greater quantity than it was ulations that appeared well before the alleged rise of the an- before? At least one important answer to this question is that thropology of Christianity. Moreover, Edith and Victor Turner the authors of this work were consistently self-conscious in had published high-profile work on Christian pilgrimage by several respects about what they were doing (Jenkins 2012: 1978 (see Coleman 2014), several edited volumes focused on 462). They were, for example, self-conscious that they were ethnographic studies of Christianity had been published near trying to get scholars working on Christianity to talk across the end of the 1980s (Barker 1990; James and Johnson 1988; boundaries of theoretical emphasis and regional ethnographic Saunders 1988), Jean and John Comaroff had published the focus (see, e.g., Robbins 2003c). They were self-conscious first volume of their highly influential study of missionization about trying to use the vantage point provided by ethno- among the South African Tswana in 1991, and Robert Hefner graphic work on Christians to push anthropological theory had published an important edited book focused on the study in new directions (e.g., Tomlinson and Engelke 2006). And of conversion to Christianity in 1993. In light of observations they were self-conscious in exploring the ways anthropology of this kind, Chris Hann (2007:394) has given published voice as a discipline has been profoundly shaped by the Christian to the widespread concern that long before what some con- tradition (Cannell 2005, 2006b). Further, all of them were sider a new “anthropology of Christianity” began to emerge, self-conscious about trying to explain why, at least as they there already existed a “far from inconsequential corpus” de- saw it, anthropologists had relatively neglected Christianity in voted to this topic (see also Chua 2012; Comaroff 2010). the past. To borrow terms I had used in my own first piece How, then, to settle the question of origins? In some re- on the anthropology of Christianity, from the start, the cur- spects, where one comes down on the question of whether rent wave of the anthropology of Christianity has not been a the anthropology of Christianity appeared as something new matter of something that has happened simply “in itself”; it in the early 2000s is going to be a matter of interpretation. has also happened “for itself” as a deliberate effort to move Some people are allergic to finding breaks in history or are the study of Christianity closer to the center of anthropolog- at least very cautious about doing so, and the historical record ical concern while at the same time constantly interrogating is generally complex enough to sustain at least some kind of what this move might mean for the development of anthro- argument that there is never anything new under the sun (a pology as a field (Robbins 2003c). Or, as Debra McDougall fact that should teach us something important about the na- (2009b:168) has more recently put it, anthropologists have ture of processes of even rapid social and cultural change). I responded to Cannell’s (2006b:1) crucial early question of remember one very prominent senior anthropologist telling “What difference does Christianity make?” by “considering me in the mid-1990s that the whole notion of globalization not only what difference it makes to believers but also what was nothing new. After all, he pointed out, anthropologists difference it makes to anthropology.” had been studying diffusion and acculturation for a long time. The second question we can ask if we assume that there is For someone of this cast of mind, it is unlikely that coun- something new about the recent anthropology of Christian- terarguments that something new has in fact emerged will ity—something that I have argued at least minimally consists carry much weight. And more than this, given how important in the self-conscious quality with which it approaches itself the theme of discontinuity and change has been in the an- as a kind of anthropology—is why it happened when it did. thropology of Christianity (see below), it is possible that those Why did anthropologists begin to pay much more attention who are involved in studying at least some forms of the Chris- to Christianity around the year 2000, and why did they feel tradition are predisposed to find themselves on the side that the fact that they were doing so was of some significance of those who tend to see new things emerging whenever they to anthropology? In an early piece that represents a remark- can. If this is true, perhaps even in matters of their own able feat of writing intellectual history as it happens, Bronwen historical experience they cannot be counted as reliable wit- Douglas (2001) reviewed the uptick of work on Christianity nesses when they claim to have lived through a more or less in Melanesia that was then just beginning to become apparent sharp intellectual break with what came before. against the background of a history of how anthropologists Yet even taking into account the difficulty of settling on of the region had treated Christianity in the past. In the course appropriate grounds for deciding whether the anthropology of her discussion, she posed in very useful terms a regionally of Christianity is really something new, it remains the case phrased version of a question I want to explore in more that several interesting and important questions arise if one general terms here: was the study of Christianity in Melanesia argues that it is, and perhaps in intellectually pragmatic terms suddenly beginning to accelerate because Melanesia was this makes its novelty worth positing. I would like to examine changing (e.g., because Christianity is becoming more im- two of these questions here. The first question takes up the portant there) or because anthropology was changing (e.g., issue of the sense in which the anthropology of Christianity by beginning to redefine what counts as a legitimate object might be said to be new. If there have long existed at least of study)? The answer she offered, and supported with ex- some ethnographic studies of Christian populations, what is emplary thoroughness, is that both things were happening at new about the work on Christianity that began to be published once. S160 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

In a very sophisticated recent article that I have already groundbreaking contribution, though the literature in this cited for its assertion that what is new about the recent an- area is by now voluminous and spans many social science thropology of Christianity is its self-conscious quality, Tim- and humanities disciplines. When combined with the related othy Jenkins (2012) makes a point akin to Douglas’s own and very wide-ranging debate about the nature of when he argues that this self-consciousness was borne of that has flourished over the past decade (e.g., Asad 2003; changes at once in the world and in anthropology. On Jen- Taylor 2007), these developments attest quite directly to a kins’s account, what allowed for the advent of this self-con- growing scholarly worry that our older understandings of the sciousness about the place of Christianity within anthropology religious field no longer get much traction on the worlds we during the late twentieth century was the changing position are trying to explore. Similarly, one should also note the turn of religion more generally in the world, including in the West- within continental and toward a ern societies from which most of the new anthropologists of reengagement with religion (best known through the work of Christianity came, or in which they received their academic Agamben, Badiou, and Zizek), the growing prominence training. As Jenkins (2012:472) puts it, during this time period within more mainstream of a call to rec- “the trajectories of secularization and modernization [came ognize the importance of religion in people’s lives (familiar to] appear less convincing, or, at least, less simple to appre- from the more recent work of Habermas, Rawls, and Taylor), hend.” These changes allowed religion to reoccupy social and the emerging concern with political more gen- space (outside the academy, of course, but also within it) that erally, which, as Gil Anidjar (2009:374) notes, has been it had ceded during the height of secularist , ring- “quickly and deftly universalized” so as to be a phenomenon ing changes both in the ways in which anthropologists en- one can presumably find and study everywhere (de Vries and counter religion in the field, where its public presence and Sullivan 2006; Tomlinson and McDougall 2013). And along broad relevance to many domains of social life in many places with all of this recent ferment in corners of the humanities are now difficult to ignore, and in the intellectual settings in and social sciences that had not in the second half of the which anthropological ideas find their final development (see twentieth century been known for a preoccupation with issues also Bandak and Jørgensen 2012:452–453). The story of the of religion, it is also noteworthy that within , public return of religion around the world that Jenkins alludes history of religions, and theology, the same period that birthed to here is by this point extremely well known, being told to these developments also saw the rise of a new discourse of great effect in Jose´ Casanova’s now foundational book from “world Christianity” that has quickly begun to lend its im- 1994 and in literally thousands of other books and articles primatur to institutes, academic positions, and textbooks (J. across the social sciences and humanities since that time. Cabrita, personal communication; see also Stanley 2011). The Jenkins’s (2012:463) grounding of his historical account in a meaning of the label “world Christianity” is still a work in careful discussion of Susan Harding’s (2000) The Book of Jerry progress, but minimally it responds to the recognition that Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics, a work that, he demographically speaking, at least, and in growing ways cul- suggests, shows that “the categories of the investigating com- turally speaking as well, Christianity is no longer best de- munity may have been altered as part of the processes she is scribed as a “Western” religion (or, as insiders to this discourse investigating,” demonstrates quite convincingly that both often put, a religion of the “global North”; Philip Jenkins kinds of changes stirred the pot in which the contemporary 2002 has been a foundational and much debated text for anthropology of Christianity would eventually come to a boil. setting these terms for the discussion of world Christianity). Seen in the terms Jenkins lays out, the rise of the anthro- As Kwame Bediako (2011:244) puts it, these changes render pology of Christianity 15 or so years ago needs to be counted it “undeniable that what has occurred is a reconfiguration of as one of a number of academic responses to the changing the cultural manifestation of the Christian in the world, role of religion in the world. I will mention just a few of the a phenomenon that one may also describe as a shift in the kinds of academic responses I have in mind here, sticking center of gravity of Christianity.” primarily to ones that have had some influence on the an- One could expand the list I have offered here of signs that thropology of Christianity itself. But even an abbreviated list the place of religion both in the world and in various intel- of this kind ought to provide an indication of why it might lectual discourses has been in a state of rapid and creative make sense in intellectual historical terms to focus on the change over the past two decades or so. But I hope to have novelty of the kind of anthropology of Christianity that arose said enough to carry the main point I want to make: if we during the period in question. take the anthropology of Christianity as it is currently con- Along with the development of a strong interest in the stituted as something new that has arisen over the past 15 public role of religion that I have already mentioned, one has years, then it makes sense to see it as one current in a much to count as a child of the period of change that preceded and larger stream of contemporary work that attempts to explore then overlapped with development of the anthropology of the possibilities that come from rethinking academic ap- Christianity the vigorous debate that has followed attempts proaches to the study of religion. The disciplinary self-con- to deconstruct the category of religion itself, which is best sciousness of the anthropology of Christianity has rendered known among anthropologists through Talal Asad’s (1993) it a particularly anthropological contribution to this churning Robbins Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions S161 set of debates, and recognizing its novelty within the discipline Catholicism, and as a fourth “major” strand of itself is important for the way it will eventually allow us to the faith (Jacobson 2011:49). Considered in such terms, Pen- determine what it shares with these other temporally over- tecostal and charismatic Christianity are distinguished from lapping intellectual developments and what its unique con- other forms of Christianity by the stress they place on the tributions to wider debates might turn out to be. assertion that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to all In the confines of this introduction, I cannot do justice to believers, allowing them to heal, prophesy, preach with au- the issue I have just raised about the specifically anthropo- thority, and exercise other gifts. Churches in this tradition logical contributions the anthropology of Christianity is mak- foster a religious life in which and other forms of ritual ing to wider debates about religion, and it might be too early occur in all manner of contexts and in which religious con- in historical terms to address it very fully in any case.1 It is cerns permeate both public life and private life. They foster, worth mentioning, however, that as a fieldwork discipline, that is to say, a kind of religiosity that at once looks like the sociocultural anthropology might be taken, at least when it kind of total social phenomenon anthropologists of religion is at its best, to be a scholarly endeavor that is unusually quick have long been used to studying and that it is impossible for to register changes in the worlds that scholars study and not field-workers to ignore. just in the intellectual frameworks by means of which they The rapid growth of Pentecostal and charismatic Chris- study them (I realize that this distinction between the worlds tianity since the 1980s has meant that just as the place of we study and the terms in which we study them is not an religion in the world in general was changing in the ways easy one to make in scholarly practice, but the openness to Jenkins points out and just as scholars in a wide range of the world of fieldwork-based anthropology is point worth disciplines were beginning to register this fact, anthropologists clinging to nonetheless—as Borneman and Hammoudi in the field were encountering a new kind of Christian relig- [2009] compellingly argue). In the spirit of this point, I want iosity that made insistent claims on their attention. It is thus not surprising that much, though by no means all, of the to draw attention to one further change in the world that early work in the anthropology of Christianity focused on Jenkins (2012) does not highlight and that scholars involved churches of this kind. Indeed, almost from the outset of the in the intellectual trends I have just enumerated, with the development of work in this field, scholars of other kinds of notable exception of those who write about world Christian- Christianity worried that the anthropology of Christianity ity, tend to ignore. This is the fact that one of the great would end up becoming the anthropology of Pentecostalism historical developments in the Christian tradition itself has (Howell 2003; see also Coleman 2014; Engelke 2014; Marshall occurred in the years immediately preceding the rise of the 2014). Subsequent developments in the field and the contents anthropology of Christianity and the other trends to which of this issue itself put paid to this worry, but the fact that it I have just referred. was at the beginning a legitimate one points to the extent to The development to which I refer is the explosive growth which the growth of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity around the world was another worldly change that helped create the soil in and particularly in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific. which the anthropology of Christianity took root. This growth began in the 1980s, and this form of Christianity I will leave off at this point considering the kinds of issues now numbers roughly 580 million adherents around the globe one can address if one takes the anthropology of Christianity 2 (Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project 2011). It is to be something new that began to develop about 15 years sufficiently different from other forms of Christianity that ago. Understood in this way, the anthropology of Christianity many scholars are inclined to treat it as a distinct stream takes its place alongside a wide range of other very broad within the broader Christian tradition, joining , developments in the academic study of religion during this time period, developments that have themselves been re- 1. I should note, however, that Robbins and Engelke (2010) have sponses to a number of changes in religion and its place in begun to explore these kinds of issues, suggesting ways the anthropology of Christianity might develop points of dialogue with those interested in the world. Even as I hope by means of this discussion to have the notion of world Christianity and with those interested in the new offered some support for the claim that the anthropology of continental philosophical engagement with religion. This article is the Christianity is something new and to have specified some of introduction to a journal issue devoted to contributions to this kind of the senses in which such a claim can be reasonably made (one dialogue from scholars from a range of interested disciplines (Engelke of which is decidedly not the sense that would suggest that and Robbins 2010). 2. Pentecostalism had been rapidly spreading around the globe since no serious ethnographic work on Christianity had been done its origin in the early 1900s, while the (which before the advent of the anthropology of Christianity), I have arose when non-Pentecostal churches begin to allow their members to also endeavored to sketch in some of the context in which engage in Pentecostal-style spiritual practices) dates to the 1960s. After some scholars have made a recent push for an anthropology the rise of the charismatic movement, the Pentecostal-charismatic tra- of Christianity.3 This work of specification and contextualiza- dition began to grow exponentially in the 1980s (for a brief history of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity oriented to anthropological readers, see Robbins 2004; for a longer but very accessible account, see Synan 3. As one anonymous reviewer of this article astutely noted, this pe- 1997; on its rapid growth in recent decades, see Jacobsen 2011:60). riodization also opens up the question of how to think about what may S162 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 tion should be worthwhile regardless of where one comes anthropologists of Christianity have given less attention than down on the question of whether this recent push is or is they might have to the ways in which Christian social insti- not unprecedented in the history of anthropology. The articles tutions such as churches, denominations, and practices of in this issue for the most part set aside this question of origins schism might be also taken to provide grounds for compar- and instead focus on a range of new arguments and findings ability across cases. This is an oversight a number of the produced by anthropological research on Christianity. In the contributions to this issue go a long way toward correcting. sections that follow, I consider the contributions of these John Barker (2014) tackles the issue of institutional invi- articles and set them in relation to the more general devel- sibility most directly in his contribution. Taking on board the opment of this field. suggestion that to this point the “tendency has been to explore the nexus between global and local Christianity in broadly Beyond Culture: Christian Institutions and the cultural terms,” he goes on to suggest that it is rather “in the Study of Church, Denomination, and Schism domain of church structures and practices that locally diverse Christians engage a relatively unitary Christianity.” Barker One persistent criticism of the anthropology of Christianity substantiates this claim by looking at the long-term stability is that it has been largely idealist in orientation (Hann 2007: of the Anglican church as an institution among the Uiaku of 402, 407; McDougall 2009a), perhaps even spearheading a Papua New Guinea. Even as he explores the various ways in return to an emphasis on culture within anthropology, par- which the church has been open to localization in Uiaku, he ticularly in the United States (Comaroff 2010:529). One could also shows that it has remained “obviously Anglican” in in- launch a serious theoretical discussion around this kind of stitutional form and emphasis. In this regard, he suggests, the complaint by asking precisely what aspects of human life are Uiaku case is not unusual, for “one of the defining charac- and are not cultural, for these critics generally at least imply teristics of the two thousand year expansion of Christianity that political-economic factors are outside of culture in some across the globe is the planting of enduring institutional struc- sense and that anthropologists of Christianity have ignored tures operating at local, regional and international levels.” As them for this reason. One wonders whether most anthro- easily as we can identify various groups of Christians by their pologists of Christianity would parse the human world into shared cosmological concerns or values, Barker is telling us, cultural and noncultural bits in this way (of course, their we can also recognize them by the kinds of institutions they failure to do so might be taken as a symptom of their cul- inhabit. In light of Barker’s argument, one might suggest that turalism, but such a failure would not be the same thing as anthropologists have not reckoned as fully as they might with wholly ignoring what others take to be the noncultural bits). the long-standing ecclesiological classification of types of Moreover, it often seems as if these critics do not look with church polity into only three kinds: episcopal, Presbyterian, much care at the monographic literature the anthropology of and congregational. The very brevity of this list, even as it Christianity has generated, for much of what they claim to can be subject to all kinds of qualifying complications, is a find missing in the various programmatic writings they con- hint that Barker is on a fruitful track in suggesting that looking sult often is at least to some extent present in longer eth- at church structures is a promising way of reckoning with nographic accounts (as McDougall [2009a], for example, Christian diversity without losing momentum toward the de- evenhandedly shows in her critical reading of my own work). velopment of the anthropology of Christianity as a compar- Yet even if charges of culturalism and are too ative project (see Bialecki 2012 on issues of definition and broadly framed to be fully convincing, they are not without comparison more generally in the anthropology of Christian- any merit at all. One of Hann’s (2007:407) most telling points ity). in this regard is his claim that anthropologists of Christianity Chris Hann (2014), in his article in this issue, also stresses tend to use an idealist definition of Christianity as something the importance of looking at differences between church in- like a culture to tie together disparate ethnographic cases in stitutions, which for him is one part of a project of reorienting a single bundle. That is to say, anthropologists of Christianity the anthropology of Christianity by means of attending to proceed as if they know what Christianity is apart from the “macromaterialities” that he claims play a leading role in various instances of it they study, but they are able to do this, shaping religious life. In line with this assertion, he works and hence to render diverse cases comparable, only by as- throughout his article to show that Protestant, Catholic, and suming an idealist definition of Christianity focused on Chris- Orthodox churches are not representatives of different civi- tian cosmological conceptions and values more than on Chris- lizations or in possession of distinct but are rather tian institutions. In doing so, it is probably fair to say that differentiated by their patterns “for institutionalizing religion in the contemporary world” and their different political-eco- have been distinctive of anthropological work on Christianity carried out nomic situations across history. A key case for Hann’s ar- before the development of the anthropology of Christianity and about gument that it is institutions and not ontologies that distin- the ways this work might have cohered as a body of literature in spite of its relative lack of self-conscious emphasis on producing such coher- guish these churches is his careful analysis of the diffusion of ence. This strikes me as a very worthy task, though its not one I have the symbol of the Sacred Heart of and Mary to some been able to carry out here. churches but not others over the past 300 years. Like Barker’s Robbins Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions S163 piece, Hann’s contribution demonstrates the value of attend- processes in her contribution to this issue.4 In conversation ing to church structures (as well as to wider political-eco- with older work in the anthropology of Christianity on rup- nomic variables) in the comparative study of Christianity. ture and discontinuity, Humphrey looks at the specificity of The rest of the articles in this section follow Barker’s and Old Believer notions of schism as a kind of change, wrapped Hann’s lead by attending both to church organizations and up as they are in collective efforts to preserve tradition and to the institutionalized means of transforming or leaving to protect the church from a corrupting outside world in them—the characteristically Christian form of bringing about thrall to the . Humphrey considers the respects in which Old Believer practices of schism might further provide social change by means of schism. Courtney Handman a viable model of revolution, thereby connecting the study of (2014), looking at the history of Lutheran missionization and this kind of Christian social processes with that of other forms later from the mission church and from its first suc- of fostering social change and new kinds of group formation cessor church among the Guhu Samane of Papua New not by making very broad general statements about the in- Guinea, explores how schism is rooted in “critique” of existing fluence of Christianity on modern political forms but by trac- churches and their practices, a kind of critique that is gen- ing the interaction of various models of change in situations erated on the basis of “the ethical demands of Christianity.” in which they have historically developed in relationship to Such critique of existing church groups and practices is not one another. As one reviewer of this introduction notes, the an end in itself, however, for it leads first to “separation” from points Humphrey and other contributors to this section make the rejected group and then “unification” either in a new indicate ways in which the anthropology of Christianity might church or with a reformed version of the one formerly left contribute even more than it already has to the general study behind. As such, schism stands as a key Christian process of of social movements (see also Shah 2014). “group formation”—a social practice Handman pits against The move all of the authors in this section make toward the better-studied tendency of some forms of Christianity to studying specifically Christian institutions and social processes work toward producing the individual as their primary in- is a genuinely new development in the anthropology of Chris- stitutional accomplishment (especially, in Handman’s argu- tianity (though it is in some respects foreshadowed by Bielo’s ment, the individual understood as a sincere speaking subject; [2009] important study of the Bible study group as an im- portant evangelical social institution). It is likely that this Keane 2007; Robbins 2001a). Jon Bialecki (2014), in his con- move will not be enough to satisfy those critics of the an- tribution, traces this same kind of process of critical group thropology of Christianity who lament what they see as its dissolution and , understanding it as rooted in culturalist tendencies, for in most cases (though perhaps not Christian tendencies to endorse ideals that can never be fully fully in Hann’s) it stops short of privileging political and realized, hence leaving room at all times for internal critique economic forces, understood as in no significant way shaped (Niebuhr 1957 [1929] is a key reference for both Handman by religion, as the sole or only really important historical and Bialecki in this regard). In a move similar to the one influences on the ways in which Christianity has developed Barker makes of offering the enduring qualities of church and on the ways Christian people live their lives. But even if institutions as something that can help to define Christianity the anthropology of Christianity turns out to be no better as an anthropological object across otherwise diverse cases, suited than any other anthropological trend to date of serving Bialecki suggests that one task for the anthropology of Chris- as an arena for settling the conflicts between cultural and tianity in the future is to explore how schism-generating at- materialist understandings that beset the discipline, the turn tempts to realize Christian ideals within earthly church in- represented here toward attending to Christian social insti- stitutions can be seen as “a continuing [Christian] problem, tutions as a crucial area of study will undoubtedly enrich the one that endures and which must always be grappled with anthropology of Christianity as it moves forward. anew as circumstances change” (emphasis removed). The study of Christian critique and schism as social processes is Christianity, Space, and Place thus a promising new area for the development of the an- thropology of Christianity beyond its cultural turn. Almost from the outset, anthropologists of Christianity at- As Handman notes, one might think of schism as a fun- tended to the various ways in which Christian groups figure damentally Protestant social form, and both her own and time, both eschatologically and in the before and after Bialecki’s articles are focused on Protestant or Protestant- rhythms of conversion (e.g., Robbins 2001b; Scheiffelin 2002). looking charismatic cases. But it is worth noting that perhaps By comparison, there has been less work explicitly focused on issues of space. The articles in this section fill this gap. In the first work in dialogue with the anthropology of Chris- doing so, they also carry forward some of the institutional tianity to take up the study of schism was Douglas Rogers’s and political concerns of the articles discussed above, indi- (2009) study of Russian Old Believers, a group that long ago broke with and that is also the focus of 4. In Bandak’s (2014) article, he also notes that Orthodox and Catholic Caroline Humphrey’s (2014) exploration of schismatic social churches as well as Protestant ones are subject to schismatic change. S164 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 cating that perhaps the shift to focusing on such issues is terms, states explicitly that “my argument is not that refrains becoming something of a general one. are Christian per se.” Furthermore, he documents Islamic as Bambi Schieffelin’s (2014) article looks at how Christian well as Christian practices of refrain making in his article. Bosavi of Papua New Guinea have learned to deploy new Schieffelin (2014), for her part, builds her article around a linguistic resources in ways that remake traditional notions very subtle argument about the role of general language so- of place. Concerned with mapping new centers and periph- cialization and linguistic practices in bringing about cultural eries within the Bosavi world and with sorting those converts change. Like other contributions to this issue, neither of these who dwell in the center from those who remain on the pe- authors is making an argument only about Christianity. But riphery, Bosavi Christians pepper their speech with forms that it is also the case that both Bandak and Schieffelin are at- index a new sociospatial , one profoundly disconnected tending carefully to the way the general processes they are from the densely relational traditional Bosavi landscape. In examining are lived out by Christians and the ways these effect, Schieffelin shows us the microlinguistic machinery that processes are inflected by the Christian concerns of those that renders socially effective the kind of critique to which Hand- are undertaking them. Surely, this is enough to render their man and Bialecki drew our attention. As Schieffelin herself contributions important to the study of Christianity, as well puts it, the new ways of speaking she charts attest to the ways as to the general anthropology of space and of language. One “critical embodied practices . . . can lead the charge toward would not want to set the search for Christian uniqueness as discontinuity” by enacting a schismatic break from traditional the only or even the primary goal of every contribution to sociality. the anthropology of Christianity. Andreas Bandak (2014) and Jianbo Huang (2014) each look Yet having made this point, it bears noting that in Huang’s at urban situations in many respects far removed from the rural world of the Bosavi. Although anthropologists of Chris- (2014) article in this section we also find a hint of a very tianity have long worked in both rural and urban settings, characteristically if not uniquely Christian reason why space little has been done to consider systematically the differences making might be a key concern for members of many Chris- and similarities that mark the way Christianity is lived across tian churches. Huang’s focus is on Chinese churches that cater this sociospatial divide. In this respect, it is intriguing that primarily to recent urban migrants from the countryside. By one does find some similarities in the place-making practices means of the phrase “rural churches in the city,” he quite of the Bosavi and those discussed by Bandak and Huang. elegantly captures the complexity of the sociospatial location Bandak concentrates on the ways minority Catholic and Or- of these churches. Both in their membership, which is pre- thodox Christians in Damascus inhabit urban space. Drawing dominantly made up of migrants, and in their style of Chris- on Deleuze’s notion of the refrain, he examines how insistent, tian , which Huang characterizes as more emotionally oft-repeated ways of appearing in space, through such means than intellectually oriented, these churches remain “rural” as song, visual display, and religious architecture, render the even as they help their members adapt to life in urban settings. city a setting for competing religious territorializations. He But one of the things the churches offer their members in also attends to the varying identities and spatial spans Dam- this latter regard is a second map of meaningful space that ascene Christians work to territorialize as they sometimes competes with the urban/rural one that so clearly shapes their foreground their place as members of the Syrian nation while experience. This is a map of earth and heaven, in which life at others stressing their Christian minority status. In relation on earth is transitory and lacks ultimate importance compared to the new maps Bosavi Christians work to install, Schieffelin to that in heaven. Bosavi Christians work with this kind of notes that by speaking in terms of them “enough times, Chris- map as well. It is an ordering of space that throws into relief hoped to produce a new social reality.” The insistent the relative and ultimately fragile nature of the earthly spatial quality of their efforts echoes the repetitive quality of the order, even as it makes inhabiting space appropriately on earth Damascene Christians’ refrains. In both places, Christians a key salvational goal. By contrast, the heaven/earth mapping work diligently to claim their earthly space. does not appear to figure very importantly for the Damascene The conjunction of Schieffelin and Bandak’s arguments Christians Bandak discusses, or at least not in the account he about the repetitive, interactive nature of earthly place making provides a good opportunity to pause to take up an issue that offers here. Preoccupied as they are with their earthly minority is relevant to many of the articles in this collection, as well status and perhaps also influenced by the of the as to the anthropology of Christianity more generally. There locally relevant Orthodox and Catholic churches to which has been some concern among critics of the anthropology of they belong, their space-making efforts appear to be very Christianity that many of the topics that it deals with are not terrestrially focused. Given that the heaven/earth map is not specific to Christian populations. Hann (2014), who has made equally relevant to all Christians, studying why it is sometimes such arguments before, reprises them in his contribution to central and at other times peripheral to their space-making this volume. This is quite obviously true in relation to these concerns is precisely the kind of comparative question the two articles about space. Bandak (2014), who is drawing on anthropology of Christianity is well positioned both to un- a Deleuzian model of refrains that is itself phrased in universal cover and to seek to answer (Robbins 2009). Robbins Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions S165

Christianity and Gender counters in unusual ways. To illustrate this point, Eriksen presents the case of Sarah, an excommunicated woman who It is fair to say that with the exception of the pioneering work attempts to fuse male and female aspects of charisma in an of the two contributors to this section, the study of gender attempt to address her situation. That Sarah’s efforts to restore has not been central to the anthropology of Christianity thus herself to church membership ultimately fail indicate the dif- far (Eriksen 2008; Mayblin 2010). This is somewhat unex- ficulties of challenging the public, normative Pentecostal gen- pected, inasmuch as the relationship between conversion and der order but also illustrate that there are charismatic re- changing gender roles, particularly in Latin America, was one sources available for doing so. area in which anthropologists had begun to focus squarely on Pentecostalism before the development of the anthropol- Maya Mayblin’s (2014) article, based both on fieldwork ogy of Christianity, making this a particularly rich area for among Catholics in northeastern Brazil and on the study of what I referred to in footnote 3 as systematic work on the Catholic theological and ecclesiological debates, also attests “prehistory” of the anthropology of Christianity (e.g., Austin- to the fluidity of Christian understandings of gender, though Broos 1997; Brusco 1995; Cucchiari 1990). But regardless of in a church in which such fluidity is publicly important rather the surprising nature of this neglect, the articles in this section than submerged. At the heart of Mayblin’s analysis is a con- move decisively beyond it. sideration of the key problem presented by the fact that the Both Annelin Eriksen (2014) and Maya Mayblin (2014) sacred must always be in some proximity to the profane world characterize much of the earlier literature on Christianity and in order for its influence to be felt, while it must also maintain gender, including that referred to above, as primarily con- enough distance from that world to be able to claim a power cerned with sociological issues such as the nature of gender that is uniquely its own (see Hubert and Mauss 1964 for a identities and the way they determine persons’ abilities to classic statement of this problem). In the Catholic tradition, assume leadership and public roles within various churches. Mayblin demonstrates, proximity tends to be managed in part In their contributions here, Eriksen and Mayblin largely set by stressing the anthropomorphic aspects of divine figures aside such issues and instead look at how notions of gender such as Jesus, Mary, and the saints. Such anthropomorphism difference are fundamental to Pentecostal and Catholic Chris- is present throughout the Christian tradition, she notes, but tian cosmologies. They both consider, that is to say, what it is especially well developed in its Catholic branch. Having Eriksen phrases as “the way Christianity...itself is gendered.” fostered proximity in this way, the church manages distance Eriksen’s article is focused on Pentecostal-charismatic through a complicated “gymnastic” play with issues of divine churches in urban Vanuatu. The Pentecostal tradition, as she gender that render it always at least potentially different from points out, has long been marked by a contradiction between human forms. Working carefully through such topics as the its strenuous affirmation that all believers are equal before gender of saints, clerical celibacy, theological arguments over God, a point driven home by the fact that all are at least the status of Mary’s hymen, and debates about the possibility potentially able to receive gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the fact of allowing women to become , Mayblin demonstrates that church leaders tend to be men. More than this, Eriksen the ways in which gender ambiguity both helps protect the argues, Pentecostal moral transformation itself is a practice distinctiveness of the sacred and shapes very concrete earthly that is gendered male, not in the sense that only men achieve struggles over the appropriate ways for human men and such transformation but in that working toward it is a male women to live. way of behaving regardless of the gender of the person who As both Eriksen and Mayblin note, the two articles in this undertakes such work. Yet despite these gendered distinctions, section are in productive dialogue with each other in ways in normative Pentecostal rhetoric, all such differences are that open up new possibilities for comparing Pentecostalism “denied” or “submerged” in favor of egalitarian understand- and Catholicism as forms of Christianity. To borrow a point ings of Christian belonging. The tension such denials foster Eriksen makes, though phrasing it slightly differently than she often comes to the fore in what Eriksen defines as the “char- ismatic space” in which Pentecostal men and woman both does: it is as if the social fluidity of Pentecostalism, allied with interact with the Holy Spirit. Men and women, she dem- its official denial of the importance of gender difference, leads onstrates with her Vanuatu material, engage with the Holy to the use of the charismatic space as a relatively submerged Spirit differently: men “encounter” the Spirit in ways that forum for the articulation of different gender values in the foster their individual capacities for leadership and institution pursuit of sacred efficacy, while in the more comfortably hi- building, while women “mediate” the Spirit’s powers in pos- erarchical Catholic case spiritual elaboration tends to work session episodes that efface their individuality and further toward forms of androgyny and gender ambiguity in its efforts embed them in relational networks. But the charismatic space to produce the power of the divine. More generally, these two does not just provide a stage on which otherwise denied gen- very rich articles indicate in compelling terms the promise of dered differences can be expressed through these different moving forward with the project of making the study of gen- kinds of engagement. It also allows the differences themselves der far more central to the anthropology of Christianity than to be challenged by those who endeavor to manage the en- it has been in the past. S166 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

The Anthropology of Christianity on the Christian. The British Humanist Association (BHA) is an ex- Boundaries of Christianity and Beyond plicitly secularist group, but inasmuch as it understands its primary religious antagonist to be Christianity, it is pro- Most work in the anthropology of Christianity has focused foundly engaged with some of the same issues that preoccupy on Christians. On the face of things, this must appear to be many of the Christians anthropologists study. For example, a statement that is too obvious to need making. But in fact the lives of BHA members turn out to raise a host of fasci- it is capable of being nuanced in some interesting ways. To nating questions about continuity, discontinuity, and secu- begin with, most work in the anthropology of Christianity larity that Engelke explores in depth, noting how they upend has been based on research with people who themselves claim some by now taken for granted assumptions in the anthro- to be Christians rather than with people who are defined as pology of Christianity. Using the BHA’s militant secularity as such by anthropologists in the absence of their possession of a mirror, for example, Engelke shows that the assertion made a self-conscious Christian identity of their own. More than by some anthropologists of Christianity that Christianity must this, this research has been carried out primarily among peo- be understood as cultural stands, very much in spite of itself, ple who at least in their own terms (which differ quite a bit as itself a strongly secular claim by virtue of its implication between various Christian traditions) define themselves as that Christianity is something other than a universal truth. committed Christians rather than simply as people who live BHA practice is also surprising in its members’ interest in in communities in which Christianity is the dominant religion ritual, a form of social action they work to wedge free from but see themselves as largely indifferent in matters of religion. Christianity, and from religion more generally, and to put to So much work had to be done early on in the anthropology their own uses. Like Donna in Coleman’s article, ritual holds of Christianity to ward off the claim that this or that group some attraction for BHA members but only when it is shorn might look Christian in some respects but is best understood of its theological encumbrances. There is room here to de- as not genuinely Christian, that those wanting to contribute velop in new ways the exploration anthropologists of Chris- to the development of this area of study tended to pick quite tianity have already begun to carry out of the varying attitudes firmly and vocally Christian populations for study (Robbins toward ritual that exist within different branches of the Chris- 2007). But now that the anthropological impulse to analyze tian tradition (Lindhardt 2011; Pfeil 2011), setting BHA and away the Christianity of the people anthropologists study has more gently secularist attitudes such as Donna’s within an been largely stilled, there is room to ask what the anthropology examination of the way Christianity has historically shaped of Christianity might learn from research on ambivalent or and continues to influence Western notions of ritual and of only tenuously committed Christians or on groups of people religion more generally. who are not Christian but define themselves in important If Donna might be described as sort of Christian, but not respects in relation to Christianity (Robbins 2010). The ar- very much, while the BHA members that Engelke studies ticles in this section all explore aspects of this kind of project. might count as very much not Christian, but in somewhat In a wide-ranging article that poses Pentecostalism and Christian terms, the practitioners of the Vietnamese religion pilgrimage as contrasting tropes for the anthropology of Caodai that are the focus of Janet Hoskins’s (2014) contri- Christianity, Simon Coleman (2014) focuses his ethnography bution confound completely our usual terms of deciding mat- on pilgrims to the English site of Walsingham. The pilgrim ters of inclusion in and exclusion from the analytical category to whom he devotes the most attention is a woman he refers “Christian.” Caodai is a syncretistic religion that originally to as Donna, someone who is “a relatively disengaged, ag- arose in conditions of French colonial dominance in Vietnam. nostic” Anglican and is married to a but who Its conditions of origin shaped its religious organization, still goes on pilgrimages to Walsingham with her extended which is based on a hierarchy of offices modeled on that of family. She finds these trips meaningful, both in terms of the the . If one kept rigorously to the suggestion familial sociality they foster and because of the relationship of Barker’s article that one should look at church structures of this sociality to forms of ritual that she finds moving, as a key variable in defining Christianity for the purpose of though not necessarily in a religious sense. Donna’s form of compiling sets of comparable cases across social and denom- what Coleman calls “semi-engagement” with “trivial ritual” inational divides, one would have to consider the possibility raises, as he notes, questions not only of who and what is a of including Caodai churches in such a grouping. And one Christian but also of when and where in social life these kinds might be emboldened in the effort to do so by the fact that of questions might arise. One catches a glimpse here of the Caodai also includes Jesus in its . But on this point, way the study of Christians like Donna can help to reframe matters immediately become more complex. For most Coa- still unsettled debates within an anthropology of Christianity daists, Jesus is a relatively junior member of their pantheon, over how to determine who, for purposes of anthropological “placed three levels below Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius” study, ought meaningfully to be counted as Christian (Bialecki (though he has been moved up somewhat in one North Amer- 2012; Garriott and O’Neill 2008; Robbins 2003c). ican Caodai temple). Jesus’s primary importance appears to In contrast to Coleman’s contribution, Matthew Engelke’s be his quality as a nationalist opponent of Roman imperi- (2014) article takes up the case of a group that is vocally non- alism, seen as providing a model for Vietnamese resistance Robbins Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions S167 to the French, who within the Caodai pantheon finds himself such should be seen as superseded by the articles that would “incorporated into a more encompassing spiritual vision.” then have followed them. In fact, these papers are as inno- A key aspect of Hoskins’s article turns on what work in vative as any in the volume. But more than this, and this is the anthropology of Christianity might offer her in analyzing a second reason for saving discussion of them for last, they a religious tradition that is not itself Christian. In this respect, point to some aspects of the future of the anthropology of she plays off of various analyses of the Christian contribution Christianity that do not appear as clearly in the articles I have to the formation of Western modernity to good effect, and already discussed. Topically, these articles deal with issues of her overall approach to the study of Caodai bears reflexivity, discontinuity and change, materiality, and expe- marks of demands anthropologists of Christianity have made rience. I had also hoped to include articles on two other topics for a more sophisticated handling of this topic. But her work that had long been central to the anthropology of Christianity. makes contributions to the anthropology of Christianity as One of these would have been on , but the well. Not least among these is raising in very direct terms the scholar invited to address this topic was unable to attend the question of who absolutely cannot be counted as a Christian. conference. The other would have been on , a As she puts it, the Caodai case indicates that Christians must topic for which in the end there was no space to invite some- maintain “an exclusive commitment to keeping Christian fig- one. I have recently reviewed work on these two topics within ures at the top of the pantheon, not messing things up with the anthropology of Christianity extensively in another place, other religious teachers.” Her article confronts us with the and I hope that piece might make up somewhat for the ab- fact that similarities in church institutional structure do not sence of articles focused on these two topics here (Robbins outweigh or obviate this requirement: institutional structure, 2012). It is clear that both of these subjects, along with those regardless of “cultural” content, may not be enough to define that are discussed in the articles in this section, will continue Christianity as a topic for comparison after all. to be central to the anthropology of Christianity in the future. During the early years of the anthropology of Christianity, From early on, anthropologists of Christianity have ex- there was some worry that the diversity of the Christian tra- plored the extent to which some kinds of Christianity, par- dition would sink any effort to shape up Christianity as an ticularly its Evangelical and Pentecostal branches, promote object of cross-cultural research. Surely there is no such thing radical discontinuity in the lives of converts—demanding that as Christianity, many were inclined to argue, but only Chris- they reject their former cultural commitments and ways of tianities. Given this, why compare one form of Christianity living. Work continues in this area and routinely brings the with another rather than comparing a Christian case with one anthropology of Christianity into dialogue with developments involving any other religious tradition and perhaps even with elsewhere in the discipline, as is the case in recent discussions one involving another religious tradition that has the further of discontinuity in relation to , pedagogy, and state pro- advantage of being geographically or “socioculturally” nearby jects of cultural management (Brahinsky 2013; Chua 2012; to the Christian case under consideration (Robbins 2003c)? Daswani 2013). This tradition of work also figures impor- The facts that the articles in this issue range widely across the tantly in relation to schism, revolution, and language in Hand- vast and varied landscape of Christian traditions, from Or- man’s (2014), Humphrey’s (2014), and Scheiffelin’s (2014) thodoxy and Catholicism to mainline Protestantism and Pen- contributions to this issue. Aparecida Vilac¸a’s (2014) article tecostalism, and that the articles in this section turn their in this issue focuses squarely on issues of discontinuity, and attention to cases at or clearly beyond the edges of Christianity she works through a range of issues related to debates on this itself, indicate that Christian diversity is not, as it turns out, a potentially fatal challenge to the anthropology of Chris- topic with exemplary analytic care. The Amazonian Wari’ with tianity, at least not at its current level of maturity. Learning whom Vilac¸a has carried out long-term fieldwork have been to make the most of such diversity analytically will be a major exposed to both Catholic and Evangelical missionization. Vi- challenge for the anthropology of Christianity as it continues lac¸a explores not only the differences in how the two missions to develop. have approached issues of change, and particularly their views on fostering discontinuity with traditional cultural notions, but also the way in which Catholic approaches to issues of Reconsidering Key Topics in the discontinuity have themselves changed in the wake of the Anthropology of Christianity Second Vatican Council. Furthermore, she notes that the tra- In designing the conference that produced this issue, I wanted ditional perspectivism of the Wari’, and their allied interest to make space for a number of scholars to address some of in incorporating the foreign, also outfits them with a complex the key topics that have marked work in the anthropology of indigenous model of discontinuous change that shapes their Christianity from its inception. I have saved discussion of the engagement with the varied Christian models they have en- articles that take up such topics for the penultimate section countered (Vilac¸a 2009). Looking at the play of these various of this introduction first because I worried that addressing models of change over time, and tracking in particular how them at the beginning might give the impression that in their these models have shaped developing Wari’ views of the inner content the papers were somehow “old fashioned” and as self as well as of culture, Vilac¸a productively complicates sim- S168 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 plistic claims about the effects of Christian discontinuity even other religious traditions as well). As with recent discussions as she reaffirms the productivity of research in this area. of discontinuity mentioned above (especially Daswani 2013), From their earliest framings, discussions of discontinuity his argument successfully joins the anthropology of Chris- in the anthropology of Christianity have also had a reflexive tianity to burgeoning anthropological debates about the na- component, challenging cultural anthropology as a discipline ture of morality. that has to an important extent been preoccupied with the Tanya Luhrmann’s (2014) article, written with Julia Cass- study of continuity (Robbins 2003b, 2007). Ruth Marshall’s aniti (a psychological anthropologist and scholar of Thai Bud- (2014) contribution also takes up these two issues in tandem. dhism), takes up the topic of religious experience, a subject As Marshall notes, she is a political scientist with a strong that has received a great deal of attention in the early an- grounding in political theory rather than an anthropologist. thropology of Christianity, particularly from those studying Although she does not state this as explicitly, it is also worth Pentecostal and charismatic Christians (who highly value ex- noting that she has carried out extensive fieldwork among periences of encounter with the Holy Spirit). Building on this Nigerian Pentecostals and has, on the basis of this research, tradition of work, Luhrmann and Cassaniti go on to ask very profoundly challenged the ways social scientists, including general questions about the origin and nature of spiritual anthropologists, have thought about Pentecostal politics experience not only in Christianity but also in all religious (Marshall 2009). In her article here, Marshall develops her traditions. They develop a model of “cultural kindling” in reflexive interrogation of both political theory and the an- which cultural emphases tied to various religious traditions thropology of Christianity through a focus on, among other lead people to attend differently to universally available bodily things, the theme of discontinuity. Questioning how an em- and psychological phenomena that can be taken as indications phasis on the Pentecostal drive for rupture with the past puts of the presence of the . Primed differently by the currently fashionable notions of to the test, she asks traditions in which they participate, people take different (or whether the way an anthropological focus on Christianity none) of these stimuli as evidence of supernatural forces and upends traditional disciplinary investments in studying the elaborate this evidence into different cosmological models. other rather than the self, or the different rather than the Comparing charismatic Christians in the United States and similar, might also ground a shift from an anthropological Buddhists in Thailand, they show how this model politics of self-determination to one of equality. More gen- allows for comparison between religious traditions and sketch erally, she insists that anthropologists of Christianity recognize how it can provide a basis for comparison between branches their own attempts to define Christianity as an object of study of the Christian tradition as well. as being political as well as epistemological practices and ones Both Keane’s and Lurhmann and Cassaniti’s articles draw that potentially have wider disciplinary and broader worldly on ideas that have been developed in anthropological work implications than their reflexive considerations have previ- on Christianity and on kinds of data anthropologists have ously registered. collected or learned to identify through such work. But both Like discontinuity and reflexivity, religious understandings of them develop arguments of very general ambition—aiming of materiality have also been a central topic in the anthro- to tie together the meaningful, the material, and the ethical pology of Christianity from the beginning. Webb Keane’s 2007 in Keane’s case and to provide a scientific basis for accounting book Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission for religious diversity in Lurhmann’s and Cassaniti’s. Vilac¸a Encounter has been enormously influential in setting the terms similarly demonstrates the sophistication with which anthro- of debate in this area. Through a sustained analysis of conflicts between Eastern Indonesian “ancestral ritualists” and Dutch pologists of Christianity have come to approach issues of Calvinist over the status of material items (in- continuity and discontinuity that they have shown are of very cluding institutionalized social forms) in religious practice, in broad relevance to anthropological theory more generally. By this book Keane develops the important concept of semiotic reviving the tie between the anthropology of Christianity’s ideologies and specifies one Protestant version of such an interest in discontinuity and its reflexive impulse, Marshall ideology that worked toward the ultimately impossible goal (2014) is also able to register the potential impact of these of defining away the material and routinized qualities of signs features of the field on much broader disciplinary and trans- and their use. In his article here, Keane (2014) revisits the disciplinary debates. All of the articles in this section on “tra- notion of semiotic ideology, cross pollinating it with the no- ditional” topics in the anthropology of Christianity thus spill tion of material affordances and expanding it through a close well beyond the limits of the subfield that gave them birth. analysis of materials from Russian Orthodox and Soviet Athe- Of course, the hope has from the outset been that work in ist materials. The outcome of his argument not only further the anthropology of Christianity would not be relevant only attests to the value of semiotic ideology as a framework for to the study of Christianity. It is nice to see that ambition so comparing different kinds of Christianity but also opens up obviously realized in the articles in this section. The fact that a whole new line of research into the ethical stakes that Keane the implications of these articles so clearly reach beyond the shows here so often attend debates about the spiritual and anthropology of Christianity raises the question of the future the material in the Christian tradition (and by implication in of this field—a question I will take up briefly in conclusion. Robbins Anthropology of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions S169

Conclusion role in making it a success. Together, Leslie and Laurie trans- formed my sense of how to go about fostering cooperative What, then, should be the future of the anthropology of Chris- intellectual work, and the conference itself set a new bench- tianity? It would of course be an act of tremendous hubris mark for what I have come to hope for from such events. I to try to answer this question very directly. But perhaps it am very grateful to them both for all their contributions to makes sense in closing to suggest some ways in which the this project. I also want to thank all the participants for their question might be discussed. One thing that is clear is that many contributions at the conference and beyond. Among Christianity will continue to be a major topic of anthropo- them, I also need to thank Jon Bialecki, Matthew Engelke, logical research for the foreseeable future and this to an extent Naomi Haynes, Tanya Luhrmann, and Bambi Schieffelin, it simply was not before. But as ethnographic studies of Chris- along with Rupert Stasch (who was not a conference partic- tianity continue to appear in ever greater numbers, should ipant), for many conversations that helped me conceive and the anthropological study of Christianity continue to unfold plan the conference. Finally, I am very grateful to Naomi as part of a self-conscious project of intellectual community Haynes for agreeing to join me in editing this issue. Its been building that aims to push anthropologists who study differ- ent kinds of Christianity and/or who study Christianity in a pleasure working with her on this, and she has continued different regions of the world to see their research as mutually to be source of steady intellectual inspiration throughout. relevant? And should the heightened disciplinary self-con- sciousness that has been a part of the anthropology of Chris- References Cited tianity since its inception remain important no matter what direction it goes next? 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The One and the Many Church-Centered Innovations in a Papua New Guinean Community

by John Barker

The emerging field of the anthropology of Christianity appears suspended between two poles: a concern with understanding the continuous and relatively coherent traits of the religious tradition as a whole (the “One”), and the documentation of the highly contingent forms found in local communities (the “Many”). This tension, in turn, feeds sometimes intense debates about whether conversion to Christianity along the modern frontier is best understood as rupture from or continuity with indigenous cultural forms and understandings. While such binaries have been highly productive, they are still misleading, because many if not most Christians do not experience the religion in such terms but rather largely in the context of institutionalized rituals, dogmas, and church orga- nizations. I illustrate this point by examining the ways the Maisin people of Papua New Guinea have both adjusted and adapted to over the past century through three modes I describe as “accommodations,” “repur- posings,” and “spandrels.” Studying such institutional configurations, I suggest, provides anthropologists a strategic point to consider local versions of Christianity as both One and Many.

My opening text comes from Peter Wood’s (1993) “After- 1997). Yet it was (almost) plausible to claim that Christianity’s word” to Robert Hefner’s edited volume Conversion to Chris- central doctrines and institutional structures were only mar- tianity: ginally relevant to the study of religious change on the ground And this . . . is an argument about a fundamental matter. (e.g., Horton 1971, 1975). Either Christianity is, as most Christians and many other As Robbins (2003, 2007) has insisted, an anthropology of observers believe it to be, a coherent whole (albeit one that Christianity requires us to consider the religion’s underlying is imperfectly realized in this world), or it is as . . . an- points of coherence, to move toward Wood’s first position. thropological studies tend to show, a massing of historically This admonition has been taken seriously. Studies are more and cultural contingent elements (albeit one that frequently likely now to probe general features of Christianity, albeit as aspires to the illusion of internal coherence). . . . For the revealed in the particularities of ethnographic case studies. most part, scholars of religion and anthropologists ignore The suggested points of coherence, however, reflect current one another rather than brace [sic] the radically different theoretical preoccupations in anthropology more than clas- implications of each other’s studies. (307) sical issues of or doctrine (Cannell 2006; Engelke and Tomlinson 2006; Keane 2007). In contrast to When Wood wrote these words, a distinctive “anthropology earlier work that was oriented to a considerable extent around of Christianity” had yet to emerge. Ethnographic treatments investigating sociopolitical aspects of change in the missionary had appeared over the previous 15 years, but most focused encounter, newer contributions are more concerned with is- less on Christianity as a subject in its own right than on the sues of meaning and morality as these play out in the con- missionary encounter along various colonial frontiers. These struction of personhood, language ideologies, gender, and studies documented the many ways converts resisted, sub- worldview. The tendency has been to explore the nexus be- verted, appropriated, and made Christianity their own, turn- tween global and local Christianity in broadly cultural terms. ing a relatively uniform mission Christianity into “vernacu- Ironically, the welcome development of an anthropology lar,” “pluralized,” “syncretized,” and “hybrid Christianities.” of Christianity at times seems to have done less to move It was acknowledged that Christianity was a global force that beyond Wood’s two solitudes than to reproduce them within facilitated the movement of local people into larger political- the subdiscipline itself. This is especially so in Melanesia, economic orders (Beidelman 1982; Comaroff and Comaroff where debate rages as to whether conversion entails a rupture from previous cultural ways, and thus reveals the deeper na- John Barker is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the ture of Christianity as a whole, or is instead strongly condi- University of British Columbia (Vancouver, British Columbia V6T tioned by and thus continuous with local cultural orientations 1Z1, Canada [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII (Mosko 2010; Robbins 2007). We are thus back to the One 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and electronically published 13 XI 14. versus the Many debate, albeit in a more anthropological vein.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0003$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678291 Barker The One and the Many S173

My purpose in this paper is not to engage in critique, of its original site. The station we encountered was an altogether which there is already an abundance, but to suggest an al- more modest affair than Money’s magnificent edifice; yet it ternate path. For it seems to me that while questions of rup- still stood in distinct physical opposition to the village hamlets ture versus continuity pertain to long-term transformation, that pressed up on either side, with its large grass field, straight this is not the way that most Christians experience their re- paths, and scattering of buildings bearing rusting sheet iron ligion. Instead, they know Christianity largely through stan- roofs. It differed as well in terms of its specialized tasks cen- dardized rituals, doctrines and like practices, and texts—that tered on the classrooms and church, the daily adherence to as to say, within church institutions. It is in the domain of the clock (marked by the striking of a World War II era shell church structures and practices that locally diverse Christians casing), and the educational achievements of the three teach- engage a relatively unitary Christianity. An ethnographic focus ers, the priest and , and the foreign researchers residing on the institutional aspects of Christianity thus offers an im- there. The 500 or so villagers, by way of contrast, lived in portant strategic point from which anthropologists can con- bush houses in various states of gentle decay bunched un- sider Christianity as One and Many. evenly around bare earth plazas and broad pathways, their I propose developing this general theme through a case days taken up in working in inland gardens and near constant study of the Anglican mission (now church) among the exchanges of food, labor, and gossip with kin and neighbors: Maisin people of Papua New Guinea. I begin with an apparent this picture of idyllic South Pacific perfection was betrayed contradiction: the fact that while Maisin view the church as only by ubiquitous secondhand clothing on bodies and an of “modernity,” it has actually been the most con- clotheslines, the steel and plastic containers stacked on plat- servative institution in their midst for the past century. The forms, and the occasional blare of a radio. relative stability of the institutional church has facilitated a The incongruities between the station and the village variety of developments shaping local Christianity, which I mapped rather easily onto oppositions between “modernity” discuss as “accommodations,” “repurposings,” and “span- and “tradition,” “outside” and “inside,” “Christianity” and drels.” I conclude with some general observations on the place “,” and so forth—oppositions that Maisin them- of institutions in the anthropological study of Christianity. selves regularly evoked (Barker 1990a, 1993, 2007). While the opposition was significant for Maisin, however, it was also misleading. The bulk of the population accepted Christianity The Setting in the mid-1920s, and all present adults had attended church and school on the station. Many had gone on to attend sec- In 1905, the rare boat reaching the southern corner of Col- ondary and tertiary schools elsewhere in the country and then lingwood Bay on the northern coast of (then) British New attained employment in a diversity of professions during the Guinea would have encountered an astonishing sight. After late colonial and early independence eras, a good number sailing past endless stretches of mangrove swamps broken only becoming teachers, nurses, and within the Anglican occasionally by native villages of small weathered thatched Church. This had resulted in a massive out-migration of most huts under coconut groves, the boat would have landed at of a generation with a growing dependence on remittances the new mission station at Uiaku in Collingwood Bay. Al- from working relatives on the part of those who remained though built entirely of bush materials, the station was a behind. Further, the station was much more integrated into wonder, its capacious space containing a massive church ca- the village than first appeared. While the state provided the pable of seating 550, a barnlike classroom that could accom- three teachers with salaries, the priest’s stipend and the upkeep modate 220 students, a house for teachers, a storehouse, and of the station grounds and buildings were the sole respon- a two-story house for the white missionary. The buildings sibility of the villagers. The station staff and their families, in were laid along neat paths lined with crotons, and the whole turn, were fully engaged in exchange networks with villagers, station was enclosed by a stick fence to keep out village pigs. who in several cases were relatives. In short, the station and The station was the personal triumph of Percy John Money, Christianity more generally were familiar and deeply embed- an Australian lay missionary with rudimentary training in ded features of Uiaku society. architecture who had enticed, bribed, and cajoled local Maisin An intriguing argument can be made that the station better laborers with a mix of , axes, and gestures, as he did represented an ideal of unchanging tradition than did the not know the language. The station made a deep impression— village. The mass departure of a generation and incursion of a neighboring group initially refused missionaries for fear they new ideas and cultural forms from the towns had hastened would be required a similarly grand edifice—but proved im- the erosion of many older ceremonials; the distinctive custom possibly ambitious. As there would be no converts in large of elaborately tattooing adolescent girls’ faces, for instance, numbers for a decade, the underutilized buildings inevitably would be abandoned by the mid-1980s (Barker and Tietjen decayed and were soon replaced by smaller and more easily 1990). At the same time, the inflow of remittances was fos- maintained buildings (Barker 2005:86). tering inequalities between households, sparking gossip and When Anne Marie Tietjen and I arrived in Uiaku in late with it growing fears of sorcery getting out of control. Digging November 1981, we entered via the mission station, still on a little deeper, it seemed that few areas of village life had not S174 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 experienced major changes, even the basic architecture of In 1898 New Guinea was declared a diocese within the “traditional” village houses.1 By way of contrast, the rhythm Queensland Province, and an Oxford-trained Englishman, and routines of the station, governed by the Book of Common John Montague Stone-Wigg, was elected as its . Stone- Prayer and the clock, appeared a rock of stability. This is true Wigg’s first project after arriving in Dogura was to supervise even of the transition from mission to church, which effec- the expansion of the mission into Collingwood Bay to the tively occurred during the 1960s, given that for all but 5 years east (Wetherell 1977). of its history, the station was run by Melanesian teachers and While many factors have shaped Christianity as it is un- clergy whose cultural outlooks did not differ much from the derstood and practiced in Uiaku over the past century, its villagers surrounding them. Maisin themselves often con- introduction within the context of a mission diocese had a firmed the notion of the station as the heart of continuity in kind of founder effect, setting the stage for long-term accom- their lives. When older folk waxed nostalgic about the good modations. At its core, such accommodations derived from old days, they spoke of the time when villagers pulled together a profound contradiction in the mission’s relationship with to build commodious churches and share abundant food on indigenous Papuan societies, which was at once tolerant and Christian feast days celebrated on the station grounds. uncompromising. On the one hand, the mission embraced a The Maisin are not unusual. In much of rural Oceania, policy of gradual change. In the words of a senior priest (later Christianity has long been practically synonymous with “tra- a bishop), the church in Papua “is not to be a body distinct dition” (e.g., Carucci 1997; Eriksen 2008).2 A study of the from the native life, but rather one that permeates the whole Maisin instance allows us to explore some of the ways that by its influence. The Mission has not come . . . to change relatively stable and continuous church structures interact native life into a parody of European or Australian civiliza- with local conditions to give rise to Christian forms and ex- tion” (Newton 1914:251). In contrast to many Protestant mis- pressions that are at once familiar yet locally varied. In what sions of the time, baptized Christians were not expected to follows, I explore this relationship along three dimensions: separate themselves from their neighbors. At the same time, (1) accommodations made by the local community, (2) the the mission was authoritarian in its organization and oper- repurposing of church structures by host communities, and ations, with the exercising “almost total control of (3) postconversion adaptions approved by church authorities the mission,” including recruitment, finances, placements, (“spandrels”). doctrine, and discipline (Langmore 1989:197). Even while cel- ebrating the “simple” rhythms of village life, at least as they Accommodations imagined it, the missionaries insisted on a strict discipline for themselves and, over time, for converts as far as church teach- Unlike other nineteenth-century Oceanic missions, the An- ings and practices were concerned. This very much extended glican venture in Papua originated neither in a missionary to expectations of life on mission stations, including in the society nor home church but as the result of the tireless en- classroom and church. As one senior missionary insisted to trepreneurial actions of a single individual, Albert Maclaren his colleagues, “All the regulations and rules of the station (Synge 1908). Having recruited a partner priest and a few lay should be formed with one clear purpose in view—the fos- missionaries and secured some meager funds from a reluctant tering of a christian habit of life [sic]. In this scheme, insistence Australian Church, Maclaren and his band established their on punctuality and alert obedience . . . would naturally have headquarters at the high plateau of Dogura on the north- a special emphasis” (Gill 1929; emphasis in original). eastern coast in August 1891. Four months later, Maclaren Both of these impulses drew from the Anglo-Catholic prin- was dead from fever. The survivors struggled on for almost ciples embraced by senior missionaries, particularly the bish- 7 years, awaiting reinforcements that never arrived. Frustrated ops. Inspired by Tractarian writings and the example of the by the lack of progress, the governor of (then) British New Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, the mission leadership Guinea threatened to invite Roman Catholics to the north imagined themselves as reviving in Papua a highly romantic coast. This at last spurred the Australian Church into action. vision of medieval Christianity in which the parish priest paternalistically tolerated harmless remnants of paganism 1. At contact, Maisin houses were enclosed, primarily sleeping shelters while patiently shepherding his flock toward the One True erected on tall posts above cooking platforms (the smoke of which helped Faith. The very simplicity of village life and communal values, to discourage mosquitoes) and accessed by ladders through the floor. Stone-Wigg (1909) insisted, would in time produce model Maisin adopted a standard “coastal” style of windowed houses, close to the ground, in the 1930s. Christians whose example would form a powerful indictment 2. This is particularly the case for the former missions, most of which against the , corruption, and individualism overtak- had by the 1970s become national churches staffed overwhelmingly by ing Western civilization. Such attitudes derived directly from their local clergy and which had long made many compromises with the conservative theological stance of a diocesan mission that local customs (for a particularly striking example, see White 1991). In based its authority on the principle of an ironic replay of the initial missionary encounter, the “mainline churches” have presented themselves as defenders of “tradition” against and in which the Church mediated between the believer and more recent waves of conservative Evangelical who embrace far God. The mission thus retained strict control over even the more individualistic forms of Christianity (Barker 2012a; Ernst 2006). simplest village services by setting out the liturgy, approving Barker The One and the Many S175 translations, and licensing those permitted to lead and preach During the initial period, and to a considerable extent even (Sharp 1917). Among their own staff, the bishops encouraged after the majority of Maisin had accepted baptism, the rela- an ethos of self-denial and communal sharing, including an tionship was understood as one of direct reciprocity between ideal of priestly celibacy (Wetherell 1977). villagers and missionaries. As one elderly man told me, speak- While these principles generally guided the foundation of ing of the (then) entirely Papuan mission staff, “They are not Anglicanism on the north coast, they were warped by con- from here. They came from another place to help us. So we tingencies and circumstances as well as the backgrounds of must help them. They are teaching our children, so anything the mission staff. The mission was in a constant state of they need or want for their work or the mission station we financial crisis, requiring the bishops to spend much of their must give as vina (‘pay-back’).” Judging from missionary time raising funds overseas rather than ministering to their complaints about endless demands for tobacco and trade far-flung staff. District missionaries as well as the lower ranks goods in compensation for food and labor, the early rela- received no special training and exhibited a range of attitudes tionship was based on barter between villagers and the mis- as to their responsibilities. A handful became petty tyrants, sion, insiders and outsiders. As the school and church became none more so than the Reverend James Edward John Fisher, a familiar feature of village life, the relationship came also to who fancied himself the “warden” of Collingwood Bay after include a form of asymmetrical exchange similar to that of a taking up residence at the district station of Wanigela in 1914. parent to a child, an elder to a junior sibling, or a traditional His attempts to ban dancing, facial tattooing, and a variety “peace” to a “warrior” leader (Barker 2012b). These dyads of other customary practices met with mixed success and hold in common the supposition that the senior partner pos- eventually passive resistance as local villages refused to donate sesses wisdom, calmness, and controlled power (mon sara- food to support the missionary and student boarders (Barker mon), whereas the junior is emotional, rash, and prone to 1987:76). Fisher was the exception that proves the rule. Tol- aggression. The senior partner “takes care” (kaifi) of the jun- erance, for most missionaries, was born of necessity as much iors by advising them on proper behavior and embedding as virtue; for the poverty of the mission necessitated good them in wider social networks; in return, the junior “respects” relations with local populations on whom missionaries de- (muan) the seniors by listening to their advice and drawing pended for food and other basic support. on their stores of energy to provide material support under The mission’s outreach was more subtly shaped by the the elder’s guidance. The mission fit rather neatly into this backgrounds of its leadership. During the colonial period, the schema. As the Maisin put it to me, the missionaries provide bishops and senior priests were the most highly educated the giu (church services and knowledge of the Christian God), individuals living in Papua, holding degrees from Oxford, and in return the people “respectfully listen” while giving Cambridge, and top Australian universities. For all their nos- labor, food, and money in service to the mission. talgia for the medieval church, they were rationalistic in out- The relationship between the mission and the Maisin thus look and practice. No attempt was made to introduce saint quickly developed into a “structure of the conjuncture” to or encourage Marian devotions in the Anglican sphere. which both sides brought differing understandings (Sahlins Mission leaders looked on Papuan spiritual beliefs with pa- 1985). Differing, but not entirely Other. As they bartered for tient bemusement, surprised whenever they learned that the food, missionaries certainly appreciated the reciprocal aspects Melanesian teacher-evangelists, who formed the larger bottom of their relationship with villagers. At a loftier level, they also ranks of the staff, shared similar worldviews. sought to pass on “the gift of grace” they and their own This brings us to a key point. We cannot know with any Christian ancestors had received, thus placing themselves precision what the Maisin made of the content of mission quite explicitly in the position of descent seniority (Wingfield teaching. The missionaries made no systematic effort to con- 2012:12–13). As Mauss long ago argued, to give with no ex- firm that the villagers chanting the catechism and uttering pectation of return is to claim a higher rank, that between ritual responses during services understood what they were master and servant/client (Mauss 1990 [1925]:74). This has saying. The older Maisin I interviewed in the 1980s expressed proven to be a remarkably stable arrangement, long outlasting a wide diversity of interpretations of Christian doctrines. In the departure more than 40 years ago of the last European sharp contrast—and this is the key point—the mission’s in- district missionary and accommodating the fact that the local cessant demands for material support and obedience to mis- staff living on the Uiaku station have long included Maisin sion rules made a deep and far more consistent impression from the community. It survives despite, or more accurately on both sides and provided the practical basis for their mutual because of, near incessant complaints from both sides that accommodation. For the missionaries, generous giving to the villagers do not pull their weight—a complaint that one hears church along with faithful adherence to the , such about all asymmetrical exchange relationships. Finally, by as fasting before accepting the and marriage for life, lumping all villagers together as the junior partner, it results served as indexes of the sincerity of Christian faith: the per- in a sense that while the church and village form distinct meation of the whole society by the influence of the Church. entities, they are at the same moment locked in an intimate Drawing on their own cultural conventions, the Maisin per- moral embrace on which the health and survival of both ceived the relationship as an exchange (cf. Schwimmer 1973). depend. S176 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Repurposings the district missionary, as did similar purges in the early 1950s and 1997. It cannot be known whether sorcery purges oc- Mission stations like the one built by Money at Uiaku served curred before contact, but what is certain is that once the a dual purpose: a base of operations for mission expansion mission was established, it became a critical resource in re- and a model of Christian community. In a number of cele- peated attempts, all but one initiated and carried out by vil- brated instances—the Jesuit reductions of South America, lagers, to rid the community of malicious magic.3 Protestant mission communities in Africa, and “industrial A government officer who witnessed a purge in the mid- missions” such as Metlkatla in British Columbia and Kwato 1930s expressed skepticism as to whether the objects being in Papua, to name a few—the creation of new Christian com- destroyed were anything other than ordinary garden and munities was integral to basic missionary strategy (Caraman hunting magic. While there is evidence that the earliest purges 1976; Heise 1967; Neylan 2003; Strayer 1978; Wetherell 1996). were aimed at senior men believed to be sorcerers, as the This was never even a remote possibility for Uiaku or, despite population converted the purges shifted to attempts to clear short-lived efforts to create model villages near the mission out the village of any materials that might be used for sorcery, headquarters at Dogura, elsewhere in the struggling Anglican essentially older objects associated with ancestors believed to domain (Wetherell 1977). Even the more modest hope that have been sorcerers themselves (Barker 2001). Maisin, like the Uiaku station would model Anglican piety and discipline other Melanesians, viewed misfortunes, whether sickness or proved illusory. While the school and church on the station garden failures, as arising from social discord. Sorcery talk operated with few breaks from their founding in 1902, for all thus indexed the moral condition of the society. It is no but 3 years of its existence before the appointment of its own accident that the most spectacular purges were accompanied priest in 1962, Uiaku was an outstation run first by by healing cults that periodically swept the north coast be- Island teachers who had been recruited from the Queensland tween 1911 and the early 1950s (Williams 1928; Worsley sugar fields and later by Papuan converts loosely supervised 1968). The missionaries were delighted to support the Maisin by a succession of European district missionaries stationed at in their enthusiastic destruction of alleged sorcery materials Wanigela, 10 km to the north. The teachers appear to have while looking with considerable suspicion on healing “cults,” carried out their duties of leading services and teaching chil- never grasping that the two activities were intimately con- dren the rudiments of literacy and math reliably enough and nected (Barker 1990b). could be savage disciplinarians in the classroom. Yet their The second innovation was repurposing the church into a social and to a large degree spiritual outlook was not that symbol of village unity. While a large number of people lived different from the villagers who surrounded them, and all in and around present-day Uiaku at the time of European became personally imbedded in local exchange networks contact in the 1890s, they did not form a polity or even a (Barker 2005). single language grouping. Before pacification, there was con- Of course, teachers and the district missionary on his siderable population movement and social instability in Col- monthly visits did exhort the growing ranks of baptized Chris- lingwood Bay, as reflected in the present-day intermixed dis- tians to attend church and respect the sacraments in their tribution of the five language groups across the region own lives. However, two of the most significant and long- (Dutton 1971). According to oral traditions, two to three lasting consequences resulting from the mission’s presence alliances led by powerful Maisin “alliance/peace” and “war- were initiated by the villagers. While certainly supported by rior” leaders had recently invaded the coast from the interior the missionaries, they are best understood as repurposings of and were rapidly expanding their territory. The largest of these the mission presence for locally determined ends. groups had settled by 1890 in and around present-day Uiaku, The first was the co-option of the mission into local sorcery living in separate hamlets, some accompanied by allies from purges. In 1903, even as the mission station was under con- other language groups. A key effect of pacification was to struction, a group of Maisin approached one of the mission consolidate villages as basic administrative units, thus freezing teachers with a request to destroy bundles they claimed con- the population in place (Barker 1996). This was never entirely tained sorcery materials. This was duly carried out under accomplished. Uiaku remains largely a term of convenience Money’s supervision on the station grounds. While Money for four named villages spread out over a kilometer of coast- interpreted the act as an indication that God’s spirit was mov- line, separated by a river, and further divided into 15 clan ing the Maisin to give up “superstition,” sorcery purges, draw- and subclan hamlets. However, there is very much a sense ing on the borrowed authority of the church, have continued that the well-being and prosperity of villagers depends on to occur regularly ever since. Thus in 1920, villagers gathered finding unity. This so-far elusive endeavor initially and for up “poison” lime pots (used for betel nut chewing) that were many years centered on the church. burned under the watchful eye of the district missionary in- This innovation dates to the years following the end of the vited to the event. A decade later, a charismatic healer traveled Second World War. Although Collingwood Bay lay outside between villages drawing on the power of the Christian God to detect sorcery materials hidden in houses that were then 3. The exception was a 1997 purge carried out under the direction of destroyed or tossed into the sea. This received the blessing of the Melanesian Brothers, an indigenous Anglican lay order (Barker 2003). Barker The One and the Many S177 the active war zone, most able-bodied Maisin men served as ancestral spirit, who would be immune to retaliation.4 With laborers through the difficult Kokoda campaign, returning to increasing familiarity, the relationship shifted toward asym- village life determined to foster economic and political de- metrical exchange in which villagers offered material support velopments at home. In 1946, James Benson, an Anglican and “respectful obedience” in exchange for calming “advice” priest who had survived horrific conditions as a Japanese that dispelled passions and divisions that held the community prisoner, returned to his station at Gona village, where he back. Maisin refer to such a condition of social amity as established an agricultural cooperative. Benson intended the marawa-wawe, literally a sharing of one’s guts, the ultimate cooperative as a blending of Christian and Papuan , state of social communitas based on a balancing of obligations. where cash crops would thrive under the regimen of regular Two decades after its occurrence, the consecration of the iron- prayer and labor and most of the crops would be consumed roofed St. Thomas Church was recalled as the quintessential by the cooperants in a communal setting (Dakeyne 1966). moment of marawa-wawe. Notably it was a moment when The effect was electric. Within a few years, “Christian” co- the ancestral markers of the unified clans encompassed the operatives loosely modeled on the Gona experiment sprang church rather than the other way round. up in the farther reaches of the northern district, including Uiaku. Spandrels As with sorcery purges, the founders of the cooperative sought to overcome the social divisions and incessant gossip “Spandrel” is the architectural term for the space left between they saw as undermining success by forming an alliance with two arches or where the curve of an arch lies within a rect- the mission. The cooperative movement began with a cere- angular enclosure. In the cathedrals of medieval Europe, such mony held on the station during which clan leaders sym- spaces are often richly decorated with figures of saints and angels, although they were not actually designed for that pur- bolically broke clubs and spears to symbolize a new village- pose. I want to use the term “spandrel” here in the metaphoric wide unity. The district missionary blessed cash crop seedlings sense suggested by Gould and Lewontin (1979): a by-product somewhat reluctantly provided by administration officers who of the original structure that has been co-opted for a current worried that they were witnessing a cargo in the making. use. Unlike the accommodations and repurposed elements The district missionary also provided practical assistance, ad- discussed in the previous sections, spandrels are innovations ministering a passbook account. The profits proved small, that are not only approved by institutional authorities but and interest in the cooperative waxed and waned. In the mid- become part of the institutional structure. This does not mean 1950s, one visionary convinced villagers that they should fo- that they are initiated by church authorities (although they cus on raising funds to construct what would be the first iron- often are) or that church authorities control the way they are roofed church in Collingwood Bay. As the bishop’s procession perceived by parishioners (which they often cannot). The neared the church for the consecration ceremony a few years main requirement is that there is a consciously constructed later, they passed a fence made of interlinked sticks surround- fit between the innovation and the established order of the ing the church on three sides. The sacred fence (oraa)was church. While one might identity many types of spandrels made up of branches from totemic trees associated with the developed in the Uiaku church, two are particularly signifi- high-ranking “peace” clans. In the past, high-ranking clans cant: those that incorporate elements of indigenous culture erected such fences in the central plazas of their hamlets to into church practices, and those that extend the church’s mark a major feast. Here the joining of the fence marked the presence into different sectors of the community. unity of the clans as a single community with the church as The more obvious of the first type of spandrel are decorative the common core (Barker 1993). features in St. Thomas Church. While Money admired the The attempts to repudiate sorcery through the power of craftsmanship of Maisin in 1902, the first clear record of the Christian God and to create a moral unity in the corporate indigenous elements used in church decoration dates from church were fully compatible with the aims articulated by the 1934. Visiting with the bishop for a St. Thomas Day cele- Anglican missionaries. Even though Maisin took the initiative, bration (of which, more below), the district missionary their success required the institutional presence and active praised the decoration of the altar “dressed in beautifully support of the church. They are thus understood best not as coloured Tappa [sic] cloth hangings, covered with symmetrical an implanting of the church but as repurposing, with the designs, mostly in native colours and all hand painted, and missionaries’ occasional connivance, in the context of indig- the thrice Holy translated into the local dialect: ‘Muanfafusi, enous understandings of moral relationships founded in ex- Muanfafusi, Muanfafusi’ . . . the whole effect suggested beau- change. The initial sorcery purge was almost certainly un- tiful tapestry” (Thompson 1934:13). More may well have been derstood by the Maisin as a direct exchange. Recall at that suggested to the Maisin. The sheets of decorated bark cloth time villagers were devoting massive amounts of material and 4. This is speculative. However, Maisin refer to Europeans as bariawa, labor to the construction of Money’s big station. They may a loan word translating as “spirit.” Even as late as 1981–1982, some elderly have perceived Money as a powerful outsider, possibly an Maisin theorized that my wife and I might be returned ancestral spirits. S178 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 may have cast a gender association on the church given that Church festivals around Collingwood Bay have continued to decorative cloths would have been women’s skirts made and increase in their size and splendor (Gnecchi-Ruscone 1997; arranged by women. Muan fafusi (roughly, “respect always”) Hermkens 2007). They also convey a moral message for par- signaled the congregation’s obedience of church and God, ticipants. While successful ceremonials in the village speak to likely understood in terms of asymmetrical exchange from a the ability of their organizers, Maisin tend to talk of church junior to a superior. The tapa, which is a traditional wealth festivals in collective terms: as an index of community unity and exchange item, in short constituted a gift to the mis- and, in terms of the gift to the church, prosperity—in short, sionaries and God. Fifty years later, I encountered a similar as expressions of marawa-wawe. The big splashy festivals in display of tapa adorning the back wall and draped over the which many non-Maisin guests participate, where dancing altar of St. Thomas Church. The front piece to the altar de- goes on over several nights and the bishop leaves with a picted a European Jesus with an angel to each side and the handsome amount of money and tapa to sell: these are re- words teiti membu (son first born). While doctrinally correct, membered fondly. They provide the model for the inevitable the designation of Jesus as a membu strongly resonates with moral critiques that accompany the much more common Maisin notions of seniority marked by asymmetrical ex- situation in which people fail to rally and put on a good show, change. As the first member of a new generation, a first child particularly on occasions when no church dignitary is visiting. is expected to take on more responsibilities and to defer many For Maisin and church authorities alike, the festivals confirm of the freedoms and pleasures of adolescence until they un- a unity between cultural and Christian identity, albeit one that dergo a special ceremony marking their passage to adulthood. does not require any significant modification in Anglican By the same token, their younger siblings (biological and traditions as set down in the Book of Common Prayer. extended kin) are expected to treat them with respect and A second type of spandrel is exemplified by two auxiliary deference (Barker 2008:102–105). organizations: the Mothers’ Union and a youth fellowship Church festivals form a more dramatic example of a span- group. As in many rural communities in Melanesia, women drel. Before the 1950s, the missionaries generally held an am- have long been the most active members of the local parish, bivalent attitude toward indigenous ceremonial, willing to both in terms of attendance at church services and regular tolerate days of feasting and dancing so long as they did not gifts of labor and food to the resident priest and deacons. In occur on Sundays and school children left the festivities early accordance with the conservative Catholic principles of the in the evening. Church ceremonial, however, did not deviate Church, they are barred from clerical office.5 In the early from the English model. Ironically, just as indigenous cere- 1950s, an Australian nurse stationed at the district mission monials were declining in Collingwood Bay villages in the began working with women in several villages to set up local 1950s, the mission leadership became inspired by the example chapters of the Mothers’ Union, an international Anglican of African churches that were then incorporating indigenous organization created in 1876 to support families. Initially, the elements into Christian worship and by the reorientation of intent from the church’s point of view was to strengthen toward the ideals of “inculturation,” especially as control over the regulation of marriage and encourage new these emerged in the Second Vatican Council (Vilac¸a 2014). domestic arts, particularly sewing. Women’s involvement in George Ambo, who had been consecrated as the mission’s the Uiaku Mothers’ Union has waxed and waned over the first Papuan bishop in 1960, took the lead by resetting the years. It is one of only a few venues that allows women to Mass to traditional drummed music in his native Ewa-ge mix beyond their immediate households in this patri-virilocal language (Johnston 2003:164). In the mid-1970s, Deacon society. Many men look on it with a mix of ridicule and Russell Maikin created a “Maisin Mass” performed by a choir suspicion. And because older women typically dominate, of male and female singers, all richly decorated in traditional younger ones tend to keep their distance. All the same, the tapa, shells, and flowers. The festivities marking Easter and range of activities and extent of women’s involvement has St. Thomas Day quickly took on many of the characteristics increased over the years. Besides weekly gatherings to say of earlier ceremonials organized by chiefly clans, including , plan work, and share news, Mothers’ Union members days of feasting, large exchanges, and all-night ceremonial organize an annual Ladies Day marked by a special service dancing. Months of planning, for instance, went into the St. and fund-raiser and go en masse to attend similar events in Thomas Day celebration of 1982, marked by the attendance villages across Collingwood Bay. of David Hand, including the preparation of spe- Besides giving women a break from the unrelenting obli- cial food gardens, dance practices, and the facial tattooing of gations of their households, the Mothers’ Union provides a young girls (Barker and Tietjen 1990). After the church ser- rare avenue for advancing one’s reputation and influence. vice, the archbishop was presented with a massive gift of cash, Leaders regularly attend annual provincial and national meet- tapa, cooking pots, and mats. Well over a hundred people ings drawing on funds raised locally through events such as decorated and danced deep into the night. Ladies Day and sales of tapa cloth. The prestige of the Moth- The first church festivals I witnessed seemed such an ac- cepted, if special, aspect of Maisin life that it came as a surprise 5. In recent years a few women have been licensed as lay preachers, to learn that they were actually a very recent innovation. although not in Maisin villages. Barker The One and the Many S179 ers’ Union was further enhanced during the late 1990s as gatherings may opt to abandon the staid religion of their environmental activists, then assisting Maisin to block logging parents for Pentecostalism. projects on their ancestral lands, sought to encourage small- scale development projects that benefitted women (Barker Conclusion 2008). The Mothers’ Union formed a natural ally not only because it provided means of coordinating tapa making ini- There can be little doubt that Christianity entered Uiaku as tiatives but because the activists recognized early on that its a revolutionary force, its presence announced by Money’s leaders were far less likely to give away donated development monumental mission station. All the same, by the time of my funds to their families than men did (cf. Douglas 2003). initial fieldwork nearly 80 years later, the church had become The youth fellowship group is a more recent development, a familiar, accepted, and for the most part conservative fixture dating from the early 1990s—a period when the village pop- of the society. In tandem with shared memories of proper ulation began to rapidly expand as jobs dried up in the towns customary obligations and procedures and rights bequeathed and as an earlier generation of Maisin who had been employed through kin connections, the church served as a relatively began to retire and return home. Many had experienced re- fixed point around which people organized their lives. As we vivalist rallies in the towns. A Pentecostal chapel was con- have seen, the steady rhythms of Christian instruction, wor- structed in the village, while the string band songs about ship, and celebration played into wider innovations, some of girlfriends gave way to gospel tunes. The parish priest of the which (such as ideals of reciprocity) served to reconcile Chris- time set about organizing a fellowship youth group that tian and indigenous moral orientations, and others (such as proved wildly popular. A parallel expression of Christianity the notion of the village as a polity) led in novel directions. to the staid church services emerged as the young people set Despite the setting, the local color and the new uses to which up decorated enclosures on the mission station, gathering late it has been put, Christianity as practiced by the Maisin is into the night to share food, dance, and sing gospel tunes. obviously Anglican. It is one of many variations on a core Most remarkably, young men and a few women took turns model. testifying to their faith and the power of the Gospels, an My larger claim is that the situation in Uiaku is far from individualistic Evangelical style of worship not permitted in unusual. One of the defining characteristics of the 2,000-year the highly regulated church services. Similar fellowship groups expansion of Christianity across the globe is the planting of were established along the coast, and “crusades” were orga- enduring institutional structures operating at local, regional, nized with bands of youth moving from village to village. and international levels. There are, of course, significant var- The youth fellowship group and the Mothers’ Union con- iations. Given the strong Anglo-Catholic leanings of its foun- duct their activities under the watchful eyes of church au- ders and the fact that the Anglican mission in Collingwood thorities. Like decorations in the church and traditional danc- Bay faced no rivals until the late 1980s, the institutional ing at church festivals, the two auxiliary groups are perceived church looms large in the Maisin case compared with, for by villagers and clergy alike as evidence of Christian faith and instance, the lively situations of revivalist Protestant sectarian commitment. All the same, they mark a certain degree of rivalries described in Annelin Eriksen (2014) and Courtney compromise of the original structure of mission rule, and Handman (2014). Yet as Handman (2014) in particular makes such compromises, in turn, allow for modifications and un- clear, church organization was key to the initial success of derstandings that escape complete church control. I am missionary expansion in Morobe and continues to play a doubtful, for instance, that the early missionaries would have fundamental role in the ways burgeoning sects organize and approved a distinct tendency in both the Mothers’ Union and define themselves against their rivals. For all their differences, the youth fellowship movement to gravitate around issues of the revivalist sects in Morobe and Port Vila remain instantly healing. Two of the most powerful traditional healers in recent recognizable as Christian in no small part because of their history were at the same time Mothers’ Union leaders who centering on church organizations with regular services led claimed that their knowledge and skills in esoteric spiritual by preachers. matters were gifts of God. The connection was even closer in The institutional configuration of a mission or church is the fellowship gatherings in the 1990s, which climaxed with no less important than the general emphasis placed on doc- the priest laying hands on members to drive out illness trines and dogmas in terms of the local reception. Catholic (Barker 2003). Of more immediate concern for church lead- (Roman and Anglo) churches, for instance, are more collec- ers, by allowing members to experience more direct partici- tivist in orientation than Protestant varieties. These orienta- pation and control over their religious practice, the auxiliaries tions practically shape people’s experience of the religion. The may potentially challenge church authority. The Mothers’ Un- opportunities for individuals to preach or give public testi- ion has on occasion “gone on strike” to protest overbearing monies or confessions are sharply limited in Catholic contexts priests, and one of its most promising younger members even- whereas they are central in most Protestant denominations, tually left the church to establish a small but growing Seventh- and this, in turn, surely influences the degree to which a Day Adventist congregation within the village. In time, some particular variety of Christianity affects local conceptions of of the younger folk enjoying the excitement of the fellowship individuality. Different institutional configurations, in turn, S180 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 may have distinct “founder effects” over time. The hierar- In opposition against such views, a preeminent historian chical Anglican mission resonated with Maisin notions of of the early church writes, “Christianity came into the world asymmetrical exchange, reinforcing the authority of high- as an ordered community and made its way as a corporate ranking kawo clans. On the south coast of colonial Papua, body with institutions and offices, rituals and laws. Chris- the Congregationalist leanings of the London Missionary So- tianity is inescapably social. Its spread among new people had ciety, in contrast, enabled the successful establishment of vil- little to do with the conversion of individuals and everything lage councils headed by clan representatives in the years fol- to do with building a new society” (Wilken 2012:386). Al- lowing the First World War (Barker 2012a). Finally, the though writing about the early Christian expansion into Eu- institutional structures and emphases of different churches rope, Asia, and Africa, Wilken’s observation rings true for subtly affect responses and accommodations. The co-option Melanesia along with other regions where Christianity is rel- of the Anglican missionaries into locally initiated sorcery atively new. Clearly the critique of church institutions is a purges in the Maisin case appears as a repurposing; but in central feature of post-Reformation Christianity that cannot the case of, for instance, Pentecostal sects emphasizing “spir- be ignored. Yet churches continue to be built, priests and itual warfare,” the local response is better characterized as an ministers train in seminaries, pilgrimages are organized, and accommodation or a spandrel. edicts of church authorities are imposed. There is much that In contrast to the of Christianity, which as Jon is new and contingent, not least in the ways that local people Bialecki (2014) observes has been deeply influenced by Weber such as the Maisin have embraced church organizations as a and Troelsch’s contributions on the church- dynamic, an- means of self-definition, organization, and cultural renewal thropologists interested in Christianity have been reluctant to or replacement. Yet at the time moment there is also much address the religion’s institutional aspects. This is particularly that is ancient and familiar, that stamps all of these variations the case along the former mission frontiers in Africa, Mela- as “Christian.” A nexus of the one and the many, church nesia, and Amazonia, where the history of conversion is rel- institutions promise a rich terrain for future anthropological atively recent and closely associated with colonialism. Our exploration. tendency has been to treat the institutional aspects of missions and churches as something apart from their religious core and effects—as more or less secular expressions of a histor- Acknowledgments ically contingent “civilizing mission” that contributed to a “colonization of consciousness,” to use the Comaroffs’ influ- The research on which this paper is based has been supported ential formulation (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997; see also since 1981 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Jolly and Macintyre 1989; Smith 1994; Trompf 1977). More Canada, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Geo- recent work in the anthropology of Christianity has not ig- graphic Society, and the University of British Columbia. I am nored Christian organizations but has been more interested grateful as well for stimulating suggestions from participants in probing institutional regularities for what they reveal about in the Anthropology of Christianity workshop, especially Joel underlying values and meaning than as central aspects of the Robbins, as well as the very helpful comments from the anon- religion deserving ethnographic study in their own right (e.g., ymous reviewers. Engelke and Tomlinson 2006; Robbins 2004). Ironically (or fittingly, depending on one’s point of view), References Cited anthropological skepticism about the religious validity of Barker, John. 1987. Optimistic pragmatists: Anglican missionaries among the Christian institutions has a deep Christian pedigree. As Hand- Maisin of Collingwood Bay, Oro Province. Journal of Pacific History 22(2): man (2014) and other contributors to this volume note, Prot- 66–81. estant theologians have been especially suspicious of church ———. 1990a. 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The Heart of the Matter Christianity, Materiality, and Modernity

by Chris Hann

At the microlevel, this paper focuses on the Roman Catholic cult of the Sacred Heart, noting its spread among Catholic populations in Central Europe whose liturgical tradition is that of Byzantium rather than Rome. At the mesolevel, it places this instance of religious acculturation in the context of long-term economic and political inequalities between East and West. At the macrolevel, implications are outlined for debates concerning civilizational differences and modernity. It is commonly supposed that the latter was initiated when Protestants began a shift toward interior belief based on text, eventually dragging Roman Catholics in their wake, while Eastern Christians have remained largely excluded from both material and ontological progress. The anthropology of Christianity has concentrated on Western-influenced “moderns,” in their many guises, outside the religion’s heartlands. But the take-up of Sacred Heart religiosity among the Greek Catholics of Central Europe suggests that there are no deep ontological barriers within Christianity. Similarly, there are no grounds for dismissing Eastern Christian institutional patterns as premodern; they should be drawn into the comparative framework as a distinctive crystallization of Christian civilization.

Introduction hitherto neglected in the Anglophone literature (Hann 2007, 2011).1 Second, I argue that the attention paid to individual transcendence and what I term “micromaterialities” needs to Joel Robbins (2007) has defended a (neo-)Protestant bias in be supplemented by more attention to the “macromateriali- recent studies of Christians by sociocultural anthropologists ties” of ecclesiastical and secular power relations if the an- on the grounds that these varieties of Christianity pose the thropologists of Christianity are to reconnect with scholars most serious challenge to the “continuity thinking” of the in other disciplines to debate large themes such as ritualization discipline. In this paper I suggest that the present focus on and secularization. I thus propose complementing the insights “conversion-led movements” (Lehmann 2013) reflects con- we have gleaned from recent explorations of the language and tinuity in the history of anthropology ever since anthropol- materiality of Christian belief with more attention to the ma- ogists followed closely on the heels of missionaries in the teriality of political economy. We shall then be better placed nineteenth century and the fieldwork revolution of the early to draw on other methods, including those of history and twentieth century. Even when they started to study Christians comparison, in order to grasp the place of religion and ritual in literate, industrialized societies such as their own, Western in human evolution (Bellah 2011; Rappaport 1999). anthropologists have paid more attention to conversion-led Comparative methods require justification of the units of phenomena than to what Lehmann (2013) terms “religion as analysis. I shall argue that there are good reasons for analyzing heritage,” which usually means “low-intensity religion, in Christianity as a civilization and comparing it with other civ- which clergy do the hard work and the followers follow” ilizations issuing from the Axial Age. If this usage is allowed, (658). it is instructive to compare such civilizations based on “world I propose that it is time for some discontinuity in the religions,” both in their historic territories and when they anthropological tradition, though I have no wish to abandon interact and compete for followers in new spaces (e.g., Peel microlevel ethnographic detail, and moreover my overall ap- 2011). Comparisons within a civilization can be just as useful. proach to the and to religion in general No one has yet attempted to replicate for Christianity what is one that emphasizes continuity. First, building on earlier Clifford Geertz (1968) undertook for Islam, the “observation” papers, I problematize large populations of Eastern Christians of two varieties of an Abrahamic religion that had evolved to

1. Space limitations prevent any exploration of the diversity within Chris Hann is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social the category “Eastern Christians.” An extended treatment would in a first Anthropology (Advokatenweg 36, 06114 Halle, Germany [hann@eth step distinguish between the large Orthodox churches of the Byzantine .mpg.de]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 8 VII 14, tradition and the many communities of Oriental Christians (see Hann and electronically published 11 XI 14. and Goltz 2010; Parry 2007). I focus on the former in this paper.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0004$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678184 Hann The Heart of the Matter S183 form distinctive patterns at a great geographical distance. I truths and inner states of belief detach religion from territory, shall proceed for Christianity by taking the established dis- ethnicity, and nation. In the terms of David Lehmann, this tinctions between East and West, and within the latter between is the shift from “heritage” to “belief.” Faith everywhere be- Protestants and Catholics. I shall argue that the undoubted comes a matter of personal, voluntary association. Economic differences should not be described in terms of modernity or models of choice in the guise of “religious human rights” are ontology but understood as multiple crystallizations of a sin- the icing on the cake of this liberal modernity. gle civilization. But is it not possible for anthropology to transcend the How should one ground an enquiry with these large am- circumstances of its birth in an era of European imperialism bitions? My focus is on Eastern Christians, whose neglect and to embrace other populations and other narratives in a more distorted representations I review in the following section. My balanced world history? Christianity surely demands such a concession to the long-standing microethnographic bias of move. It originates in what we still quaintly call the “Middle sociocultural anthropology is then to take one well-studied East,” derives a great deal from ancient , and shares symbol and examine it in one historical space. I review ac- much with a later prophetic faith, that of Islam. To focus on counts of how the cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary the later expansionary Western strands of Christianity oc- emerged as a Roman Catholic response to an increasingly cludes not only Eastern Christians but also these common rationalized and secularized Western Europe. Sacred Heart histories at the heart of Eurasia. religiosity is not found among Protestants, nor has it spread has long been mired in negative ste- to Orthodox Christians. Can such prima facie evidence for reotypes. Images of stagnant Byzantium date back to the era the “modernity” of the former be adduced to serve the op- of the Crusades (Parry 2009). Of course there is more to it posite interpretation in the case of the latter? Empirical evi- than negatively charged discourses. The greater degree of doc- dence of the ready take-up of devotion to the Sacred Heart trinal continuity and in the Eastern churches among Greek Catholics in Central Europe suggests that we seems irrefutable. There is no equivalent to the Jesuit en- are not dealing here with deep ontological differences. The gagement with science around the world. Closer inspection consolidation and dissemination of this instance of micro- reveals that Orthodox churches have also expanded in recent materiality have been conditioned at different levels by doc- centuries, notably across Siberia and into North America, but trinal debate and even by ultimate dilemmas of the human they have not become truly global in the way that Catholicism condition, but they have been more directly determined by and Protestantism compete on the world market for . mundane power relations within and between churches, Orthodoxy has remained to a much greater extent a matter which depend in turn on wider secular macromaterialities. of birthright. Its presence in settler societies such as the United States and Australia tends to be national (Greek, Serb, Rus- Can Eastern Christians Be Modern? sian, etc.) rather than transnational. Moreover, it is frequently alleged that Eastern Christian churches have failed to develop My main criticism when reviewing an early sample of the new modern social welfare policies in the manner of their coun- “anthropology of Christianity” was the failure to engage with terparts in the West (Agadjanian 2003). They are said to have Eastern Christianity (Hann 2007). To present the anthropol- a bad record in acknowledging human rights, in particular ogy of Christianity as a miraculous conception of the last two the freedom to proselytize. For political scientist Samuel decades disguises continuity in the way that anthropologists Huntington (1996) at the end of the Cold War, as for most have defined their territory in the age of North Atlantic dom- historical sociologists from Max Weber onward, the Orthodox ination of the planet. Given their penchant for the remote constitute a distinct civilization (see Hann 2011). and the exotic, it was only to be expected that when Anglo- These representations can be critiqued at several levels. phone anthropologists came to engage more closely with Some of the stereotypes resemble those of classical “Orien- Christianity, Melanesia would have stronger claims on their talism” (Said 1978), although these debates have paid little attention than Russia. When large postcolonial populations explicit attention to Eastern Christians (perhaps because many adopt and modify the religion of the powerful, it makes per- of them have their homes in Europe). This problem deserves fect sense (moral as well as scientific) to recognize these new- further attention, as does the phenomenon of self-Oriental- comers as authentic members of a global Christian com- izing. But in this paper I am more interested in the political munity. It is hard to resist the view that this must be the economy and geopolitical relations that shape the rise and direction of history, epitomized in the idea of “modern.” It fall of religions regionally and globally. is obvious, at least to social scientists schooled in Western After being a major player for a millennium, Byzantium social theory, that puritanical Protestants led the way, spread- was conquered by the Turks. The survived, but ing an immaterial ideology of signs and self-transformation it declined into relative obscurity in the centuries in which that came to be valued more highly than earlier collective, the Jesuits flourished in Latin America and China while as- more ritualized forms of religion.2 Concerns with text-based sorted Protestants spread their gospel everywhere in between. 2. The most influential work in this vein is Keane (2007). See Hann The protracted demise of the Ottoman Empire was primarily (2011:11) for a critique. a Muslim history, but the success of Eastern Christians in S184 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 throwing off the “Turkish yoke” in the course of the nine- David Lehmann’s (2013) notion of “low-intensity religion” teenth and early twentieth centuries did not lead to a favorable in cases where, following the demise of scientific , reassessment in the eyes of the West (at any rate outside small some of those who rediscover their religious traditions be- circles of intellectuals). had peerless symbolic resources come reflexive enthusiasts for their faith. Such “revitalized for the West, but this usually meant the obliteration or at any Orthodox” at the activist core of the parish might have much rate demotion of the Byzantine heritage in favor of the Hel- in common with compatriots who have converted to some lenic. As with other Eastern Christian nations of eastern and other, nontraditional religion or even with Melanesian Pen- southeastern Europe, political independence brought no so- tecostalists (Pelkmans 2009). lution to the problems of economic backwardness and pa- The above themes, emerging from recent ethnographic triarchal social structures. studies, have also been addressed by sociologists and other In the twentieth century, the encounter with Marxist-Len- social scientists. They are commonly theorized with reference inist threatened the very existence of the world’s to “modernity.” For example, Alexander Agadjanian (2003) largest Orthodox churches. However, most seem to have sur- applauded the efforts made by Patriarch Alexius II to mod- vived the repression of their heritage with extraordinary re- ernize the ROC in the fields of social policy and human rights, silience, including the (ROC). To- with which the church had never previously considered it bias Ko¨llner (2012) has shown that this church is again necessary to engage. But he and others have pointed to lim- vigorously present in many domains of the public sphere from itations in this engagement. According to Vasilios Makrides which it was excluded in the socialist decades. These include (2005), despite some positive signs of change in everyday business activities (many churches have been reconstructed practice, the Russian hierarchy remains strongly resistant to thanks to the sponsorship of successful entrepreneurs, some of whom, however, prefer to patronize private confessors change. Russia and other Orthodox countries are held to lack rather than participate in the life of a parish) and political modernity. Such external opinions have resonance within ritual (tight alliances with secular power holders have become Russia, where feelings of inferiority are accentuated by the central to new modes of legitimation). Other projects at the fact that people perceive a loss of power vis-a`-vis the West Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology have docu- compared with the socialist era. mented a complex picture at parish level throughout the for- However, scholars also report pride in specifically Orthodox mer Soviet Bloc (see Hann 2010). The majority of ROC fol- traditions and a questioning of the telos of the West. Perhaps lowers do not attend churches regularly but nonetheless it is Western liberal modernity that Russians reject rather than consider acknowledgment of an Orthodox identity to be an modernity per se? Of course, theologians may uphold views integral part of being Russian. This identification is fostered not widely shared in the society. After the 1917 revolution, in myriad ways. The formal separation of church and state Orthodox elites continued to develop a range of religious and is undermined through the teaching of “Orthodox culture” secular discourses in the diaspora, some of which have been in schools and financial subsidies for the preservation of na- resumed within Russia in the postsocialist decades. In a stim- tional heritage. Other religions with a long history on Russian ulating analysis of these contributions, the philosopher and soil are recognized and eligible for certain supports. However, historian of ideas Kristina Sto¨ckl (2006) has highlighted the as many neo-Protestant missionaries have found, in the Russia revival of neopatristic theology. She argues that this recourse of President (or Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin, there can to a distant Christian past has more to offer than the em- be no question of a “level playing field” for all religious com- bellishing of more recent, specifically Russian intellectual cur- munities. rents. Pragmatic adaptations on the part of the ROC in do- As in other fields of postsocialist studies, scholars of religion mains such as human rights show that at least some of its have complicated simple narratives of repression and revival. members are sincerely trying to become as modern as their Douglas Rogers’s study of the Old Believers in the Urals re- Western counterparts. However, rather than represent the veals complex continuities dating back to the Czarist era (Rog- ROC as a pitiful latecomer struggling to meet the standards ers 2009). Sonja Luehrmann (2011) traces the contemporary set by the West, Sto¨ckl is impressed by an “ontological” cri- interplay between Orthodoxy, local “shamanic” religious forms, Western influences (including Protestantism), and fi- tique of Enlightenment put forward in the 1930s nally Soviet styles of secularization, the didactic effect of which by Georgii Florovskij and continued in recent decades by is still considerable in Marij El. Luehrmann suggests that So- philosopher-theologians such as Sergej Khoruzˇij. Like the viet secularism shows a greater “modern” affinity with Prot- Greek theologian Christos Yannaras, these Orthodox scholars estantism, while other ethnographic studies have demon- have propagated a personalist ethics with affinities to the phi- strated its continuing influence over Orthodox teachers losophy of Martin Heidegger (Sto¨ckl 2006:260–263). Sto¨ckl (Ładykowska and Tocheva 2013). Agadjanian and Rousselet concludes that this “philosophical-ontological critique of (2010) call for careful distinctions between various “sedi- modernism” is not antimodern but rather part, even a nec- ments” of the past, Soviet and pre-Soviet, in understanding essary part, of “an ambiguity and tension that is inherent in contemporary religious life. It may be necessary to modify the modern project” (264). Hann The Heart of the Matter S185 The Sacred Heart: A Reactionary Devotion The cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and his mother Mary among Roman Catholics began in seventeenth-century France and has spread throughout the world over the last three cen- turies. Notwithstanding affinities with the medieval venera- tion of Christ’s wounds, this devotion has specific origins in the era of the Catholic Reformation. The ground was prepared in the writings (and sketches) of male clerics, notably Frances de Sales and Jean Eudes, but the breakthrough came with the apparitions experienced in 1673 and 1675 by Margaret Mary Alacoque, a mystic nun of the Order of the Visitation (Morgan 2008). As usual, recognition by the hierarchy of the Church was a protracted process. Vatican approval was delayed until 1765, and the feast (on the Friday following Corpus Christi) was not proclaimed to be “universal” until 1856. Pope Pius IX went on to beatify Margaret Mary in 1864. The cult re- ceived its most spectacular architectural expression in Mont- martre with the opening of the Sacre´Coeur basilica in 1891. In 1899 Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The continued prominence of the cult in popular Cathol- icism in the twentieth century was ensured by the apparitions at Fa´tima in 1917. The Virgin Mary drew the children’s at- tention to Her loving Heart in the “second secret,” as related later by Lu´cia de Jesus dos Santos. As with Margaret Mary in the seventeenth century, the Roman Catholic hierarchy struggled to control the narratives (“secrets”) of a female mys- tic. Sister Lu´cia (as she became) had a vivid vision of a heart pierced with thorns, a common representation since the sev- enteenth century. She made a nuisance of herself in the Vat- Figure 1. Sacred Heart of Mary depicted on a postcard souvenir ican by insisting over many decades that Mary had demanded of the shrine at Fa´tima. A color version of this figure is available the consecration of Russia (at the time under a Marxist-Len- in the online edition of Current Anthropology. inist regime) to her Immaculate Heart (fig. 1).3 One of the first social anthropologists to take an interest in this cult was Raymond Firth (1973), for whom it provided in society and popular piety. The representation of the phys- an example of how the “private symbol” of an individual’s iological matter of the Saviour, the second element of the ecstatic experience can be transformed to function as a “public , was heretical to Bishop Scipio de Ricci in and symbol” with quite different meanings (230–237). The cult contemporary French Jansenists. Nonetheless, eighteenth- of the Sacred Heart was publicly supported most emphatically century artists came to abandon earlier emblematic represen- by the Jesuits as a self-confident riposte to the Protestant tations in order to emphasize the materiality of the heart and rejection of the visual (Morgan 2008). David Morgan relates the blood it pumped. The figure of Jesus came to dominate changes in the iconography, his prime interest, to theological over that of Mary. Yet this Jesus gradually changed in char- and political controversy as well as to more general changes acter. From all-powerful Pantocrator, he became gentler, more effeminate, or at any rate androgenous: “Jesus tenderly offers 3. Sister Lu´cia was reputedly dissatisfied that this consecration was himself, gazing softly but steadily into the eyes of viewers” not implemented by male pontiffs in quite the way specified by the Virgin (Morgan 2008:23). The twentieth century brought plenty of via her own mediation. Pope John II sought to accommodate Lu´ cia’s cognoscenti condemnation of the proliferation of “kitsch” in wishes after meeting her and becoming profoundly devoted to Our Lady this iconography, which nowadays tends to be more re- of Fa´tima in the wake of the failed attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, which coincided with the day of Our Lady’s first appearance to the strained. It is no longer necessary to represent the organ cor- children in Fa´tima in 1917. Benedict XVI, when still Cardinal Joseph poreally in order to convey the symbolic messages. It seems Ratzinger, was the key figure in the Vatican’s attempts to defuse contro- that representation of the heart is unnecessary and even un- versy over Lu´cia’s alleged further secrets. This defensive action culminated intelligible for African Catholics (Morgan 2008:39–40). How- in a publication in 2000; but because of a lack of transparency in the handling of Lu´cia’s estate following her death in 2005, apocalyptic rumors ever, the personal appeal and pastoral efficacy of the Sacred continue to circulate on the Internet. Heart remains strong for millions of Euro-American Cath- S186 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 olics, many of whom “enthrone” a more or less gaudy image modern” world: “the cult gained importance when the Heart in the intimacy of their homes. of Jesus could embody not only God’s love towards human- The basic idea of dedicating (consecrating) oneself, one’s kind but also some basic dichotomies of modernity: heart/ family, one’s nation, or the entire human race to God as reason, religion/science, autocracy/democracy etc. . . . Modern reparation for human sins was hardly new to Christianity in ontology changed the whole concept of the human being, the seventeenth century. The accompanying practices of in- including the notion of the heart” (180). dulgences were essentially the same as those condemned by In closing this section, as the previous one, with a reference Luther, which had provoked the Reformation. But the ex- to ontology, let me point out how the analysis of Ewa Klekot traction of the heart and its representation as flesh constituted diverges from that of Kristina Sto¨ckl. For Sto¨ckl, neopatristic an innovation. It seems clear that, well before the visions of Orthodoxy with Heideggerian inflections is a key ingredient Margaret Mary, the heart was increasingly considered by West- within the modernist ontology, not a nonmodernist alter- ern Europeans to be the seat of the emotions. Descartes and native. According to her account, at least by the latter half of the philosophers of the age prioritized reason, with its seat the twentieth century, Orthodox Christians are in the same in the brain. Pascal’s insistence that the heart, too, had its ontological condition as the others. They have accomplished reasons, was a reminder of an earlier era, before St. Augustine, this in two different ways: first, by seeking to emulate the in which the heart itself was still taken to be a vehicle of West “institutionally” in domains such as social policy, and intelligence (as it was also in classical China). It was the organ second, by promoting a that, though going for prayer and knowledge of the divine. Thus, the frequent against the grain of the Enlightenment, nonetheless qualifies references to lev (Greek kardia) in the Bible have a broader them as distinctively modern. However, for Klekot, Eastern reference than contemporary understandings that prioritize Christians remain excluded from an ontology that develops sentiment and sensibility. Seventeenth-century “theology of uniquely in , where it expresses itself in the heart” was still far removed from romantic love and the different forms in Catholicism and Protestantism. commercialization of St. Valentine’s Day.4 Yet the theme of love appears to have been central to the enthusiastic adoption Religious Borderlands in the Heart of Europe of the Sacred Heart by Roman Catholics in both elite theo- logical and popular pastoral discourses. The burning, sexually I have noted that devotion to the Sacred Heart was initially charged furnace that inspired the visions of Margaret Mary disputed within the Roman Catholic Church, notably between gradually yielded to the reassurance that both Jesus and Mary Jesuits and more austere, Protestant-like Jansenists in the could be approached as compassionate, comforting figures eighteenth century. Tensions persist down to the present day. whose love could be won by each and every follower. If we follow the argument of Klekot, Catholics participate in From this perspective, the cult of the Sacred Heart is a the same “modern ontology” as Protestants; it is just that, on reaction not merely to puritanical Protestantism but to the balance, their hierarchies have been more generous in ex- rise of secular thinking and the scientific revolution in the tending the boundaries for the materialization of religious West that preceded industrial transformation. Devotion to the faith. Of course, as David Morgan (2005) and Webb Keane Sacred Heart can be seen as a distinctive Catholic contribution (2007) both point out, not even the strictest Protestants can to the democratizing and personalizing of religion in the di- avoid the material altogether. Some Lutherans and High An- rection of what Lehmann (2013) terms “religion as belief” glicans have found ways to accommodate the Sacred Heart. (distinct from both individual rational knowledge and civi- The Sacred Heart has not been taken up by Calvinists, who lizational spiritual heritage). At the same time, unsurprisingly, approach transcendence very strictly through the Word, but this cult has been strongly associated with political reaction. its absence among the Orthodox can hardly be explained as It was a symbol of royalist sympathies in postrevolutionary a modernist rejection of the material. These Eastern Christians France and again during the Spanish Civil War. Ewa Klekot appear to be trapped in a pre-Augustinian theology, which (2012) concludes her study of Spanish detentebalas (badges views the heart as a seat of intelligence for grasping the divine. with the protective emblem of the Sacred Heart) by arguing Do Eastern Christians constitute a distinct civilization, on- that the Sacred Heart nonetheless belongs in an “ontologically tology, or modernity? I seek answers by turning now to em- pirical evidence concerning the liminal Christians of Central 4. See Pelikan 1989 on the consolidation of this theology in Christian Europe known since the middle of the eighteenth century as doctrine in this era. More recently, Joseph Ratzinger took his inspiration directly from the Bible: “According to Matthew (5, 8), the ‘immaculate Greek Catholics (though they are overwhelmingly Slav and heart’ is a heart which, with God’s grace, may come to perfect interior not ethnically Greek). These Christians are Catholics who, unity and therefore ‘see God.’ To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart though they acknowledge the Pope, remain in terms of their of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes liturgy far closer to Orthodox Byzantine than to Western the fiat—‘Your will be done’—the defining center of one’s whole life” forms of Christianity (Mahieu and Naumescu 2008). Con- (Theological Commentary to the Secret of Fatima, 2000; quoted in the brochure accompanying the exhibition “To Be, the Secret of the Heart”; sideration of how they have dealt with the Sacred Heart may see note 2 above). help us formulate more appropriate anthropological responses Hann The Heart of the Matter S187 to the claims about modernity advanced by political scientists, orders played a key role, above all the Basilians, who in certain sociologists, and philosopher-theologians. ways resembled the Jesuits and were among the first to adopt Since the drawing of new state boundaries and significant and disseminate the cult of the Sacred Heart in the East. The population transfers in the wake of the Second World War Greek Catholic Church in Przemys´l became a significant cen- (“ethnic cleansing”), southeast Poland has been populated pre- ter of scholarly activities and of Ukrainian nationalism in its dominantly by Roman Catholic Poles. Before the middle of the formative phase. From 1772, the vast, economically backward twentieth century, however, this region was home to large pop- province of Galicia belonged to the Habsburgs. The rulers in ulations of Eastern as well as Western Christians. The city of Vienna took considerable trouble to strengthen the position Przemys´l was a diocesan center for both, the two cathedral of the Greek Catholic Church (not altruistically, but in order churches located almost next door to each other on a hill in to counter the power of the Roman Catholics and the inten- the city center, overlooking the River San. The differences were sifying Polish national movement). not just religious. Western Christians spoke western Slav dia- Habsburg policies shaped religious and secular identities lects, which were later standardized as Polish. Eastern Christians down to the present day, but they did little to alter the basic spoke eastern Slav dialects, which eventually gave rise in these inequalities of power between West and East. These were evi- districts to Ukrainian.5 Most villages were either Eastern or dent in contexts of micromateriality of the kind studied in- Western; some were mixed, but these had separate sacred build- tensively in the recent anthropology of Christianity. Wooden ings and cemeteries. All countrymen met in the market towns, churches have a different feel and smell from stone churches, where they also interacted with , Germans, , and but the latter were more prestigious and were increasingly others. Eastern and Western Slavic-speaking peasants could adopted by Eastern parishes; architectural styles became in- communicate with ease. Intermarriage was commonplace, the creasingly hybrid. Pews traditionally had no place in the East- inmarrying partner adopting the religion of his/her new com- ern churches, but they too were introduced, along with organs munity. In larger settlements where choice was possible, it was and new hymns and styles of singing. Latinization (or Oc- common to raise children in the faith of the same-sex parent. cidentalization) was also apparent in visual art (fig. 2). When Eastern and Western calendars differed, but each side respected devotion to the Sacred Heart reached its peak in Western the holy days of the other. Europe in the late nineteenth century, reproductions of Ital- If all this sounds too good to be true, in the end, it was. ianate (sometimes described as “Ultramontane,” although the Material disparities between East and West had deep historical epicenter of their production was Paris) images were readily roots and ramifying consequences. In the late Middle Ages, adopted, subverting older iconic styles in Greek Catholic the Roman Catholic Church in Przemys´l was part of a pow- churches and eventually in private homes throughout Habs- erful international institution and intimately linked to a strong burg Galicia (Hann 2006). All over Galicia, Brotherhoods of state, the Kingdom of Poland (from 1569 the Polish-Lithu- the Sacred Heart of Jesus were formed at parish level. A Greek anian Commonwealth). The Eastern bishops lacked such in- Catholic priest and seminary professor composed new de- stitutionalized supports. In contrast to the Roman Catholic votional prayers, which were widely adopted. clergy, Eastern priests were expected to marry and to work In the twentieth century the cult of the Sacred Heart con- their own plots of land alongside their fellow villagers (mar- tinued to spread. Some priests and bishops of the Greek Cath- riage at least rendered them less susceptible to the anticlerical olic Church took pains to prove that although the prayers jibes directed against their celibate Western counterparts). and iconography might be new, they were consistent with the From the Reformation onward, both Eastern and Western theology of the Byzantine tradition and not a simple emu- churches in these parts were concerned to raise their stan- lation of the West. Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts’kyi insisted dards, in effect to “modernize.” The emergence of the Greek in 1906 that it was entirely legitimate to renew the liturgy in Catholic Church in 1596 intensified the pressures.6 Monastic this way. He was careful at the same time to give the inno- vations a distinctive Eastern character by tying the symbol of 5. In addition, in complex political circumstances, a distinct “Lemko” or “Rusyn” (Ruthenian) minority has consolidated itself in recent decades the heart and its feast to the Byzantine tradition of Christ the in the most westerly sections of east Slav settlement. See Rusinko (2009). Lover of Mankind. Sheptyts’kyi’s balancing act also meant 6. For a historical overview of Greek Catholic Churches, which still giving the cult a strongly national character, as he repeatedly comprise several million followers, see Magocsi 2008. They are commonly dedicated the Ukrainian nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. termed “Uniate,” but this name is felt by many of their members to be It tilted toward the East after his Lemberg diocese was oc- pejorative and is therefore avoided here. The term “Greek Catholic” was bestowed by the Empress Maria Theresa in 1774, and this remains the cupied by the Red Army in 1939 and the help of the Sacred most common designation on the ground. The church unions of this Heart was sorely needed (Ste˛pien´ 2000:95–97). era were the clearest demonstration of the greater power of the West in These tensions were largely suspended when the Greek both ecclesiastical and secular domains. According to the documents Catholic Church was suppressed in the socialist decades. Con- signed (under pressure from the Polish crown) by a cluster of Orthodox ditions in the “catacomb Church” favored the persistence of bishops at Brest in 1596 (and later ratified by others, including the Bishop of Przemys´l in 1623), affiliation to the universal Catholic Church and to hybrid forms, but the reestablishment of ecclesiastical hier- the Pope as its leader had no implications for practical religion (the archy in the 1990s revived the old concerns with “matter out liturgy), though several theological issues quickly became contentious. of place” (Naumescu 2007). Greek Catholic bishops have been S188 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

forms, details vary significantly from parish to parish ac- cording to the preferences of priest and followers. Some in- dividuals practice a personalized “everyday syncretism” in which devotion to the Sacred Heart features prominently (Buzalka 2008:196–203). We may conclude that the religious sensorium in these borderlands has been significantly modified over the centuries and that the dominant direction of influence has been from West to East. Micromaterialities, such as images of the Sacred Heart, were shaped by the inequalities at higher levels. The West was better organized, wealthier, and more powerful po- litically. This superiority had direct as well as indirect impli- cations for the flow of goods, services, and even aesthetic styles. The East was poor, and its priests were badly educated. Greek Catholic villagers, the most numerous population group in eastern Galicia, had lower literacy rates and higher mortality rates than their Roman Catholic counterparts in the west of the province. The political dilemmas of religious and national identity were shaped by perceptions of backwardness that were largely shared by those in the east, including those who sought to solve the problem with Eastern solutions, by opposing religious acculturation. Although these Western and Eastern communities inter- acted over many centuries, they never merged. Efforts to es- tablish a coherent Greek Catholic liturgical identity, separate from both Orthodox and Roman Catholic, were undermined by changing political constellations and were ultimately un- successful. Eastern parishes, like individuals, sometimes trans- ferred allegiance (there were many defections from Greek Ca- Figure 2. The Sacred Heart of Jesus depicted on a side altar in tholicism to Orthodoxy in the presocialist decades, partly the Greek Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, Zarudci, West- under the influence of returnees from North America). Yet ern Ukraine, early twentieth century. Reproduction courtesy of the most basic differences were not effaced. Even when a Ewa Klekot. A color version of this figure is available in the sacred building had to be shared by Roman and Greek Cath- online edition of Current Anthropology. olics, as was common during the socialist era, a casual visitor was never in doubt as to which service he or she had stumbled enjoined by their superiors in Rome to purify their liturgy of on. For one thing, the eastern services lasted much longer. Western accretions. As in numerous Orthodox churches For another, the Greek Catholics kissed their sacred images through the ages, the urge toward a clear differentiation from demonstratively. At Easter they manipulated them further, the West in the spirit of “anti-syncretism” (Shaw and Stewart returning home with sore knees at the end of their lengthy 1994) has led to distortions and misleading accounts of their rituals. Local people commented on these contrasting forms own histories (e.g., in discourse concerning the iconoclastic of ritualization, but I do not think anyone considered them controversies). The reassertion of Eastern forms in church to be a matter of essential difference let alone inferiority, an architecture and is not welcomed by many ordinary indication that the Greek Catholics were somehow more “followers,” who have formed attachments to prayers, tunes, primitive than their Roman Catholic neighbors.8 and gestures originating in the West. It is sometimes alleged that, if forced to abandon the consequences of centuries of 8. These observations derive from my fieldwork in the gmina of Ko- Latinization, a significant proportion of Eastern Christians man´cza in 1979–1981 (Hann 1985). I also draw on research cooperation would opt to attend Roman Catholic services.7 The tensions in the 1990s with Stanisław Ste˛pien´, director of the South-East Scientific Institute in Przemys´l. Most Greek Catholics were expelled in the ethnic thus persist on the ground in southeast Poland and adjacent cleansing of the 1940s, but some remained, and others were eventually states. Although the hierarchy puts the stress on Eastern able to return surreptitiously to their former homes. With the demise of socialism, they made a dramatic return to the public sphere, although 7. In Przemys´l there is no evidence to support such allegations. Hann even the authority of a Polish Pope was not enough to persuade Polish and Ste˛pien´ (2000) found that, if hypothetically obliged to choose be- nationalists to restore their old cathedral to the minority (Hann 1998). tween attending Roman Catholic and Orthodox services, most Greek Some antagonism remains in both religious and secular domains, but in Catholics in this city in the 1990s declared a strong preference for the the third decade of postsocialism, a complex constellation has become latter. more stable. Contemporary Poland is ethnically one of Europe’s more Hann The Heart of the Matter S189

Civilization, Ontology, Modernity Saint Sulpice School) rather than a Hodegetria (the Orthodox type in which a solemn Mary holds the God child)? Theo- I return now to the larger goals of this paper, which are to logians and art historians distinguish between “image-as-pres- suggest how anthropological work on Christians might con- ence” and “image-as-representation” (Luehrmann 2011:161). tribute to the discipline in general and to interdisciplinary But in reality, both forms were found on both sides of the debates. Do Eastern Christians differ from Western Christians East-West boundaries. Besides, replacement was probably in civilizational and ontological terms? Do they represent a rare: in the more common scenario, the new images took distinctive variant of modernity? their place alongside the old. The cult of the Sacred Heart First, let us consider the question of civilizational difference. evidently appealed to Greek Catholics for the same reasons Samuel Huntington (1996) included the Greek Catholics with that it spread in the West. It did not spread among those who the West on the grounds that four centuries of integration remained Orthodox because the hierarchies were successful into the institutions of Western states and the universal Cath- in preventing its intrusion. Orthodox bishops could support olic Church must have weaned these Byzantine Christians their stance with reference to their theological traditions. But away from the illiberal nexus of Orthodoxy. This classification the ready acceptance of Latin innovation among the Greek does not coincide with local views. In southeast Poland, Poles Catholics (and the difficulty in eradicating some of these and of all religious orientations tend to place the evolved habits when elites later attempted to do so) suggests Greek Catholics on the Eastern side of a civilizational divide.9 to me that it is misleading to speak of ontological differences. However, in a context in which the main population groups The positions taken by bishops and theologians fluctuated understand each other well, intermarry, and practice essen- over time in the West, the East, and among the Greek Cath- tially the same rituals, though at slightly different times and olics in between. But even if we focus on ideal-typical dif- in slightly different ways, it makes more sense to speak here ferences between West and East on issues such as the rep- of an intracivilizational encounter (Hann 2012). The emer- resentation of Jesus’s heart as matter, these sophisticated gence of Greek Catholics as an interstitial group complicates debates between experts take place within a common doctrinal the East-West boundary, but all boundaries remain highly tradition. They do not signify “deep” differences between pop- permeable: Christianity can therefore remain a robust sin- ulations of the kind implied by Ewa Klekot when she distin- gular. guishes a modern ontology in the West from that of the East. The second question concerns “ontology,” a term that has If neither civilization nor ontology has much traction, how become exceedingly popular in anthropology in recent years. then are we to theorize and compare the main strands of “Ontology” refers to notions of identity, of the self (or per- Christianity? One possibility is to propose that Christianity is sonhood) and of the world, that impinge on all aspects of compatible with different styles or models of modernity, as cognition. In strong versions, the meanings endorsed by cul- discussed above. Kristina Sto¨ckl has followed up her argument turally defined groups are ultimately incommensurable. Un- that the ROC is ontologically modern when perceived through like the institutional variables of civilizational analysis, on- the prism of its Heideggerian theologians with an article in tologies are scarcely amenable to comparative sociological which she engages with the “multiple modernities” debates analysis but only to relativist . I have emphasized in historical sociology (Eisenstadt 2002; Sto¨ckl 2011). While power inequalities and macromaterialities among Christians the ROC is not quite in the same boat as the others, she in Central Europe, but ordinary priests and parishioners on argues that it is best viewed as a distinct vessel in the same both sides exercised agency, and the micromaterialities that ontological sea of modernity. entered Eastern Christian practices did so as a result of en- The metaphor might be elaborated: is the Orthodox ship thusiastic popular appropriations. This need not be incon- of modernity sailing in the same direction as the other ships? sistent with a diagnosis of ontological difference if the ma- The problem that has dogged the “multiple modernities” de- terialities of Latinization were then interpreted and used bates is how to define modernity as an analytic category. differently. But did villagers pray differently and reach a dif- Eisenstadt himself is arguably close to the tradition of Max ferent sense of their being in the world when gazing at an Weber in the sense that he never quite relinquishes a Prot- image of Mary holding her heart (perhaps derived from the estant model of the core referents of modernity. If, for ex- ample, rationalized disenchantment is supposed to replace homogenous states. Given the postwar dominance of the Roman Catholic ritualization, and if liberal individualism is to replace ceasa- Church, it can now afford to tolerate exotic pockets. Church attendance figures remain generally high in this part of the country. Eastern Christian ropapism, then the modernity of Putin’s Russia can be called churches (both Orthodox and Greek Catholic) and their rituals are at- into question. On the other hand, numerous Western states tractive to tourists; they are no longer perceived as a threat to the integrity still have their established churches, which Russia formally of the Roman Catholic nation (Buzalka 2007). does not, so it might be safer to focus on social issues such 9. I do not deny the significance of the boundary that divides the as and the treatment of homosexuals. In practice, western regions of Ukraine (ex-Galicia) from eastern regions where Greek Catholicism is unknown; but to the best of my knowledge even Russian- this is what most of the world does, experts and wider publics speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country do not locate, Greek alike. They sometimes overlook the fact that similar illiberal Catholics in the same civilization as Roman Catholics and Protestants. sentiments are equally strong in numerous Western countries S190 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

(e.g., Poland) and continue to see Orthodoxy as different, ontologies. However, there have been some notable attempts backward, and inferior to the West. Sociologist David Martin, to relate the astonishing expansion of Pentecostal and char- for example, continues to endorse a primary dichotomy be- ismatic Christianity to global political economy, including that tween East and West and refuses to recognize them as equiv- of Joel Robbins for the Urapmin of New Guinea (Robbins alent varieties of modernity. Martin (2011) has recently ar- 2009). The example of this small community suggests that gued that “the future of Christianity” depends on its success religions that offer a strong notion of transcendence (salvation as a force in global civil society. Although unsympathetic to in another world) have a natural appeal to geographically rational choice approaches, he ends up partially endorsing remote peoples marginalized by secular development trends.12 such models while emphasizing historical factors in shaping But Robbins goes further. Setting out from the revolution of local outcomes. On his account, the current global market the Axial Age, he postulates Protestant notions of the Godhead game was pioneered by Protestants, but Roman Catholics have as the pinnacle of Christian notions of the transcendent while become effective rivals, and nowadays the main traditions of Catholicism retains a hankering for the immanent (Jesus lived Western Christianity resemble each other in the ways they as a man on this earth). According to this argument, the Holy compete for followers. By contrast, argues Martin, Orthodoxy Spirit is the element that allows Pentecostalists to mediate the has not moved with the times: this religion remains conser- two poles: the Spirit enters the individual’s heart (aget tem), vative and ritualistic and thus definitely not modern. which for the Urapmin is “the seat of all thought, feeling and I have argued above that this alterity has deep roots in motivation” (Robbins 2009:66; cf. Robbins 2004:230–231). It Orientalizing discourses, but also in real differences in doc- is not clear whether the Urapmin had similar notions of cul- trines and practices, and above all in material conditions, that tivating a peaceful inner state in their heart in their traditional is, the economic backwardness of Eastern Christians for most religion before the recent arrival of Pentecostal Christianity. of the last millennium. The West has come to be conflated But in any case, there is no reason to suppose that equally with the modern, with the future of the whole of humanity, well-organized Roman Catholic or Orthodox missionaries because of the power of North Atlantic capitalism in recent would have enjoyed less success in this marginalized envi- centuries. As a result, sophisticated sociologists such as Martin ronment. All draw on the same basic repertoire of belief, view the emergence of Protestantism and Catholicism as symbols, and rituals. No doubt the assertive “global sects” to be the ultimate sign of modernity. Orthodoxy (“prosperity gospel”) of so many conversion-led movements is inevitably judged wanting. But as economic power shifts gives them an advantage vis-a`-vis all three major strands of away from the West toward other civilizations of Eurasia, these the evolved faith in many parts of the contemporary world, criteria seem increasingly questionable. Close ties to the but this does not seem pertinent in the Urapmin case. My homeland and to the polity may turn out to have a future point is that evangelical doctrines of the Holy Spirit are but after all. For all the variety that exists within the Byzantine a continuation of the general “affectional transposition” (Pe- tradition, this strand of Christianity can potentially provide likan 1989) of Christianity that flourished in the seventeenth the basis of a general type that differs from both the cen- century and was epitomized by the cult of the Sacred Heart, tralized structures of the Catholics and the decentralized Prot- a symbol readily taken up by Eastern Christians whenever estants.10 Not a different civilization, not a different ontology, they were exposed to it. this general type warrants recognition as a pattern for insti- tutionalizing religion in the contemporary world. Is this suf- Conclusion ficient to justify classification as a variant of modernity? Until the analytic criteria are more carefully specified, this concept The project of an “anthropology of Christianity” is tremen- seems vacuous and unhelpful in comparative historical anal- dously exciting and has far-reaching implications for the fu- ysis. It seems preferable to speak of a distinct style, pattern, ture of the discipline. Training the anthropological gaze on crystallization, or coagulation within a singular Christian civ- the major religion of the West, the civilization that gave birth ilization.11 to the discipline of anthropology as now practiced all over The recent anthropological literature on Christians has not the world, can be viewed as a triumphant realization of the engaged to any significant degree with civilizational analysis discipline’s ultimate aspirations, a completion and even a or with the mainstream or with historical transcendence of its origins. But the privileging of this one and evolutionist approaches in religious studies and the an- religion—or rather, specific strands within it—as the harbin- thropology of religion. It has paid less attention to institu- ger of “modernity” may equally risk an ethnocentric betrayal tional variables than it has to ideas, language ideologies, and of that aspiration. At a time when neither new cognitive ap- proaches nor the many competing variants of postmodern, 10. Whether David Martin is right to merge Roman Catholics and Protestants in this way is not an issue I can explore further here. The 12. Denial of this congruence can be viewed as a key failure of Marxist- recent flourishing of charismatic forms of Catholicism tends to support Leninist-Maoist socialism, which attempted to persuade subaltern pop- the case for convergence. ulations that salvation could be built in the mundane world. Postsocialist 11. All of these terms figure in the writings of Alfred Kroeber (Wolf religious revival in contexts of economic decline have gone some way to 1967). restoring the consistency of the transnational with the transcendent. Hann The Heart of the Matter S191 post-Durkheimian approaches to religion have brought the society. But it is also conceivable that eastern European coun- yields anticipated, my hope is that renewal of the anthro- tries will demonstrate the viability of a different path by con- pology of Christianity will give a decisive impulse to com- solidating the adaptation of religion to national heritage. It parative historical enquiry. But this has not happened so far, is not impossible to imagine some variants of Western Chris- and it is instructive to ask why. tianity and other vessels of “modernity” changing direction I have argued that the anthropological coverage of Chris- to follow an Eastern fleet in this respect. tianity has been weakened by the received Anglophone def- At another level, we may still wish to pay attention to what inition of the people anthropologists should study, skewed by makes Christianity as a civilization distinctive in comparison the imperialism of recent centuries. Moreover, much of our with the stories of Judaism and Islam and its Axial Age cous- literature remains in thrall to Max Weber’s thesis of the links ins. Axial Age theory is still the most compelling proposition between the “Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism,” for world-historical discontinuity in the evolution of religion with its implication that interiorized individual faith based (Bellah 2011). It has more plausibility than theories that pos- on a sacred book is a major distinguishing feature of the tulate ontological rupture with the rise of Pentecostalism or transition to “modernity.” Weber himself was more cautious, with Calvin or Luther or Jesus of Nazareth. But the signifi- but scholarship does not bear out even looser diagnoses of cance of the heart in the theology of the ancient Egyptians, “affinity” let alone the idea that religious dogmas are the long before the Axial Age, suggests caution.13 ultimate causes of epochal shifts. I have stressed the contin- Ultimately, work on Christianity might lead us to push gent macromaterialities of world history in drawing out the “continuity thinking” to its limits and to question any notion implications of my empirical materials from Central Europe. of “major transitions” in the evolution of what we unsatis- Christianity deserves our attention as a civilization, but the factorily term “religion.” Perhaps the tension between the concepts of ontology and modernity appear unhelpful and transcendent and the immanent was not a product of the misleading. If the prioritizing of texts and interiorized belief Axial Age but is omnipresent in the “habits of the heart” are taken to be the decisive criteria for modernity, then other (Bellah 1996) of all human societies.14 Be that as it may, the traditions, notably Islam, have equally strong claims. Theo- patterns that have emerged through combinations of the ideas logical disputation should not be confused with ontological and practices that form the repertoire of Christianity should differences between populations. Different strands of Chris- be explored historically with reference to both micro- and tianity have given rise to distinct institutional crystallizations, macromaterialities. There is no reason to suppose that the but nothing is gained by referring to these as contrasting future of humanity must lie with the representational econ- varieties of modernity. omy of the Protestant individualists or with the deterrito- Some parts of the contemporary world and some strands rialized market competition model of “global sects.” A more of Christianity have evidently been more dynamic than other expansive anthropology of Christianity could be an antidote parts in these recent centuries. I argue that this dynamism is to these two models (which are, of course, intimately related). independent of the ideas and micromaterialities of the strands It might also be a spur to the rediscovery of older evolutionist I have discussed. Certainly there is a difference between the agendas; if our comparisons take sufficient note of historical Calvinists of Geneva, with their texts and asceticism, and context, we can avoid repeating the errors of our predecessors. Orthodox peasants in eastern Europe who continue to per- form strange rituals with icons. But this kind of distinction must be kept in perspective. The popular religion of Greece Acknowledgments in the era of Eurozone crisis, or postsocialist Russia, may have much in common with the immanent, inspirited cosmologies Inspiration for my focus on the Sacred Heart came during that anthropologists have documented everywhere in the the Sintra conference. My thanks to the Wenner-Gren Foun- world, but not even the Calvinists can dispense with mate- dation for fitting in the excursion to Fa´tima, and especially riality. Rather than build our theory on these kinds of dif- ferences within Christianity, I suggest we pay more attention 13. So does its present significance for the Urapmin studied by Robbins to the institutional crystallizations. David Martin (2011) ar- (2004, 2009). The range of meanings associated with this organ needs to gues for a convergence between Protestant and Catholic ver- be examined case by case; there is no general association with the emo- sions of modernity based on competition on the religious tions or with mind-body dualism. Encounters between symbolic clusters of different origins may nonetheless be instructive: the ready adaptation market place. Pentecostal and charismatic Christians can of native Aztec or Inca concepts of the heart into Spanish Catholic de- readily be integrated into this approach, but this “religion as votional practices is further evidence against exaggerated notions of on- belief” is far removed from “religion as heritage” as theorized tological difference. by Lehmann (2013). As a type, Orthodox Christianity has 14. The authors in Bellah (1996) take this expression from Alexis de come to exemplify the latter for reasons that are not difficult Tocqueville. They suggest he drew on Pascal in arguing that, while util- itarian calculating reason was central to American individualism, the to explain historically. Perhaps one day Orthodoxy will follow privatizing dangers of the modern commercial economy were averted the path pioneered by Protestants and later followed by Ro- through moeurs (for which “habits of the heart” is a synonym) and the man Catholics, the path that Martin describes as global civil ensuing forms of civic participation (Bellah 1996:37, 312). S192 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 to Laurie Obbink for perfect organization. It was a bonus to Ko¨llner, Tobias. 2012. Practising without belonging? entrepreneurship, morality, and religion in contemporary Russia.Mu¨nster: LIT. discover the temporary exhibition “To Be, the Secret of the Ładykowska, Agata, and Detelina Tocheva. 2013. Women teachers of religion Heart” in St. Augustine’s Foyer at the Basilica of the Most in Russia: gendered authority in the Orthodox Church. Archives de Sciences Holy Trinity. I also wish to express my thanks to Ewa Klekot Sociales des Religions 162:55–74. Lehmann, David. 2013. Religion as heritage, religion as belief: shifting frontiers and Stanisław Ste˛pien´ for sending references and materials of secularism in Europe, the USA and Brazil International Sociology 28(6): from Eastern Europe. Finally, collegial thanks to all the an- 645–662. thropologists who participated at Sintra, and to Alexander Luehrmann, Sonja. 2011. Secularism Soviet style: teaching Agadjanian, David Lehmann, Vasilios Makrides, David Mar- in a Volga republic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Magocsi, Paul Robert. 2008. Greek Catholics: historical background. In tin, and Kristina Sto¨ckl for stimulus from other disciplines. Churches in-between: Greek Catholic churches in postsocialist Europe. Ste´- phanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu, eds. Pp. 35–64. Berlin: LIT. Mahieu, Ste´phanie, and Vlad Naumescu, eds. 2008. Churches in-between: Greek References Cited Catholic churches in postsocialist Europe. Berlin: LIT. Makrides, Vasilios N. 2005. 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After the Denominozoic Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism

by Jon Bialecki

In this paper I argue that sociological denomination theory, despite its success in describing historic denomination cycles, has limits to its contemporary use and does not match the ethnographic description of the variety of ways in which denominationalism is expressed in anthropological ethnographies of Christianity. The cause of this mismatch is placed at the feet of unilinear models of denominational evolution. In its place, a differential model of autopoietic denominational evolution is suggested, where denominations are seen as different and differing solutions to an insistent Christian problematic. The capacities of this model are explored through the Vineyard, an association of charismatic churches that originated in Southern California.

iterations but rather the narrow range of possibilities it imag- When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Yogi Berra ines from the start. This literature depicts denominationalism as at base an endless compulsive cycle starting with small coveys of breakaway sectarian purists at war with both a The Sociology and Anthropology of the church they oppose and a society in which they are ensconced. Denominozoic Era Then, over generations they grow in size, station, and influ- ence until they reach a stage of senescence, becoming yet just It may be an exaggeration to describe the sociological liter- another iteration of the full-scale, society-endorsing church ature on denominationalism as moribund, but perhaps its that was originally rejected. Finally, they become in turn the pallor is not the best. Inaugurated by foundational texts from target of a new group of schismatics. This model of inter- Weber (1968), Toennies et al. 1973), and Troelstch (1992 locking stages inexorably following one another is effectively [1931]) and filtered through and distributed by Niebuhr a unilinear social evolutionary . Comprising a teleological (1957), the subsequent literature (along with the “penumbra” sequence, this is a staged, hierarchical model reminiscent of literatures on near-correlate sociological problem categories other linear anthropological schemes such as those of Henry such as church sect, schism, and revival) seems to have done Lewis Morgan (1907) and Edward Tylor (1877), modes of little to advance itself past the original marks set down by thought that anthropology as a discipline has soundly rejected. those originary figures. This is in part because in the later It is this unilinear logic that makes going through this de- development of this literature has become (at least to an- nominational literature feel like reading about the life cycle thropological eyes) “primarily classificatory and highly scho- of some strange microfauna or archaic creature that starts out lastic” (Robbins 2012b:204), but that is not the only sin. To as a parasite only to itself become parasite ridden in turn by a large degree the currently dominant “rational choice” var- its own young when it reaches its bloated terminal stage.1 iants of denomination and church sect theory (e.g., Finke and Stripped down to its core elements, this becomes a story as Stark 2006) are so soaked in metaphors and taken from unlikely as it is unbearable, at least to a nominalist-leaning an essentialization of free-market forces that despite attempts anthropology: church history as incurable repetition com- to deploy it in other times and locales (Stark 1997), it comes pulsion, as a complete foreclosure of anything truly new. across as so parochially American that it appears to be a good Incurable, but perhaps not unending. The only “solace” in that has no export-market value (see also Handman 2014). this literature is the possibility that at least in the United States, But perhaps to anthropological eyes this literature’s greatest horror is not the presumptions that animate its most current the age of denominations (what we might call, after the Ho- locene or the Anthropocene, the “denominocene”—or per- haps, after the Mesozoic, the “denominozoic”?) is now at its Jon Bialecki is Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh (Chrystal Macmillan Building, 15a George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD, 1. It should be noted that at least under some variations of sect church United Kingdom [[email protected]]). This paper was theory, in a contemporary age where the church has no more control submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and electronically published that the sect, the sect instead turns its ressentiment against society itself 12 XI 14. (Robbins 2012b:204; Wilson 1982).

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0005$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678284 S194 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 end, and the denomination itself is on the cusp of extinction. directly engage in the work of governance itself (Eriksen Since the Second World War, the American denominational 2012), or they sanctimoniously (in the original sense of the form has been racked by a plague of ills. For example, de- term) keep a distance from both governance and the political nominational adherents are effectively no longer regionally (Bialecki 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Robbins 2012a, 2012b). Most concentrated and are thus diluting their power; there is a striking is that while no anthropologist directly takes this up, decreasing resistance to marrying outside of denominations, all these possibilities seem to lie next to each other as vying and switching one’s alliances to a new denomination is now simultaneous paths rather than as distinct segments in a well- common; and there has been a leveling in social status be- ordered teleology. tween different denominations as educational levels rise across No doubt that some of the variation within anthropological the board. All this has had institutional effects on the po- accounts of the denominational form are simply matters of rousness of denominational boundaries and the state of the perspective and emphasis, and while many of these anthro- denominational fisc: congregations are increasingly making pological accounts keep an eye on history, the snapshot-like use of extradenominational curricula and accepting clergy rendering that ethnography often conveys probably torques trained in interdenominational seminaries, while many de- the field more toward the seemingly disordered and stochastic. nominations have undergone substantial losses both finan- Finally, these differences might be speculatively tied to the cially and demographically. Perhaps most importantly, de- fact that the anthropological-denominational literature tends nominations are often no longer seen as a moral good in and to be reports about either convert cultures in places such as of themselves (Richey 2010:90–94; Wuthnow 1988:71–99). New Guinea, Africa, and Latin America, where these forms Even those who now champion the denomination as being of Christianity have only been relatively recently introduced, analytically useful, socially pertinent, and ethically defensible or the ethnographic cases involving long-Christianized spaces, admit that the health of the denominational form, and pos- such as Anglophone North America, or the former socialist sibly even its survival, is an open question (Richey 2005, 2010; countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia, which usually focus Roozen and Nieman 2005a,2005b). on the most conservative and most resurgent religiosities. This contrasts sharply with the profile that the denomi- Whether discussing sites where Christianity is novel or where nation has cut in the anthropology of Christianity. Here the it is returning (albeit in a new form) with a vengeance, these case seems to be the inverse of the one found in sociology, are both situations where we might presume that the force with denominations active as both a force on the ground and of religious invention has temporarily upended whatever ho- as an analytic category. This vibrancy is perhaps not unsur- meostasis might have preexisted; in short, these are places prisingly mirrored by what appears to be a lack of any sort where, present appearance aside, a sociological-denomina- of consensus or overarching narrative as to how denomina- tional logic might yet be ordering things over the duration, tions unfold over time. Single denominational bodies are pic- if we were to wait out the intervening chaos. Still, the an- tured with their constituent churches differing greatly from thropological account of the denomination is a dizzyingly one another (Engelke 2007; Howell 2008). They are also al- diverse view of the capacities and forms that these movements ternately shown as cohering across considerable geographic can take as well as of the way in which they can be combi- and social distances because of their “transposable message” natorially articulated with other entities—including not just (Csordas 2001 [1997]) and their ability to take the shape of other denominations but also the state. There seems to be no a “part culture” with “worldviews meant for export” easy way to reconcile this vibrant anthropological view of the (Coleman 2006, 2010:800). As opposed to the vision of de- denomination with the grey, narrow, and doomed form that nominations as having a great deal of inner variation, this is is the sociological denomination. a vision of the denomination as an entity closely sutured Here, though, we argue that not only are the anthropo- together by circulating set discourses, literatures, and forms logical and sociological denominations capable of being rec- (Bielo 2009:135–154; Keller 2005; O’Neill 2010:170–197). onciled but that the way to do so is to not reject the most This is not the only aporia seen in the “anthropological” theoretically problematic aspect of the “sociological” theory denomination. Denominations are depicted as readily splin- of denomination but rather to embrace it. This allows us to tering into different and to some degree dialectically opposed see a hidden vibrancy, enabling us both to explain the wealth movements; these movements often substantially vary from of denominational forms focused on by anthropologists and one another in ideational content and practice (Bielo 2011a, to look at the accounts of denominations charted by soci- 2011b; Handman 2012; Meyer 1999). Alternately they are ologists with new eyes, allowing these works to be read with shown as not producing difference but constraining it, en- a sensibility that reimagines them without undoing them. All couraging a convergence of beliefs and practices between var- this is done not through the rejection of that concept most ious religious movements in a given locale (Jebens 2011; Mc- distasteful to anthropological sensibilities—social evolution— Dougall 2012). The question of denominational ties to entities but rather through embracing it. After tracing out what sort that we might want to demarcate as “political” is also open: of evolution might allow us to fully intuit denominational they either openly endorse a politicized sense of the nation diversity and transformation, in this essay I will take the his- (O’Neill 2010; Tomlinson 2012), or, in lieu of the state, they tory of a single “denomination,” a charismatic movement Bialecki Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism S195 called “The Vineyard” that originated in Southern California, stance and yet cannot be seen as a break from earlier iterations to show what that collectivity looks like viewed from the of it either has recently been sketched by Matthew Tomlinson stance of anthropological-denominational natural history (2014) as central to a Kierkegaardian-informed temporal logic rather than sociological theory. of repetition identifiable in many ethnographies of Christian collectivities. This play of a continual break that yet harkens back to a still-insisting problematic means that at some level, Evolution of a Value and the we could grasp these instances of repetition as moments of Value of Evolution open potentiality, of various ways forward that rise up and It is in the first moments of H. Richard Niebuhr’s The Social are delineated by the “event’” of the juxtaposition of both the Sources of Denominationalism (1957), the urtext of American problematic and the circumstances that it is realized in (Bi- sociological accounts of denominations, where we find our alecki 2012). key. Before he even begins his work of simultaneously iden- While this ´vee ´nement-centric take might be the best way tifying and lamenting how changing sociological class maps in the abstract to think about this phenomenon, the particular onto shifting denominational form, in the opening passages circumstances in which we are taking this up, that of the of the book Niebuhr concedes that there will inevitably be a denomination as an enduring and self-re-creating institu- certain incompleteness in any moment of Christianity. tional form, means that we have to further narrow what it is that we are addressing. We should keep in mind that though It has often been pointed out that no ideal can be incor- there may be pluriform potentialities in any particular in- porated without the loss of some of its ideal character. When stance, not all of them will be viable in the sense that when liberty gains a constitution, liberty is compromised; when taken up “by” a social form, they will not necessarily result fraternity elects officers, fraternity yields some of the ideal in the continuation of the ; many will be qualities of brotherhood to the necessities of government. ephemeral, or extra- or anti-institutional gestures, sometimes And the gospel of Christ is especially subject to this sacrifice even moments of religious self-erasure (Bialecki, forthcoming; of characteristics in the interest of organic embodiment; for King 2013; Nancy 2008), that will bubble around and within the very essence of Christianity lies in the tension which it denominational movements but will in effect be just religious presupposes or creates between worlds of nature and spirit, “Brownian motion.” Only those realized open potentialities and in its resolution of that conflict by means of justifying that either continue, expand, accelerate, retard, or redirect the faith....Organize its ethics—as organize them you must unfolding of a denominational movement will be pertinent. whenever two or three are gathered in the name of Christ— In short, we have to consider the fact that of all the open and the free spirit of forgiving love becomes a new law, potentialities that are actualized, it is only those that result requiring interpretation, commentary, and all the machinery in some self-continuing capacity, some autopoiesis, that will of justice—just the sort of impersonal relationship which be of interest to us here (Faubion 2011:5–8, 86). the gospel denies and combats. Place this society in the Normally, autopoiesis would turn us to systems theory (see world, demanding that it be not of the world, and strenuous Luhmann 2013), but there are reasons why this might not be as may be its efforts to transcend or to sublimate the - the best way to get at the problem at hand. Our interest is dane life, it will yet be unable to escape all traits of con- not in a single field—religion as a bounded, communicative spiracy and connivance with the worldly interest it despises. social system—but rather specific, copresent, and often vying Yet on the other hand, will not permit a social entities. Furthermore, we are dealing with differently world-fleeing asceticism which seeks purity at the cost of scaled and constituted entities: not only do we have to con- service. At the end, if not the beginning, of every effort to sider the autopoiesis of denominations but also the joint au- incorporate Christianity there is, therefore, a compromise. topoiesis of individual religious subjects and even (where it (Niebuhr 1957:4–5) is applicable) the autopoiesis of Christianity as an immanent Niebuhr goes on to state that the inevitability of compro- and historically positioned abstraction (Bloch 2012; Simon- mise “does not make it less an evil” (Niebuhr 1957:5), but it don 1992). Furthermore, if the anthropological accounts of is not his normative evaluations that is of interest here. Rather, denominative forms has any lesson for us, it is that the dif- it is the almost Derridean hypothesis that any pure form has ferent denominations, religious subjects, and cultural abstrac- an excess that escapes any particular instantiation of it (see tions that are associated with each other will often (but not Jennings 2005). But just as important as the idea that Chris- always) be realizing themselves in ways that also can be sharply tianity cannot ever be “fully” realized is the sense of this contrasted with one another. unrealizability as a continuing problem, one that endures and Here we get to an important point. Vying, transforming, that must always be grappled with anew as circumstances competing, autopoiesis, continuation: whatever else this lan- change. The challenge of how to be Christian may not always guage might be, it is also the vocabulary and logic of evolution. be foregrounded, but it never goes away. Not the rejected unilinear evolution implicit in the denom- This idea of a problem is an important one. This sense of inational form as given to us by sociologists, in which the revisiting a difficulty that never is identical to a previous in- single problem of a tension between purity and accommo- S196 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 dation always results in the same answer, the sect doomed to contemporaneous but in being equally old as well.4 It is this be a church. Rather, this is evolution as a parallel working turn, more than any other, that is obscured by the sociological through of a core set of problems, with different responses account of the denomination; it is also the turn that does the opening up different horizons where these problems can be most to hide the continuing vibrancy not just in new move- further worked through in ways that yield even more fully ments but in all movements taken as a whole. developed answers. But at the same time this is an evolution How old, then, might these movements be? The term “de- where an original impetus is driving the process, a small set nomination” dates back to the seventeenth century, when of problems and material that is historically before any later dissenting churches presented themselves as recognizable bod- instantiation but that still subsists in these latter forms. It is ies that could still be loyal to the state and king despite their therefore a conception of evolution where the changes are rejection of the established church (Richey 2010:94). How- ever, a schismatic tendency appears to exist throughout the seen as much in different degrees of emphasis and develop- history of Christianity, reaching at least back to the Donatists ment as they are in teleological changes of form. if not all the way to first-century proto-Christianity. Indeed, But that does not mean that there are not some resonances it is arguable that the original Christian work of identifying with the earlier evolutionary model found in “sociological” is nothing other than a reaction formation to a con- denomination theory. Biological evolution is in effect “digi- stitutive richness in Christian thought that always threatens tal,” dealing in quanta of single reproductive entities (even if to become difference (Barber 2011). these entities count most when functioning as agglomera- There does seem to be a certain change at roughly the 2 tions). By way of contrast, the evolution being discussed here Reformation, though. The difference is not the presence or cannot be reduced to demarcated subsuming entities; the de- absence of variation before that point but rather the fact that nomination is as much a species as it is a single reproductive outside of Protestantism, there are different capacities in pre- unit.3 Rather, this is an evolution predicated on the continual denominational forms that attempt to constrain differentia- transformations of what we might want to simultaneously tion even while allocating it a real or metaphysical space. An stabilize as singular entities and yet also put into motion, example can be seen by way of contrasting denominational thinking of them as identifiable though occasionally dividing Protestantism with Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism (even strands that are always “in flux” or at least has flux as an if it is a somewhat abstract and schematic comparison with available mode. But if we take up both the idea of continu- a degree of intellectual violence). Orthodoxy, concerned with ation, not as stasis but as trackable difference, and also adopt a mesh rather than a disjunct between state and church, is the idea of denominationalism as parallel but not identically characterized by differentiations that result from specific and situated solutions that are working through a problematic, localized alignments with political systems. An identity of rites then we have to notice that one element of the “sociological” among Orthodoxy works obscure the internal, local differ- model does not fit. We cannot have a “new” denomination, entiation that occurs through the proliferation of at least no- as that would be in essence a break in continuity; we would tionally equal centers organized by territorial logics; difference have to view schism as just that, a bifurcation in the denom- is controlled through being distributed spatially (See Binns ination where under the exigent force of the moment, two 2002; Boylston 2013; under this scheme attempts at instituting uniformity in a territory can beget accelerated differentiation different and mutually incompatible solutions are simulta- at the territorial edge; Humphrey 2014). Roman Catholicism neously taken up; different forks in the same stream. Neither handles differentiation in an inverse way. It proliferates dif- denomination is the “new” body or for that matter the “old” ference not through a multiplicity of centers but by way of body either; it is just that sometimes only one of the branches multiplications of organizations and rites that all are at least will hold on to a previously existing moniker. To this extent, fictively beholden to a single center, though usually with each all “denominations” are coeval, both in the sense of being differentiated strand having different oversight, responsibili- ties, and entitlements in regard to that center; in this scheme, the opportunity of direct, lateral opposition against other 2. More technically, in evolution there are different temporal scales forms of Catholic internal difference is muted, though by no and processes that mean that reproduction is punctual even, contrasted means erased. Catholicism, therefore, is metastatic, differ- with separate, though not autonomous, moments of organism devel- entiating within its territory; Orthodoxy is colonizing, mul- opment and ecological interactions (Weiss and Buchanan 2009). 3. We should note that just because we have differently scaled items, tiplying difference among territories. and even items (such as Christian adherents) that in part constitute larger- Protestantism, on the other hand, has a different relation- scale items, we should not take a reductionist turn and “undermine” (Harman 2011) the denominational form. Just because we can identify 4. It should be acknowledged that there are times, though, where either units that might be subsidiary to and yet partially independent of larger the degree of change, the amount of extraneous internalized material, or units, that does not mean that the larger units can be thought of as both so distend the problematic that it essentially becomes a different merely aggregations of the smaller units; this kind of nominalist thought problematic; it is also possible to consciously or unconsciously adopt only erases the additional ideational, material, and praxeological aspects some other problematic as a result of internalizing extraneous material of the denomination that may in combination have emergent properties. (Hoskins 2014). Bialecki Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism S197 ship with territory/space and authority; while it has had - “single set of formal or pragmatic features” that might uni- ments where it has assumed both by way of becoming a state versally be taken as a sign of successful interactions with these church, it has also shown its ability to present itself as a invisible agent(s) (48–49). As such, even though it is stabilized remnant (Handman 2014), as a social body beholden not to by ideational material and practices, religion is very much a specific territorial expanse (cf. Bandak 2014 and Schieffelin always underdetermined; this means not only are there a plu- 2014) or with the entirety of a population definable in terms rality of possible positions that could be taken up as a response autonomous from religious belonging.5 Rather, the denomi- to this challenge but also that there is little cost internal to nation only takes up those who elect to adhere to it, wherever the coherence of the system in shifting one’s take on this they may be situated (though there are real-world constraints problem. There may be other external costs at the level of a on this virtual openness). It is the concept of the remnant larger social or political collectivity that might be imposed as that allows a simultaneous exercise of authority (in putting a response to taking up some possible branching solution to forward a truth claim that is almost always an exclusive one) this religious problem. But, as opposed to other endeavors and an abrogation of it (to the degree that the logic of remnant that are centered on objects that, because of their inescapable encourages a self-sequestering from, or antipathy toward, materiality, may offer more resistance and demand more fix- other religious and political organizations). ity, religion is always capable in theory of taking up some Now on one hand, this process may be thought of in a other way forward. Unconstrained by any single necessary rather conventional manner as a part of the work of secu- semimaterial form, it enjoys more freedom to vary than other larization, with secularization understood here as a disartic- social institutions, and it also enjoys a freedom for its branches ulation of previous “total social facts” into now distinguish- to extend themselves farther in the development of answers able strands, though this is not to say that this de-cohesion to an original problematic. occurs in the same manner or leaves the same residual by- What would the path of one of these branches look like? products in every place that this process has occurred (Asad If the original impetus matters as much as both the circum- 2003; Casanova 1994). But this is also a process capable of stances it is embedded in and the solution that it presents, being read through a particular figure-ground inversion, then we would expect to see not only continuity in the de- nominational movement but also a degree of “specialization,” where this is not properly Protestantism having lost the levers of carrying out to more and more rarefied degrees of poten- of state but rather Protestantism having cast them aside to tialities that were already present in a virtual manner. We can gain the capacity to better control difference not by territo- see one example of what this particularizing action would rializing or institutionalizing it but by affirming it in all its look like by turning again to Webb Keane, this time to what autopoietically viable possibilities, fully embracing the inev- he has labeled “Protestant Semiotic Ideology” (Keane 2007; itable centrifugal force that comes with a religiosity capable see also Bialecki and Hoenes del Pinal 2011; Robbins 2001). of multiple and often mutually irreconcilable realizations. In this case, Keane’s work charts a tendency found across Two questions arise. First, what is it that allows for there various forms of Protestantism, but carried out to an extreme to be such divergent forms of Christianity, not only between in , to increasingly obscure and deny aspects of major families of the order, such as Orthodoxy, Catholicism, religious language that cannot be classed as sincere, sponta- and Protestantism, but also, with Protestantism, between the neous, and effectively immaterial. Keane calls this the work various Protestant genera and species? Second, what (if any- of “purification,” and he sees it as increasing in intensity in thing) is specific to these religious forms as opposed to other Calvinism (and Calvinism’s daughter—social movements) nonreligious, self-replicating, and occasionally mutagenic au- over time, slowly approaching but asymptotically never reach- topoietic institutions? The answer to both lies in a thread ing some state in which the rejected aspects of speech would running through most variations of religion, however differ- be entirely absent. While Keane’s work is meant as a contri- ently they may be individually constituted. As Webb Keane bution to the prehistory of modernity and secularism, what (1997) has noted, religion has as a shared problematic: the it does for us here is show what evolutionary development difficulty of communication with “invisible interlocutors,” a along a single line might look like. problem that is made more acute by the fact that there is no Now, this argument for historical continuity may seem like a backdoor essentialism, a sort of social-science laundering 5. The concept of the remnant used here is also not unconnected to of apostolic succession. The cure for this is again to borrow its use by Agamben (2005), though the vision of the remnant that Agam- ben finds in Saint Paul more properly identifies an always decreasing but from biology. It would be mad to claim that denominations never exhausted sliver of potentiality that precludes any totalization rather engage in the same kind of sexual reproduction as a great that the actualized entities that we are discussing here, which are nothing many biological entities do; but like biological entities (spe- but that this potentiality be constantly exercised. In an effort to preclude cifically, bacteria) that exchange plasmids with one another, objection, we should state that it is the Protestant deterritorialization that the “lateral” or “horizontal” exchange of practices and con- gives rise to some of the territorializations that at times flood into and relocalize space, albeit in ways that sets space in relation to abstract cepts among denominations and between denominations and universalisms (Bielo 2011a, 2011c, 2013; Jorgenson 2005; O’Neill 2010; other social entities can work to similar effect as sexual re- Robbins 2012b). production. There may even be moments where there is so S198 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 much lateral exchange that all we can vouch for is some sort another even if such a change of form is possible at the level of continuity, albeit it in radically reshuffled ways. This may of potential. What should be accounted for in those instances, especially be the case where we have “evolutionary bottle- though, is what are the forces that are retarding or counter- necks,” that is, small collectivities or even individuals who are acting potential movement. alone in their being the whole of a denominational form; This point regarding differing intensities and forms of re- here, the autopoiesis and development of a single individual sistance, of variations between stasis and movement, is im- would be the complete autopoiesis and development of the portant because it allows us to pivot back to the issue that denominational form as well, allowing for even more accel- we started with. The purpose of putting this system forward erated combinatory transformations (e.g., Engelke 2005; Fau- is to allow us to intuit both the efflorescence of denominations bion 2001). as captured in the anthropological record and the paucity of We should note that not all of these transfers will result in difference in the American one. In each case, not only are we the adoption of those new practices and concepts. The dif- dealing with different modes of realization of different po- ferentiating work done by variations in emphasis and form, tentialities from the initiating problematic, but there are dif- which function collectively as parallel solutions to the same ferent forces acting differently on the denominational move- problem, may be accelerated by what are in essence auto- ments as well. This is evolution’s first lesson: different forms immune responses to laterally conveyed material. In these for different ecologies. In this sense, the sociological denom- cases, laterally transferred material would be antithetical ination has been treated far too harshly here: it has a real but enough to existing arrangements and direction in a movement historically bounded and now threatened object. Extinctions that it rejects them; this rejection of one possibility means in essence an overall acceleration along a different path tangen- do not make paleontology any less of a science. tial to the path that would be opened up by that incorporated There is another aspect that is important to note. Just be- yet rejected material. Mutual inimical exchange between two cause the denomination is waning in the United States does movements in proximity to one another would create com- not mean that the forces of differentiation are waning as well. plementary schismogenesis (Bateson 1935, 1958). This model not only allows us to grasp comparatively the Even in spaces where “exchanges” with the environment “denominozoic,” but it also allows us to understand the era do not work to this effect, we should note that the various on the far side of the American denominational equivalent capacities of various branches will differentially be affected of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, too. Further- by the modes and degrees of resistance that they encounter more, it allows us to understand it not as an end of the forces in their environment. In some spaces, denominations will not expressed in denominationalism but as an intensification.In have to “fight” to realize themselves, and in others they will moments where the resistance is not enough to decelerate encounter bitter resistance and will have to accord themselves either the branching and differentiating work that gives rise appropriately. Again, one of the largest variables will be the to denominations or to preclude an effectively unrestricted explicit or implicit set of relations or nonrelations with the level of lateral transfer, what results is not the segmented form state. The state may serve simultaneously as an empowering of separate denominations but rather a smooth expanse where and a retarding factor, slowing some parts of the differential the “raw material” (churches, believers, concepts, and praxes) process while accelerating others. We should also note that in the “plane” of the social is subject to constant transfor- some forms may be so successful in a given milieu that they mation (Lury, Parisi, and Terranova 2012).6 Streams differ- will outperform other claimant differentiations, effectively ar- entiate and recombine at such a pace that they are blurred. resting the process of differentiation, though not necessarily Here, rather than having separate potentialities shoot out like the process of the intensification of certain branches/solutions spikes or paths, they are more like overlapping fans with as they come to numerically dominate a social space (see, interference patterns, in effect a direct mapping of potentia e.g., Robbins 2009). to realizations. With the borders of the denomination less There is one more important point to make. This is an salient and sometimes being absent entirely because of the analytic that privileges change. This is offered as an attempt to intuit what is occurring in the social processes being dis- pressures of differentiation and the flattening effect of accel- cussed, and it should not be taken up as necessarily a nor- erated borrowing, the forces of differentiation that would nor- mative or a political judgment (Friedman 2002). Change and mally work under intradenominational cover are both ex- transformation in the abstract is not a good in and of itself, posed and unconstrained. The end of denominations, then, and it may at times be the engine of de-coherence. Nor again is actually that mark of denominationalism in excess of the is this a denial of stasis, of moments where the “movement” capacity of denominations to bear it. of transformative or mutagenic evolution is not occurring; much like there are biological entities at the level of species 6. This tendency, which Lury, Parisi, and Terranova 2012 refer to as an emergent “topological” rationality, is explained as being in part the that undergo little change, there may be social forms that are result of contemporary forms of mediation that stress their accelerated seemingly quiescent, in “metastable states” (Simodon 1992), speed and immanent nature. This suggests that space-time compression not being pushed at that moment to change in one way or may be playing a vital role in bringing this about (Harvey 1990). Bialecki Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism S199

The “Natural History” of a “Denomination” works toward an “open” society, a indifferent to after the Denominozoic the divisive categorization of human belonging. The language used to frame these categories is openly nor- This line of thought obviously has a kinship with the an- mative, however, and it is not immediately clear how they thropology of social and religious movements, particularly would be operationalized as engines of differentiation in an revitalization movements (Wallace 1956), and the posttypo- logical accounts of religious movements developed during the evolutionary-minded account of the development of denom- 8 1970s (Fabian 1979; Fernandez 1978). The specifics of this inational movements. Furthermore, it is uncertain how these model, though, come from someplace else. While a familiarity operations could be accorded with the current American re- with the work is not by any means necessary to grasp the ligious landscape, a state of denominationalism in excess of version of evolution presented above, and similar elements denominations. We are in need of an exemplar to help us can also be seen in such diverse projects as those of the critic think this through concretely. For this I turn to the history Michel Serres (1997) and the biologist Stuart Kauffman of the Vineyard, a Southern California–originated but now (2000), this specific model was taken almost whole cloth from worldwide church-planting movement that emphasizes the the vision of biological evolution presented by Henri Bergson use of contemporary forms of music for worship and that (1911).7 Bergson’s theory, not necessarily at odds with Dar- also is known for stressing Pentecostal-style spiritual practices win’s but certainly not resonant with neo-Darwinism either, such as , speaking in tongues, healing, and hearing is actually a better fit for our purposes for all the reasons that directly from God. Consisting of over 590 churches in the it now seems inapplicable as a template for understanding United States alone (Higgins 2012:208), this ongoing com- actual biological evolution. While it is true that the coding bination of strongly charismatic religious practices, an infor- of language is in some abstract way similar to the coding of mal culture, and use of popular music has influenced theo- DNA (Delanda 2006:14–15), Bergson’s choice of variations logically conservative churches throughout America in the of a core problematic as the engine of reproduction and past 20 years, resulting in what has been referred to as the change instead of numerous disparate genes seems a better “Californianization” of American (Shibley fit for the case at hand; similarly, his use of a continuing 1996) or, even more extravagantly, a “second reformation” stream of differentiating germ cells (rather than discrete in- resulting in a new, experientially centered Protestantism (Mil- dividuals) as the privileged unit of analysis fits well (at least ler 1997). metaphorically) with denominations as transformational en- The Vineyard may be a movement, but it is not a denom- during projects. These choices allows Bergson to talk about ination; the proper name for its governing body is merely the a range of emphasized identifiable traits in particular organ- Association of Vineyard Churches. The word “association” isms as an expression of an impetus and problematic; for suggests a kind of voluntarism, a sense ratified by the limited instance, animal and plant life is strewn along a field with capacity of this governing body. As pointed out by Donald the attractor of “motion” on one hand and “stillness” on the other; animal life itself has its own bipolar field, with intel- Miller (2005), the Association of Vineyard Churches “does ligence and instinct as the attractors that structure that field. not ordain . . . it doesn’t own property . . . it doesn’t have These are attractors, creating ranges of solutions, that may paid bishops . . . it doesn’t have a centralized pension plan work well when discussing biological evolution writ large, but . . . and there is no centralized health insurance” (161). Indeed, it would strain the metaphor too far to expect the same op- the Vineyard explicitly rejected a 1987 drive by its then-leader eration to be working out in the differential evolution of to become a denomination. This was in part due to a dream denominations. There is another framework, though. While that the leader’s wife had, which was interpreted as a message not explicitly taking up the “branching” model of entities that from the Holy Spirit to not go down the denominational informed Creative Evolution (1911), Bergson latter presented road, but also in large part due to resistance to the move by a possibly more apposite set of attractors in The Two Sources Vineyard pastors (Jackson 1999:169–179; Miller 2005:146– of Morality and Religion (1935). Much like the instinct/in- 147). telligence biological opposition (which he explicitly evokes), Despite its nondenominational status, though, it is consid- he suggests that morality and religion are suspended between ered to be equivalent enough to a denomination to be covered two poles, an identitarian ethos organized around the pro- in a book assessing the current health of denominationalism tection and continuation of sharply delineated and closed in America (Roozen and Nieman 2005a). As a nondenomi- sociocultural groups, and a mystically infused ethos that national “denomination,” then, it is a fitting object of a “nat- ural history” of how it and other predecessor and successor 7. The one exception is the lateral transfer of concepts, material, praxes, and people, which was borrowed loosely from Deleuze and Guat- 8. That said, it should be noted that individual charismatic is tari’s (1987) discussion of the cross-species transfer of genetic material. shot through by recurrent polar tendencies of dilations and contractions, It should also be noted that use of Bergson’s theory does not necessitate open and closed selves, centripetal and centrifugal language, all of which the adoption of Bergson’s vitalism; emergent effects can be seen as the is resonant with, though not assimilable to, Bergson’s claim regarding result of combinatory possibility instead (De Landa 2011). open and closed religion; see Bialecki (2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2011). S200 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 movements have differentiated themselves (and often done At the same time that the Vineyard was expanding and so at an accelerating pace). developing in this direction, Calvary Chapel was intensifying One indication of this intensification is the fact that one the sometimes unspoken, sometimes quite explicit restrictions does not have to go too far in the past to find the predecessor on charismatic practices (Smith 1992). In 1982, internal ten- movements, and once the Vineyard is established successor sions on this issue within Calvary Chapel triggered a lateral movements arrive with very little reprieve. The Vineyard was transmission between the two groups; John Wimber, a Fuller founded as a small group of Christian musicians who were Seminary trained and employed church growth specialist was convened in a Los Angeles living room by Kenn Gullikson in encouraged by both Calvary Chapel leadership and Kenn Gul- 1973. It quickly spread, with another weekly meeting being likson to transfer Wimber’s Calvary Chapel associated church held in another Los Angeles house belonging to Larry Nor- to the Vineyard (Higgins 2012:220–221; Jackson 1999:77–87). man, an incredibly influential musician in the world of Chris- Wimber had been encouraged by C. Peter Wagner, his su- tian hippy rock (Eskridge 2013:222–228; Higgins 2012:212; pervisor and friend at the Fuller Seminary School of World Stowe 2011). Additional Christian figures from the Los An- Missions, to experiment with forms of charismatic practice geles entertainment industry (including for a brief period Pat (particularly healing) that were in their shared opinion driving Boone) hosted Gullikson-led Bible studies and home churches church growth in the global south; it was this interest in until in 1975 Gullikson decided that he wanted to consolidate charismatic phenomena that led to a reallocation both be- these into a single church, which met over the next few years tween and within those organizations. at locales such as the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and life- Viewed from a vantage point of differential evolution, guard station number 15 on the Will Rogers State Beach in though, this appears to be an acceleration of the differentiating Santa Monica. In 1975, this traveling group was finally in- tendencies between these two groups. By joint decision be- corporated as the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Beverly tween Wimber and Gullikson, Wimber became the leader of Hills and had grown to 11 churches by 1982 (Higgins 2012: the Vineyard soon after joining it. Under Wimber, many of 212, 225). the previously existing tendencies, such as an informal attitude We can view this early Vineyard as both a continuing in- and a foregrounding of the importance of contemporary mu- tensification of previously existing tendencies and also as the sic as a form of worship, continued. Charismatic practice, development of new traits. Before founding the Vineyard, however, was increasingly more common and played even Gullikson had been ordained as a pastor in 1971 by Calvary more of a role in leadership decisions than it did under Gul- Chapel, an Orange County Jesus People church (Balmer and likson, causing what appeared to be sudden lurches in the Todd 1994; Harding and Stewart 2003). Gullikson afterward Vineyard’s direction, particularly when it came to what spir- brought along several people from Calvary Chapel when he itual gifts it would be emphasizing. Prophecy, for instance, came to the Vineyard. The inheritance from Calvary Chapel had a brief but disruptive centrality in the Vineyard, where includes the heightened use of popular musical styles and an the capacity of self-appointed figures to speak with authority attempt to produce an “informal” atmosphere where the sar- outside of any clear organizational control or accountability torial codes and language ideologies were more resonant with lead to increasingly unstable intrarelations within the move- those found in the “non-Christian” practices common in the social classes of young adults that most of their members were ment (Jackson 1999:167–231). There were other important drawn from. These embryonic Calvary Chapel practices, and transformations as well. The rate of church planting accel- particularly the importance and use of music, were carried erated. This was in part due to scalar issues; Wimber brought out to almost exquisite degrees in the early Vineyard (it was nearly thirty other “spirit-filled” Calvary Chapel congrega- no accident that this was the church that Bob Dylan was tions with him (Jackson 1999:84). But it was also due to an associated with during his dalliance with Christianity in the increased amount of technical knowledge regarding church- 1970s and 80s; Stowe 2011:214–215). planting techniques that Wimber disseminated throughout There were, however, important differences as well. Pen- the Vineyard. tecostal-style charismatic phenomena was given a greater role; This led to one other transformation, the hypertrophy of unlike Calvary Chapel, which isolated such practices in post- the “conference” as a regular form of collectivity at a scale service “afterglow” ceremonies, at the Vineyard they were allowed to occur during main meeting times. Additionally, of Calvary Chapel to play with the domestic (in the form of the home church service) and the idea of a communal religiosity that exceeds the these charismatic practices were openly relied on in making familial; another significant branching was the Shiloh Youth Revival Cen- leadership decisions about the directions at the church and ter, which took an already extant tendency in the wider Jesus People congregational level. Finally, there was a blending of home movement to constrain and totalize the community through Book of church services and at-home Bible studies with the main Acts–inspired communal living and made that the center of their religious church services, something that did not occur at Calvary project; this movement grew to almost a thousand members scattered 9 across 25 states until tax problems arising from the use of communal Chapel (Higgins 2012). labor in for-profit enterprises triggered both a crisis in leadership and a fatal bankruptcy (Eskridge 2013:98–100, 257–260; Richardson, Stewart, 9. It is worth noting that the early Vineyard was not the only offshoot and Simmonds 1979). Bialecki Evolution, Differentiation, Denominationalism S201 above that of the home/group Bible study and church. While modernism of premillennial dispensationalism (Harding conferences are a common practice in Pentecostal and char- 2001:228–236) and increasingly laterally incorporating ritual ismatic Christianity (Coleman 2000), the Vineyard increas- practice and (if not theology) from avowedly self- ingly relied on them as a way of instructing its increasingly conscious “postmodern” forms of Evangelicalism (Bialecki large membership not only on necessary church management 2009c:179–197; Bielo 2011a,2011b). and planting material but also on new body techniques of inculcating “Spirit-filled” practices. Because these charismatic Charisma , Charisma , and Conclusion practices are highly dependent on experiential aspects (Csor- 1 2 das 1994; Luhrmann 2004, 2012), they had to be literally Looked at as a totality, this could be seen as the story of the practiced at these meetings, leading to these gatherings fre- Vineyard taking certain ecstatic musical and spiritual practices quently being marked by highly intense affective events. Dur- from the 1960s Jesus People movement and intensifying their ing Wimber’s leadership, the Vineyard acquired a reputation direction. At some bifurcations, the Vineyard chose the hy- for these conferences, and it was common for them to also percharismatic route, while at other moments “breakaway” be attended by individuals unaffiliated with the Vineyard. groups took some of these Vineyard traits and organizational While Wimber was a frequent and often foregrounded pres- structure and allowed them to become hypertrophied. Even ence during these conferences, it is important to note that the changes in the size of the group, both in terms of churches they were a collective endeavor and that a whole generation and members, can be seen as intensifications to the degree of Vineyard prayer leaders, pastors, and authors were both that changes in rate of growth and breadth of form are not produced and presented through and by way of these con- just numerical increases but qualitative transformations in ferences. character and capacity (Thompson 1942). These movement-defining conferences are important be- Just as noteworthy as the nature of this differentiation and cause they are one of the points of the next bifurcation. In development, though, is its rapidity. As this sketch shows, 1994, a Vineyard church in Toronto, Canada, experienced an even this one stream, in a course of 30 or so years, has re- upsurge of charismatic activity during a small conference that duplicated, bifurcated, and mutated at such a rate that the Wimber did not attend. Impressed by this reaction, this con- reifying work of recognition and organization as a traditional ference was extended on a day-by-day and then a week-by- denomination cannot keep pace; rather than dealing with week basis. Eventually it became an effectively perpetual run- generational change, we are seeing several waves of mutagenic ning conference called the Toronto Blessing, and other transformations occurring during the life of a single believer. Vineyard believers as well as other charismatics began to at- We also see that despite whatever value Bergson’s opposition tend in significant numbers, forming a sort of charismatic between openness and closure may or may not have as a pilgrimage. Space does not allow for a full discussion of what general rubric, transformations here are shifts in numerous these rather intense and seemingly also highly contagious autonomous axes or registers and are often more about ac- charismatic experiences were like (see Bialecki 2010a; Jackson celerations or intensifications in practice than they are about 1999; Poloma 2003), but certain aspects of this rolling con- a shifting sense of ethics: degrees of intimacy, intensity of ference, such as getting “drunk in the Spirit,” fits of “holy charismatic practices, speeds in the production of charismatic laughter,” and the Spirit-filled mimesis of animals (most com- gifts. These axes, we should finally note, cut across numerous monly, but not always, lions) spread rapidly both within and strata, indifferent to whether they are touching on the cultural without the Vineyard. Despite an initial endorsement by or the social, the signifying or the material. Wimber, this never-ending conference/revival/church was But the above sketch also brings us face to face with another eventually asked to disaffiliate with the Vineyard; this rejection issue that we have been skirting all along: Weber’s account did not slow down this movement at all, and it eventually of charisma. As this history indicates, particular individuals became the hub of an autonomous church network called (Gullikson, Wimber) seem to have an outsized profile in these “Partners in Harvest.” movements; a more complete narrative would be replete with This again can be seen as a differentiation, with the Toronto even more singular names of authoritative figures. It is tempt- Blessing intensifying the sense of conference in lieu of church ing to see Weber’s account of charisma (what we might call and an acceleration of pace of production of novel charismatic “charisma1”) as having a role in the type of Pentecostal/char- phenomena (e.g., after it parted from the Vineyard, partici- ismatic religiosity (“charisma2”) that we have been speaking pants in the Toronto Blessing reported gold dust appearing about here. But to do so would be to turn our backs on all unbidden from the ceiling, as well as dental fillings being that we have put forward in this essay. transformed into gold). Toronto itself has since bifurcated Weber’s theory of charisma is in essence just another pre- several times. Nor has the Vineyard been still. Over the years, sentation of the kind of unilinear social evolution that an- the Vineyard has increasingly become associated with a very thropological denominationalism has forced us to reject. For gentle antimodernism; this can be traced in its transition from Weber, charismatic authority is always temporary, a way sta- a church that once hosted Hal Lindsey (Higgins 2012:214) to tion for a generation or two until less supple modes of tra- becoming a movement with little space for the antimodernist ditional authority or bureaucratic rationality are reestablished. S202 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

This is again the logic of the breakaway sect turned into Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. sclerotic church, though with an emphasis on singular anti- Balmer, Randall, and Jesse T. Todd Jr. 1994. Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, nomian figures empowered by their capacity to capture light- California. In American congregations, vol. 1. J. P. Wind and J. W. Lewis, ning in a bottle. Therefore, the presence of figures such as eds. Pp. 663–698. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bandak, Andreas. 2014. Of refrains and rhythms in contemporary Damascus: Wimber and Gullikson makes Weber’s account, and thus the urban space and Christian-Muslim coexistence. Current Anthropology sociological denomination, seem all the more convincing. 55(suppl. 10):S248–S261. There are of course ways of seeing charisma as a collaborative Barber, Daniel Colucciello. 2011. On diaspora: Christianity, religion, and sec- ularity. Eugene, OR: Cascade. process, a joint project of the leader and followers (Csordas Bateson, Gregory. 1935. Culture contact and schismogenesis. Man 35(12): 2001 [1997]). But this merely decentralizes and systematizes 178–183. charisma and does not undo its implicit temporal direction. ———. 1958. Naven. 2nd edition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Three things need to be kept in mind if we are not to let Bergson, Henri. 1911. Creative evolution. Arthur Mitchell, trans. New York: Holt. Weber’s account throttle the model here. The first is to re- ———. 1935. The two sources of morality and religion. R. Ashley Audra and member that those other forms of postcharismatic transfor- Cloudesley Brereton, trans. London: Macmillan. mation, the supposed death of charisma, can also be figured Bialecki, Jon. 2008 Between stewardship and sacrifice: agency and economy in a Southern California charismatic church. 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The kingdom and its subjects: charisms, language, economy, is yet another norm as well. But finally, we must note that and the birth of a progressive politics in the Vineyard. PhD dissertation, even if we grant Weber’s claim, charismatic leaders, in break- University of California, San Diego. ———. 2010. Angels and grass: church, revival, and the neo-Pauline turn. ing with form and history, are still the prisoners of form and South Atlantic Quarterly 109(4):695–717. history; the ability to reorder and reorientate is to presume ———. 2011. No caller ID for the : demonization, charisms, and the previous orders and orientations that must be taken into ac- unstable subject of Protestant language ideology. Anthropological Quarterly count, and hence they determine the paths forward. This is 84(3):679–704. ———. 2012. Virtual Christianity in an age of nominalist anthropology. 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Becoming the Body of Christ Sacrificing the Speaking Subject in the Making of the Colonial Lutheran Church in New Guinea

by Courtney Handman

In this paper I argue for the important role of churches and denominations in anthropological analyses of Protestant Christianity. While many authors have emphasized subjects and subjectivity in their discussions of Protestant individualism, I argue that Protestant individualism puts greater, not less, emphasis on Christian social groups as moral formations. Denominationalism cannot be reduced to the intrusion of politics into religious practice without repeating the structures that underscore the secularization hypothesis. In order to explore this issue, I analyze the missiological theories and strategies behind the colonial Lutheran Mission New Guinea’s attempts to constitute Christian institutions of sacred unity while also confronting the problem of New Guinea’s extraordinary linguistic diversity. In opting to evangelize in church languages that they would teach to potential converts rather than in using local vernacular languages, the mission began to equate real Christian conversion with the capacity of local people to overcome ethnic or linguistic differences. Contrary to analyses that identify sincere speakerhood as the crucial component of Protestant practice, I argue that the Lutheran Mission sacrificed sacred speaking for the creation of sacred Christian groups as remnant churches.

gregational—are either ignored in anthropological studies of Lady Claire. Fascinating. How do you know you’re Christianity or are seen as not Christian in any important God? sense. Jack, the 14th Earl of Guernsey. Simple. When I One could argue that ignoring groups such as churches and pray to Him, I find I’m talking to myself. denominations reflects Protestant of the highly in- The Ruling Class (1972) dividualized practices of the people anthropologists of Chris- According to the secularization hypothesis developed by Max tianity have studied. Certainly the almost exclusive orientation Weber and others, religion under modernity was supposed to to the individualist sacred subject has been extremely pro- become a private affair, moving off the public stage and into ductive for the anthropology of Christianity, producing mod- the minds of private individuals. Of course, predictions of the els of transformation, personhood, materiality, temporality, public death of religion have been proven wrong in recent value, agency, and more (Coleman 2006; Engelke 2007; Har- years as of all stripes—and even just publicly ding 2000; Keane 2007; Luhrmann 2001; Robbins 2004a; religious people—have emerged as major forces in contem- Schieffelin 2002). In one sense the anthropology of Chris- porary life. tianity came into its own when it landed on the individualist This much is almost a social science truism at this point. subject as its primary unit of analysis. In order to get out of But the terms of the secularization hypothesis still hold subtle the culturalist trap—in which any shred of cultural continuity sway in much current anthropological thinking about Chris- could seem to negate conversion narratives—the Protestant tianity. In particular, the focus on the religious subject as the subject became the positive sign of cultural transformation. exclusive unit of Christian practice, belief, or salvation rein- However, a rigid focus on the subject has meant ignoring scribes the division of the world into a private, individual other extremely common and striking realities of Christian religious domain and a public, group-based political one. lives worldwide: Protestants create schisms and ever newer Groups—demographic, electoral, ethnic, but especially con- denominations, and they worry about church organization. These kinds of events and desires have mostly been neglected in the anthropology of Christianity. Courtney Handman is Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department of Reed College (3203 S.E. Woodstock Boulevard, When scholars see subjects forming into groups, a process Portland, Oregon 97202, U.S.A. [[email protected]]). This paper of object dissolving (Robbins 2003) begins: Christian groups was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and electronically look too much like kinship groups, ethnic groups, socioeco- published 19 XI 14. nomic groups, or national groups to be Christian in a mean-

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0006$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678283 S206 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 ingful sense (i.e., organized around practices and theologies prayer, this kind of linguistic imminence can morph into of Christianity).1 H. Richard Niebuhr (1929) argued that any religious .3 church is necessarily a non-Christian reduction of Christian I counterpose the sacred speaking subject with Protestant universality organized around socioeconomic class, race, or groups for a reason. Especially when viewed by church his- nationality. More recently, within the anthropology of Chris- torians under Weberian influences (e.g., Niebuhr 1929; tianity, Werbner’s (2011) discussion of a church schism in Troeltsch 1912), Protestantism was supposed to have replaced Botswana is mostly focused on power struggles between family the authority and hierarchy of the church with the (individ- members. Jebens (2005) analyses Seventh Day Adventist and ually read) Bible. That is, the opacity of institutionalism was Catholic denominational conflicts in Papua New Guinea as supposed to be replaced by the transparency of Bible reading the repetition of power politics between big men (traditional and biblically inspired individual speech. But the troubling fact of church organization never receded as much as mod- leaders). ernist theologians such as Niebuhr would have liked. The As contests for control over groups, things like church Bible, and the speaker-reader of it, was not able to do away schisms often are equated simply with politics. In that sense, with churches, denominations, and other forms of religious the Christian religious individual and the group-based forms sociality. New churches are created by the thousands every of the “political” do not frequently overlap. Even when re- year in the United States alone. Learning the alphabet soup ligious forms of politics are discussed, the focus remains on of denominational acronyms is a standard part of fieldwork the subject rather than on the organization of subjects into now for almost anyone with more than a passing interest in groups. Marshall’s (2009) analysis of Pentecostal politics in Christianity. Nigeria is tightly focused on the Foucauldian Christian sub- In this paper I argue for the important place of religious ject, so that when she does get to her chapter about politico- groups in studies of Christianity. To use some terminology religious groups (chap. 6), she mostly discusses Islam instead of groupness that Christian theology provides, what does it (see also O’Neil 2010 for another recent book on political- mean to Protestants to be the Body of Christ?4 How does one religious subjects that gives little attention to group forma- do it? What is the relationship between the Body of Christ tions).2 Protestantism has no major tradition of world- and the sacred speaking subject? Why is the Body of Christ, renouncing ascetics, but the focus on sacred subjectivities as instantiated in any one Protestant church or congregation, almost makes it seem as if Protestants are nothing but the so seemingly unstable and prone to schism? I want to examine desert fathers, searching for and talking to God all on their these issues in terms of the problems that Lutheran mission- own. aries encountered in colonial New Guinea.5 Although they One of the most productive yet also group-renouncing veins of the anthropology of the Christian subject has been 3. There is a slightly different literature on the bodily aspects of Chris- tian worship worth mentioning here (e.g., Cannell 2005; Lester 2005; see the work on the speaking subject and on Christian language also Hirschkind 2009). Cutting the modernist world into a different use more generally. As the bit of movie dialogue in the epi- dualism of mind vs. body rather than group vs. individual, this literature graph above shows, Protestants (or at least paranoid schiz- works against the speaking subject by focusing on the corporeal aspects ophrenic ones like Peter O’Toole’s character Jack in The Ruling of worship. However, in these cases the body becomes the unstructured site of immediacy in contrast to the structured mediations of language Class) can so lose track of the social world that they can even in the same way that the speaking subject is the asocial unit of salvation erase the distance between themselves and their divinities (see and belief in contrast to social groups in the literature discussed previ- Luhrmann 2001). Protestant talk—even Protestant ritual talk ously. This newer focus on the body leaves little room for discussions of such as prayer—is supposed to be direct, authentic, off-the- the sociality of Christian worship. For example, when Pickstock (2010) argues for thinking about performances of the liturgy in bodily terms, cuff, and without influence from others (Keane 2007; Shoaps she also moves her attention from structured “congregations” to un- 2002). The sacred speaking subject of Christianity is self- structured “masses” and “crowds.” contained and self-referring, a native speaker voicing authen- 4. On the Body of Christ, see, for example, Romans 7:4 and 12:3–8, tic prayers to a native God. As we see with Jack’s model of 1 Corinthians 10:16 and 12:27, and Ephesians 4:12. On the ways in which ritual events such as communion constitute the Body of Christ, see Tom- linson (2014:48–71). 5. A terminological note: “New Guinea” is the name for the island that is divided into the Indonesian province of West Papua (formerly 1. Mark Mosko’s (2010) recent criticisms of the anthropology of Chris- Irian Jaya) and the independent nation-state Papua New Guinea. By tianity can perhaps be understood as Melanesian-inspired realizations speaking here of “New Guinea,” I refer to the colonial territory of New that groups are inappropriately ignored in much current scholarship. Guinea that covered the northeast quadrant of the island and was claimed 2. The sociology of religion might be the only social science subdis- by the Germans in 1886. Australians took control of the Territory of New cipline that has an interest in Christians organized into groups, but un- Guinea after World War I, administering it for the League of Nations. fortunately these scholars engage in a that sees religious The Japanese occupied major segments of the territory in World War II groups as stand-ins for other demographic forms, as groups competing until the Australian Army retook the land for the Allied forces. After the in a spiritual “market,” or else as evolutionary survivals in the quest for war Australia administered New Guinea as a United Nations Trust Ter- solace at times of tragedy (see Bainbridge 1997 and Finke and Stark 2005 ritory. The two territories of Papua and New Guinea were joined together for good examples). and became an independent state in 1975. Given this convoluted history Handman Becoming the Body of Christ S207 initially hoped to create sacred speakers by translating the and invisible church during the Donatist Controversy of the Bible into vernacular languages, the Lutheran missionaries fourth and fifth centuries. The Donatist sect of the African gave up on that project when they confronted the extraor- church declared that the true church could only be composed dinary linguistic diversity of the north coast of New Guinea. of the elect.6 Augustine argued that there is a difference be- Sacred church organization became the primary focus instead. tween the visible church, which includes all church members From the perspective of the subject, much Protestant the- who constitute actual communities in the world, and the ology is expressed as a refusal of distance (Engelke 2007): invisible church, which is limited to the elect only. For Au- either of God, a sacred but alien language, or a hierarchical gustine, it was impossible for fallen men—including the Don- order. My own interest (and see also Mayblin 2014) is instead atists—to know who the elect of the invisible church really with the ways in which mediations—social and semiotic pro- were, as this is something only God could discern. The elect jects of creating distance—are central to Christian worship. must coexist with the damned in the earthly visible church. Without them, it is impossible to understand the recurrences For Augustine, the church developed in its members a charity of schism—of critical distance—that punctuate Christian lives toward others that defined Christian communal life for him in so many communities or of the later struggle to produce (Willis 1950). unity in the wake of Christian criticism. As I argue below, The distinction between the visible and invisible church— the church as a Christian group mediates the distance from and the question of what a church community is—is a re- God. Highlighting a few moments in the history of Christian curring issue in Christian history. Early Protestant reformers thinking about the nature of the Church, in the next section argued that the church centered in Rome was trying to elim- I present theological terms of Christian groupness, but I also inate the distinction between visible and invisible church by hope to demonstrate that groupness is a practical problem making itself the sole means of grace. Rather than elevating and one that can be investigated ethnographically. man as the Donatists had done, Luther, for example, saw the Church as debasing God, by making him coextensive with the earthly visible institution (Willis 1950:xii). The early Prot- Mediating Divine Distance through estants returned to an Augustinian position of arguing for Christian Groups the essentially unknowable extent of overlap between the vis- ible and invisible church. To borrow a term from dispensationalism, for many Chris- But the desire to create as much overlap as possible between tians the current age of Christianity is the “Church Age” the visible and invisible church, to make the church militant between Jesus’s first mission on earth and his later return. In as close as possible to the church triumphant, as an actually this era when God is distant, connection to him is constituted existing community, continues to reappear. The Puritans of through group worship, where believers bound together as a Tudor England and colonial America can be thought of as unit become the Body of Christ in the absence of his body neo-Donatists, looking to make a community out of the vir- on earth. It is out of this sense of dislocation from God that tual “community of saints” (i.e., invisible church). Separatist churches, denominations, and church groups can have im- Puritans argued for covenants that would bind people to- portance as theological formations and lived experiences of gether in common cause as the church militant, arguing that worship. The notion of the “church militant” captures the “saints without a were no more a true church than sense of urgent, continuous struggle that Christians as a body bricks and lumber unassembled were a building” (Foster 1991: engage in during this era of separation from God. The schis- 153). That is, as much as Protestants understand that only matic impulse to perfect the church is an expression of this God will reveal the differences between the visible and invis- militancy, of the fight that must be continuously waged against ible church, they still desire to work toward perfection in sin as a contaminating force from others as well as from the groups or as a church. If 2 Corinthians 6:17—“Come out self. A church can be defined then as a Christian group that from among them and be ye separate”—is the “cry of the forges paths to salvation and godly connection for its mem- schismatic” (Gaustad and Schmidt 2002:294), the desire is to bers through worship practices, beliefs, and the joint creation be separate together with others, as the church militant and of critical discursive fields. It can also be an evangelical for- not simply the subject militant. mation, working to create such paths for others. An important facet of the church debate comes from St. Augustine, who developed the distinction between the visible The Body of Christ: Christian Groups after Critique of trusteeship and colonial administration, it should come as no surprise that the Lutheran Mission was the most stable colonial institution in its For some Protestants, separation from God seems to demand areas of influence, providing educational, health, economic, and spiritual on the one hand a militant critique of others through sepa- services. I discuss events and issues in this paper from 1889, when the Lutheran Mission first landed on the Huon Peninsula, to the early 1960s, 6. For the Donatists, the church headed in Rome was made illegitimate when preparations for independence began in earnest, referring through- when it did not excommunicate the so-called traditores, members who out the paper simply to “colonial New Guinea.” had renounced Christianity under the Diocletian persecutions. S208 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 ration and a similarly militant union with others through formulation of Christian critique and groupness. As Bialecki worship. Paying attention to this later moment of unity is (2014) shows in a different context, separation and unification important for differentiating Christian groups from other lib- may be temporary group formations both in the sense of eral forms of individualist selfhood because schism and Chris- being unstable and in the sense of being earthly shadows of tian group formation looks very much like liberals dissolving heavenly realities, but they can be crucial Christian projects and reconstituting the . Even the extent to nonetheless. which the group is problematized is itself a liberal inheritance (see Wagner 1975). However, I argue that Christian practices can exhibit a more On Not Talking to Yourself: Language as Tool complex notion of groupness that challenges the instrumen- versus Language as Sacred Subjectivity in talism of liberal individual groups. An important concept that Colonial New Guinea reaches out toward the divergent models of in/visible or mil- Native language authenticity is one of the most important itant churches is that of the remnant—the group that is partial aspects of developing a “semiotic ideology” (Keane 2007) of but looks toward a horizon of eventual unity. The Christian immediacy in Protestant practice. In order to speak to God remnant as I am trying to use it here is the product of critique in the way many Protestants hope to do, one must speak as produced from the ethical demands of Christianity. Robbins “freely” as possible. Missiological practice takes this model of (2004b) and Meyer (1999) both discuss the ways in which freedom and fluency into spiritual territory by making native Christian critique constitutes a social whole—“the past,” “tra- language authenticity an attribute of true communion. Lan- dition,” or “our culture”—from which to engage in critique guage becomes “the shrine of a peoples’ soul” (Schieffelin and form this remnant (see also Barker 2014). Some of the 2007) or the “heart language” through which Christians’ in- most interesting work to date on the formation of Christian nermost selves can be addressed (Handman 2007). The Sum- groups in anthropology focuses on the ways in which the mer Institute of Linguistics (now known as SIL International) relationship of “church” to “society” is a product of critique.7 is a linguistics and literacy NGO that has brought this model At the same time, however, Christian groups only become the of Christian linguistic to most corners of the Body of Christ in their enactment of Christian unity, a partial world. SIL places two-person teams in as many language com- enactment of the unity imagined in the remnant made whole munities as possible in order to translate the or the heavenly church triumphant. While certain elements (and other literature) into each person’s (first or native) heart of the liberal tradition have similarly positive models of in- language. By making the Gospel sound as natural as possible corporation (early Marx’s image of “species being” to be re- in the vernacular, SIL translators want to erase any sense of alized in communist communities might be equivalent), lib- translation having happened.8 SIL teams want the New Tes- eralism largely sees groups as instrumentalist means to tament alone to produce new Christian communities without individualist ends. the mediating influence of churches or organizations, and SIL In the colonial New Guinea context, Christian group for- as a whole has a policy against church planting. mation was a central part of missiological work. The goal of As heirs to Luther’s sanctification of vernacular lan- Lutheran Mission organization was to foster and then partly guages, one might expect the Lutheran missionaries in New overcome acts of critical separation (see also Schieffelin 2014). Guinea to have supported this model of vernacular lan- Separation might first be from one’s immediate intravillage guage sacredness and authenticity. They occasionally did, neighbors, but then separation had to be suspended at the as when the 1948 Lutheran Mission New Guinea “Con- level of interethnic group relations. Unity, and Christianity, ference Minutes” includes a resolution from the executive only existed in Lutheran New Guinea when ethnic group committee affirming “the mission policy that a tribe be animosity was suspended. This critique-separation-unifica- evangelized in its own language” (1948 Conference Minutes, tion movement was supposed to be fostered by a complex RES 48–71, emphasis in original; for complete references organizational pattern of districts, circuits, and congregations to archival sources cited, see the appendix). But Lutheran that forced New Guinean Lutherans to walk across mountains, history in New Guinea does not reflect this affirmation. rivers, or valleys in order to become Christian (see Bandak Faced with the stunning linguistic diversity of the north 2014 for a comparative sense of ambulatory Christianity). The coast of New Guinea (there were over 200 languages spo- image of the separating remnant makes possible this positive 8. This domestication of Christianity can have the unintended con- 7. This includes John Barker’s work (1993, 1996) on the interactions sequence of allowing local people to “forget” their conversions, as hap- of villages and mission stations in Uiaku as well as Joel Robbins’s work pened with Piro speakers in Amazonia (Gow 2006; see also Vilac¸a 2014). (2004a, 2012) on the pseudoholism and diarchy that Urapmin use to However, such moments of “forgetting” are not necessarily constituted maintain their ever-present sense of sin. Omri Elisha’s (2011) recent by naturalistic Bible translations. Some Fijian Methodists, for example, monograph on American evangelicals importantly focuses on his subjects’ see missionization as having revealed the inherently Christian aspects of Christian critiques of social forces even if this leads to the failures of their culture even though the Bible translation in Fijian is not considered charity groups to maintain momentum or even organizational existence to be particularly fluent (I thank an anonymous reviewer for making this under neoliberal regimes. point). Handman Becoming the Body of Christ S209 ken in Lutheran territory), Lutheran missionaries began sent to the Australian colonial administration in 1959 promulgating lingua francas with which to evangelize local when education policy was shifting toward English. The people. In comparison with standard models of Protestant administration had always given the missions a relatively language, nonsacredness was the calling card of the church free hand in devising curricula. Lutherans taught village languages that the Lutheran Mission employed. children in whichever church language was used in that By “linguistic sacredness” I refer to the ways that divine district, creating a younger population that was literate, revelations come in specific linguistic forms (e.g., Hebrew or numerate, and able to recite Bible stories and other litur- Arabic) or the ways that linguistic subjectivities of sincerity, gical materials. In the mid-1950s, the New Guinea admin- authenticity, or authority, etc., can be used to make the Word istration decided that English must become the language “real” or affectively powerful to specific kinds of speakers.9 of the colony (and the language of the eventually inde- By any of these means, some kind of specificity is given to pendent nation-state) and that education should be aimed the language or to a speaker’s subjective orientation to the at teaching more secular skills. The Lutheran Mission was language. The linguistic nonsacred, as I am calling it, can be terrified that this policy would decimate not only their found in the nonspecificity, the lack of particularism, of a school system but their church organization as a whole. language. In 1960, the colonial administration mandated English- The Lutherans instituted three nonsacred and nonpartic- language education. Because most of the Lutheran teachers ular church languages that would be used in each of its three and evangelists had no knowledge of English, and because main districts: Gedaged (also called Bel or Graged) language the Lutherans had few education materials for English- in Madang district; Jabem (or Yabem) in Jabem (coastal Huon language curricula, their funding was slashed and their Peninsula) district; and Kaˆte in Kaˆte (interior Morobe) dis- institutional organization was thrown into disarray. The trict. Gedaged, Jabem, and Kaˆte were indigenous New Guinea mission felt betrayed by the administration that had up languages that missionaries learned and then taught to other until that point backed and often depended on the mission, New Guineans in Lutheran schools. Kaˆte, for example, went and even decades later the transition was still a sore spot from having 2,000 speakers at the end of the nineteenth cen- (see Hage 1986:409; Johnson 1977:445). tury to having roughly 100,000 people with some level of In a letter dated October 22, 1959, and addressed to the competence by 1959 (Kuder Brief, p. 4). The goal was not to minister for territories, the president of the Lutheran Mission, give speakers a relationship of sacred specificity to the church Paul Kuder, laid out his objections to the coming English- languages but to enable interethnic communication and a only policy. Much of the brief that addresses specifics of the Christian community. language history of the mission is an extended quotation from These language-defined districts shared in a generalized a mission internal memorandum “prepared by a senior mis- exchange of people and resources that was made possible by sionary on our staff, a man born in New Guinea, with long the use of a single lingua franca for all of its members. How- experience in dealing with her people and having the confi- ever, underneath this uniformity of language there was an dence of New Guineans and Europeans alike” (Kuder Brief, extensive organizational structure that divided district mem- p. 2), probably Wilhelm Flierl.10 This was the Lutherans’ pri- bers into many different bureaucratic and sacred groups. Dis- mary opportunity to defend the church languages’ important tricts were the largest organizational unit below the level of role in New Guinea. And yet even in this document Kuder the mission as a whole. Districts were composed of sometimes and Flierl give these languages at best lukewarm support that enormous circuits, which ideally had at least one European focuses solely on their practicality. missionary resident. If a group lived far from the circuit sta- In fact, Kaˆte and the other church languages are defended tion, the missionary was a rare sight. Beneath the circuit level mostly for their total lack of specificity within the New Guinea were congregations, which usually incorporated several vil- context. The church languages are, for all intents and pur- lages. Sunday services would be held at the congregational poses, perfectly equivalent to other New Guinea languages. seat, and people would have to walk (sometimes for several Given that this argument appears in a brief about the “lan- hours) in order to attend. “Native” evangelists from other guage problem” in New Guinea and details the long struggle circuits within the district would staff the church and school the Lutheran Mission had with languages, the argument at the congregational seat. This meant that in general the only adopted in the brief ironically downplays the role of linguistic language the evangelist and his flock shared was the church difference. lingua franca. Villages had elders, some of whom organized morning or evening prayer sessions and some of whom were 10. A son of the original Lutheran missionary Johannes Flierl, Wilhelm inactive. Flierl appears to have been the only missionary on staff at the time of The nonspecific, nonsacred character of the Lutheran the memorandum’s writing who was both born in New Guinea and old church languages is clearly evident in a brief the Lutherans enough to be considered a “senior missionary” (see Frerichs 1959). The fact that the memorandum includes anecdotes and facts mostly about Kaˆte also points toward Wilhelm Flierl’s authorship because he was one 9. That is, as a native “heart language” speaker of English, the Gospel of the primary missionaries who developed Kaˆte-language materials in English would speak to me in specific, sacred ways. (Reitz 1975:32). S210 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

We should get rid of the idea that the tribes lose anything Far from the linguistic sacred, church languages in the Lu- when we give them a different N[ew] G[uinea] language theran Mission perspective are simply instruments for effec- which is “ideologically” and in most cases even structurally tive communication. Kaˆte, Jabem, and Gedaged were the best perfectly equivalent to their own and in which they find the instruments to use given the years of work that Lutheran equivalent of every little shade of difference of meaning linguists had put into devising theological vocabularies, de- which is contained in their own vocabulary. What is the veloping and printing language learning materials, and teach- difference whether “eternal life” is juju-sangang (Kaˆte) or ing the language to parishioners across the Lutheran territory. gogo-ga¨neng (Mape) or kepkep-sili (Kuat-Hube) or an- Lutherans counted 100,000 people as both Christians and deandekatik (Komba) or mama-karingang (Naba) or alaala- Kaˆte speakers in the Kaˆte circuit, even as they recognized that tatanga (Kipu) and so forth?—When one of these languages only about 35,000 of them spoke Kaˆte with any fluency (Kuder dies out (as fortunately some of them have), no one loses Brief, p. 4). As opposed to the model of the sacred, fluent, anything except the linguist-anthropologists. (Kuder Brief, Christian speaker, the Lutheran Mission was populated with p. 5) 65,000 semispeakers who could nevertheless be called Chris- tians. The “Kipu” language mentioned here is now called Guhu- For Lutherans, the goal of an independent, autonomous, Samane, the vernacular used where I conducted fieldwork. In and thriving church was not going to be reached through talk, contemporary Guhu-Samane “alaala-tatanga” is still the or at least not through talk alone. The independent church phrase for “eternal life” (in current orthography it is spelled could only be reached by creating tight linkages across the “qaraqara tatanga”), although it literally means “strong life.” different mission circuits, with native evangelists crisscrossing While I have not been able to check on the other languages Lutheran territory in a wide-ranging movement aimed at get- mentioned in this quote, other Lutheran communities, such ting local people beyond ethnic boundaries and into the uni- as Yupno, similarly use “strong life” to calque “eternal life” versalism of Christian faith. But if New Guineans were to (“egapegap tebai”; James Slotta, personal communication), partake in this theological, economic, and geographical ex- and it is likely that these other languages do too. That is, change, this sacred public could only be formed with non- when Lutherans did engage with the vernacular languages, sacred church languages. I want to now turn to the ways in they tried to make them conform to the regional church which the church as a hierarchical, regional, and multiethnic standard.11 institution was seen as an integral part of creating Christians However, note that this effort to construct a language in New Guinea. for religious discourse along lines similar to work in Africa (Harries 1987; Meyer 1999) is in this case mentioned in the context of an argument against making any language sacred. Each of these languages could die out, says the Sacred Institutions of Unity author; no harm no foul (except for those secular scientists of language and culture, the linguist-anthropologists). In- Church organization was a sacred project, one to which other deed, a reduction in the multiplicity of languages in New forms of sacredness, such as language and the speaking sub- Guinea could only help develop both a democratic state ject, had to be sacrificed. The mission decided to promulgate and an ecclesiastic structure. nonsacred church languages after World War I when there The Lutherans were arguing a complex middle ground be- was a sudden opportunity for mission expansion into the tween the particularism of linguistic sacredness that would interior highlands (Kuder Brief, p. 3). Quoting again from atomize the speech communities within their territory as au- the Kuder Brief to the administration, the urgency of the post– tonomous units and the completely foreign imposition of World War I moment is clear. English as a universal standard for an emerging, secular, in- What should the mission have done? Stop the expansion by dependent nation-state. The church lingua francas were in- force, at a certain stage, until every little tribe that had been struments to creating a specifically New Guinea form of Chris- won was neatly fitted out with every miniature institution tianity that used linguistic categories and concepts shared by necessary for its subsistence as a little Christian church of all of the New Guinea languages. According to the letter, New its own? There were missionaries who strongly favoured Guineans can learn other New Guinea languages much more such a development. If they had had their way, the Lutheran quickly than they can learn English, because “all New Guinea Mission would probably look very nice today and make a languages have practically identical thought categories, ideas good impression on visitors, but certainly have no part, to and concepts” (Kuder Brief, p. 8). speak of, in the winning of New Guinea for Christ. (Kuder Brief, p. 3) 11. It is clear that the first term in each of the examples is reduplicated The author presents the counterfactual history of (ju-ju, go-go, kep-kep, etc.). In the Guhu-Samane and Yupno cases, the reduplicated forms are variants of the existential verb “to be.” I would as a parody of church organization. “Every little tribe” with guess that this morphosyntactic uniformity comes from Lutheran im- “every miniature institution necessary” producing “a little position, as a calque of the Kaˆte form. Christian church of its own” is a nice dream of the ethno- Handman Becoming the Body of Christ S211 linguistic sacred but one that simply was impossible in the the archival record of local peoples’ criticism of the Lutheran case of New Guinea.12 work. But we should understand Horndasch’s complaint from Practically, the mission required a superethnic organization within his Lutheran orientation to establishing a sacred unity. so that local evangelists could be sent to missionize in areas The problem is not a lack of individual beliefs or sacred beyond the reach of European missionaries, a practice that speaking subjectivity but is instead a problem of refusing to began in 1907 (Frerichs 1959:260). Theologically, this super- overcome differences in the practice of church-constituting ethnic organization was the actual embrace of Christian uni- charity, as Augustine would call it. versalism. Alfred Koschade, a Lutheran missionary to New Guinea, Through the church languages a large number of tribes who developed theological arguments for church organization as had been enemies or even total strangers to one another, part of a Lutheran response to Christians from the Global were joined together into one large community. It is true, South urging expatriate missionaries to leave their fields (Kos- God had effected the union through His Word and Sacra- chade 1967). At issue is the familiar conflict between inde- ments and through His Holy Spirit. However, that union pendent autonomy and sacred unity, the relationship between would remain an abstract one, as it were. It could not have been properly experienced and enjoyed, nor utilized for the visible and invisible churches played out on the colonial mutual edification and for common enterprise, without per- stage. Koschade emphasizes the moment in 1956 when the sonal intercourse, which was only made possible through Lutheran Mission New Guinea officially became the Evan- the common language. (Kuder Brief, p. 4) gelical Lutheran Church of New Guinea. He writes that even if individual New Guineans had been in the process of be- Missionaries constantly emphasized cross-circuit link- coming members of the Body of Christ since the first Lutheran ages in their reports and, it would seem, in their discus- conversions in 1899, it was not until 1956 that New Guineans sions with their flocks. An important statistic for annual became a church as such. He argues that the invisible church station reports was how many evangelists each circuit had sent out to work in other Lutheran circuits. Missionaries (“the congregation of saints and true believers” [Koschade constantly searched for suitable candidates, sent them to 1967:13]), while important, is not sufficient. New Guineans, evangelist schools, and hoped that they would be able to and all Christians, must also join together to constitute an work well in a cross-cultural situation. Many candidates, actual existing community and create an actual existing unity at least in the Zaka region with which I am most familiar, across difference. quickly came back, unable or uninterested in effecting the Moreover, Koschade (1967) argues that “constituted “mutual edification” that the Lutheran missionaries hoped churches” are necessary to enrich the world’s understanding for (e.g., 1958 Zaka Report). The laity was also supposed of the Christian revelation, as each such church has a per- to contribute to this project in the form of donations to spective on the Gospel unique to its cultural and social milieu other circuits or in offering their young men up as evan- that must then be promulgated in evangelism. gelists, but the missionaries usually had to fight with their congregants in order to make these exchanges happen (see [The constituted church] is not merely a matter of orga- Zaka Reports for 1958, 1961, 1962, 1964). nization or of autonomy or of historical development. It is Missionary Horndasch fought with his Zaka circuit mem- a matter of theology—of the comprehension of the Word bers who too often equated the sacred circuit with the secular and its proclamation. For this is essentially what theology colonial administrative unit: “But this year it was harder than is all about. It is the church from its particular position in ever before to get the money out of their hands for Elcong- history and in the light of prevailing social and cultural and Kaˆte-District-Treasury. They offer from one hand into conditions examining the Word of God which brought the the other and the money is still theirs. What kind of offering church into being, for the sake of proclaiming that Word is this we think?—Because the missionary is the only one who to the world. (20–21) collects the money for Elcong and District Treasury they call him: ‘tax-collector’. A nice name for a missionary, isn’t it?” This is certainly a cliche´d paean to multiculturalism, (1960 Zaka Report).13 This is an important moment within given the never-specified content of the “prevailing social and cultural conditions” providing each group’s unique 12. SIL would disagree, of course. When SIL allocated a translation perspective. But it is nevertheless an important argument team to work with “Kipu” speakers in 1957, the resident Lutheran mis- for churches as the necessary institutional formations sionary realized the threat that SIL’s work posed: if the SIL translator continued to turn the Kipu language into a liturgical one, the local people through which Christian understanding and evangelization would no longer need to be a part of the system of generalized exchange occur. Like Puritan arguments that Christians without cov- within the Kaˆte district that enabled congregational life (1958 Zaka Re- enant are so many dissected organs of the Body of Christ, port). Koschade enunciates Lutheran Mission sentiment that em- 13. Elcong is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Guinea, the institutional heir of the Lutheran Mission New Guinea that was formed phasizes the theological importance of what Augustine in 1956 to develop an autonomous and independent church. called the visible church. S212 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

The Remnant: Groupness in a Religion for stands over against the world, society and culture, rejecting SomeandYetAll it and being rejected by it. (Koschade 1967:40)

Koschade later cites and agrees with the pseudomulticultur- Criticism is often the engine of schism and , alist missiological theories of Donald McGavran, a conser- producing more and more Christian groups among indepen- vative American evangelical who had a major influence on dent churches. But it was also important to the Lutheran midcentury missions work through his books (McGavran missionaries, who of course were not trying to create schisms 1955, 1970) and his position as founder of the School of World (at least not within the Lutheran Mission). Rather, mission- Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary in California.14 aries such as Koschade saw the divisions within the world— McGavran (1970) actually argued against mainline many of which were established through Lutheran missionary of the sort the Lutherans practiced. He felt that people should practice—as helpful tools with which Lutherans could develop be converted from within their “homogeneous units,” roughly theological insights. Young evangelists sent to other circuits, equivalent to “cultures” or “people groups.” McGavran’s mis- for example, could recognize differences with their home cir- siology closely resembles SIL’s model of the ethnolinguistic cuits and use these differences as teaching tools with which sacred, in which people are constituted within a sacred speak- to council their new charges. As much as the gentlemen’s ing subjectivity characterized by immediacy. It is a model that agreements kept intermission hostilities at a low boil, Lu- rejects the importance of difference or, in McGavran’s terms, theran missionaries were still happy to see fights with their of “crossing boundaries.” How then does Koschade—a Lu- Roman Catholic counterparts become opportunities for (what theran missionary devoted to precisely this practice of crossing they thought of as) critical work. For example, Goilalans, as a theological necessity—square his McGavran-like multi- whose land abuts the Zaka circuit, were officially in Roman culturalism with his Lutheran insistence on confrontations Catholic mission territory, but the Lutheran Mission tried for with others? years to see whether the Goilalans could be convinced to come Koschade is able to emphasize both “prevailing cultural into the Lutheran fold. When Missionary Schuster did have and social conditions” as producing unique perspectives on a small group to baptize, he focused on the importance of the Gospel and to theologically justify the necessity of me- the public ritual as an engine of comparative, critical work diating church institutions by working with a concept of the for other Goilalans in attendance: “Then, this baptism of the remnant. As in Romans 11:5 and echoing , the remnant first 30 Lutherans in the Goilala area was a great event in is the shattered remains of a once whole group. The remnant September, with many heathens and R. C. [Roman Catholic] is also the group in the process of trying to reconstitute itself, adherents attending, of whom many of the latter returned what might also be called “the church militant” fighting to their crucifixes given to them by the priest to him declaring achieve salvation. they would from now on, join the Lutherans” (1957 Zaka Report). For Missionary Schuster the public baptism service [The Gospel] can never be manipulated in such a way that gave heathens and “R.C.”s (not coincidentally paired to- the [indigenous] church, which is the product of the Gospel, gether) a chance to engage in a critical comparison between is made into an institution recognized and accepted by all Lutheranism and their culture or mission. members of the society, or with which they all identify them- Most importantly, the remnant provides a space for un- selves. . . . There must, therefore, always be a tension between derstanding groups within what is otherwise a universal re- the church and society, for the people of God are a remnant ligion of brotherhood. The remnant is a group—shattered people, a pilgrim people who are but strangers and sojourn- from a prior moment of unity and universality—into which ers in the world. (Koschade 1967:39) Christians work to place themselves through critical work. As opposed to the ideals of SIL or McGavran or to the models The remnant allows the church as an institution to recognize of immediacy that attempt to remove society all together from but also exist between the individualism of the Christian on Christian practice, the remnant emphasizes the ways in which the one hand and the universality of humanity on the other. both the church and the church’s only partial overlap with As opposed to the emphasis on immediacy that Keane (2007) society is important. and Engelke (2007) analyze, remnant churches depend on Discursively, the remnant insists on the central role of crit- critical mediations to turn themselves into what Koschade icism: of one’s traditions, culture, language, or church. The referred to as “constituted churches.” Neither Geertz’s (1973) Christian remnant is the group that is organized around cri- model of assent and belief nor Asad’s (1993) model of bodily tique. practice capture ways in which the remnant group is formed [Christ] is both in and of the world, a product of a particular through critical comparison and the production of difference. human society with all of its cultural institutions, speaking Moving back to the archival materials, the experiments with a particular language, practicing particular customs, sharing groups and with churches can be seen as different attempts the history of a particular people; and at the same time he to make the remnant visible, public, and constituted in the militant fight to create paths to salvation. In 1962 in the Zaka 14. It is now known as the School of Intercultural Studies. circuit, Missionary Horndasch describes a village in which the Handman Becoming the Body of Christ S213 elders called roll at morning prayers, punishing those who pose moments of separation in which a remnant is forged. were absent without proper excuse. Horndasch admitted it McGavran argues that each generation within each “homo- was “a bit legalistic” (i.e., Roman Catholic), but he permitted geneous unit” must engage in its own revival in order to it because it seemed to be creating a thriving spiritual com- maintain a vibrant and authentic (i.e., noninstitutional) munity. Christianity. Similarly, SIL argues for the importance of native It would be easy to discount this as not even a Christian language evangelism from within the linguistic economy of moment. Some scholars would consider this more an event power and prestige of the nation-state. The critical act of of colonial resistance, of taking up the power of the roll book empowerment for minority cultures within a nation-state is from the colonial officer and putting it into local hands (e.g., the sacralization of the ethnolinguistic group that takes place Comaroff and Comaroff 1991). And indeed, that aspect of through New Testament translation.16 Both McGavran and the practice cannot be ignored. But it is also a moment of SIL members (e.g., Nida 1954) saw their missiological models Christian experimentation with the group in a novel religious as not being colonial projects in that they provided local realm. Like the circuits developed through the promulgation peoples with spiritual tools of emancipation and critique of church languages, the Lutherans were more than just will- (Handman, forthcoming). That is, the remnant is a widely ing to create new groups. They saw it as imperative to do so available model for Christian critique and group formation. in order to create that difference between “society” and “the I followed Troeltsch, Niebuhr, and any number of Western church,” between the critical remnant and the potential uni- Christians in pitting church institutions against linguistic au- verse of Christians. A small group of New Guinea Lutherans thenticity, but is this necessary? If the Lutherans on the one had engaged in the roll book experiment in an attempt to hand develop their theologies of remnant groups and make that relationship clear. McGavran and SIL on the other hand can depend on the authority of native language and culture to anchor their work, is there any use to this distinction? Conclusion I argue there is a useful distinction here, although it requires The terms I have used in this paper from Christian theology a slight reformulation of some of the terms. The major dif- or history—“in/visible church,” “church militant,” “rem- ference between Lutheran and SIL missiology might instead nant”—are all terms that get more use in either Roman Ca- be the different ways in which the remnant may be memo- tholicism or the early Reformation churches (Anglicans and rialized and carried through time (cf. Agamben 2005, who Lutherans). It leaves open the question of whether this em- argues that the remnant only exists within “messianic time”). phasis on groups is really only applicable in such cases; that For Lutherans, cognizance of the separation and attempts at is, whether it ignores the Pentecostal and evangelical traditions reunification are crucial. The church remains a mediating so central to the anthropology of Christianity. Is it simply the force throughout Christian life (at least on this earth) as the case that churches are either interested in church organization institution that performs separation and unification. For SIL or else in the sacred speaking subject? or other McGavran-inspired groups, the goal of native lan- The Lutheran Mission framed its own history as a choice guage authenticity of Christian discourse suggests that once between sacred speakers of the sort associated more with Pen- completed, the critical act of separation can be sublimated in tecostal and evangelical Christianity on the one hand and attempts to forge connections with God. sacred organization of the constituted church on the other. The ethnographic case of the Guhu-Samane—heirs of the Zaka circuit and Kipu language discussed here—helpfully However, not every Lutheran missionary saw these as opposed points to the ways in which both emphases can be present forces. I noted at the beginning of this paper that the Lu- in a Christian community. In the 45 years since most Guhu- therans passed a resolution at their 1948 conference affirming Samane schismatically split with the Lutheran Church in the the importance of native language evangelization even though wake of an SIL-inspired Holy Spirit revival, new churches they did not work with native languages in many cases. Yet have appeared with a regular insistence. Sometimes the post- early Lutherans were great scholars of Huon Peninsula an- revival lack of unity is lamented. Today, people scoff at how thropology and linguistics.15 Christian Keysser, the missiol- strange and foreign the Kaˆte language sounds as a language ogical leader of the early Lutheran Church, believed in work- of worship, but still they appreciate the district-wide unity ing within the terms of local culture to enact conversions and connections that were made possible by it. And yet the (Lawrence 1956; Tomasetti 1998). And other than the prob- qualities of the remnant, of the militant fight to create the lems in the Zaka circuit, Lutherans were very supportive of group through which salvation can occur, is not something SIL’s work in New Guinea (see 1960 Conference Minutes). they would give up. Schism is their form of critique—political, Further, the remnant is not just a Lutheran concern. Even religious, and organizational. McGavran’s or SIL’s models of linguistic imminence presup-

15. Otto Dempwolff, the first person to suggest the Austronesian lan- 16. SIL publications describe members’ work specifically in terms of guage family, was actually a doctor with the Lutheran Mission who studied providing a sense of “linguistic self-esteem” for minority language speak- the linguistic research of his mission colleagues. ers. S214 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Guhu-Samane work to maintain a sacred speaking subjec- collegial context. I would also like to thank the other partic- tivity that emphasizes immediacy through their history of SIL ipants for their comments on this paper and for the incredibly Bible translation. But they also maintain this spirit of Chris- rewarding week spent in discussion. I particularly thank Jon tian critique, given institutional form in the models of group- Bialecki and Bambi Schieffelin for their insights and conver- ness developed by the Lutheran Mission, where sacred church sation. A number of other people provided important feed- structure trumped the sacred speaking subject. As I argue back on parts of this paper, including Charlene Makley, Paul elsewhere (Handman 2010), even their ongoing translation Silverstein, James Slotta, and the anonymous reviewers for work does not erase the historical mediations of denomina- Current Anthropology. Some of the research conducted for tional splits. In fact, practices of translation in Guhu-Samane this paper was supported by a Fulbright-Hays doctoral dis- churches highlight the ways in which they have taken up a sertation fellowship and an international doctoral research model of SIL-like “heart language” that created their revival fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. even as they historicize that language through ongoing trans- lation work. APPENDIX Ruth Marshall (2009:143–144, 163–164) argues that born- again Christianity in Nigeria does not project an identity. Within messianic time as discussed by Agamben (2005), being Archival Documents a Christian is, if anything, the negation of all identities. But as Marshall also notes (2009:165), this renunciation of identity Martin Luther Seminary Archives, Lae, Papua New Guinea is not equivalent to a renunciation of community, nor, I would 1948 Minutes of the Lutheran Mission New Guinea Annual add, of the importance of groups like churches. Churches Conference certainly can be identity groups. In fact, that is usually all 1960 Minutes of the Lutheran Mission New Guinea Annual they are assumed to be. But as I have tried to argue here, Conference churches can be other things entirely: constituted perspectives 1953 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Schuster on Christian revelation that bring others to greater under- 1957 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Schuster standing, places from which to launch critiques, mediating 1958 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Schuster institutions that historicize the possibilities of salvation, par- 1958 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Horndasch tial constitutions of divine unity. 1960 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Horndasch Identity groups often tend to assume or aim for stability 1961 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Horndasch and permanence. Protestant churches do not necessarily have 1962 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Horndasch the same goal. Foster (1991:185) says that it was a Puritan 1964 Annual Report, Zaka Circuit, Missionary Horndasch axiom that “separation did not automatically beget refor- 1964 Annual Report, Zaka-Garaina Circuit, Missionary mation,” holding out the hope and possibility for further Dahinten schisms to come. “Once reformed, always reforming” as Lu- ther put it. As a long history of Melanesian anthropology has taught, the duration of a group’s existence should not be seen Paul Kuder Collection, Archives of the Evangelical Lutheran as an index of its cultural or political importance. Groups Church of America, Chicago, Illinois organized around events rather than ethnic identities are in Kuder Brief to Administration, 1959 fact the Melanesian norm (Strathern 1988; Wagner 1974). Protestant Christianity has been partly responsible for the sedimentation of seemingly permanent ethnic groups in Mel- References Cited anesia, but practices of Christian critique have made the rem- Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. The time that remains. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni- versity Press. nant—the ongoing work of separation and reunification— Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of religion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University possible as well. This is evident in the many denominations Press. and schisms that occur in Melanesia and across the Global Bainbridge, William. 1997. The sociology of religious movements. New York: Routledge. South. It is because of their impermanence and overwhelming Bandak, Andreas. 2014. Of refrains and rhythms in contemporary Damascus: capacity for proliferation that we need to attend to—not ig- urban space and Christian-Muslim coexistence. Current Anthropology nore—these churches. 55(suppl. 10):S248–S261. 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Pentecostal identity. In The anthropology of Christianity. F. Cannell, ed. Pp. McGavran, Donald. 1955. Bridges of God. New York: Friendship Press. 163–184. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ———. 1970. Understanding church growth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. 1991. Of revelation and revolution, vol. Meyer, Birgit. 1999. Translating the devil. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mosko, Mark. 2010. Partible penitents. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Elisha, Omri. 2011. Moral ambition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Institute 16(2):215–240. Engelke, Matthew. 2007. The problem of presence. Berkeley: University of Cal- Nida, Eugene. 1954. Customs and cultures. New York: Harper. ifornia Press. Niebuhr, H. Rheinhold. 1929. The social sources of denominationalism. New Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark. 2005. The churching of America, 1776–2005. York: Holt. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 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S216 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Schism, Event, and Revolution The Old Believers of Trans-Baikalia

by Caroline Humphrey

This paper discusses historical dynamics in the Russian , in particular among the groups known as Old Believers. Seeing itself as the only true continuation of ancient Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy has been more concerned with continuity and institutional authority than with conversion into the faith, and therefore schism was regarded as a matter of utmost significance. The Great Schism of 1666 split the reforming central religious authorities from the plethora of Old Believers, so-called because they remained faithful to the truth of the old ways. Over later centuries the excommunicated Old Believers would themselves scatter and splinter repeatedly, in each case erecting boundaries around a newly defined (yet seen as ancient) righteous way of life, while also protecting it from the state law and external authority. In this paper I suggest that these schismatic decisions to adopt the stance of messianic “rightness,” and the willingness of martyrs to struggle for it, can be related to the moral-social basis of the Russian Revolution, especially if revolution is understood not simply as a political event but also as the forging of new and “true” meaning, accompanied by the rejection of wrongful thinkers.

The anthropology of Christianity, especially the work of Joel saw as the essential truth (istina), which was embodied in the Robbins (2007, 2010), has pointed to the centrality of tem- religious forms of the previous era. poral ruptures in Christian imagination. Studying the explo- What difference does it make when such a schism is the sive spread of Pentecostal and charismatic forms of Chris- event that shapes and inspires a vision of the religious life? tianity around the world, attention has focused on conversion The most obvious contrast with the evangelist conversion as the point of the break with the past, the life-changing nature scenario is that instead of the struggle to cut out old (pre- of its revelation of the event proclaimed in the Pauline epistles, Christian) habits in order to replace them with the new (Rob- the resurrection of Christ (Robbins 2010:634). This renewed bins 2010; Vilac¸a 2014), the concern here is the other way attention to the temporalities found in Christianity is certainly around—not to let the new (heretical, unholy) elements pen- justified, as many of the articles in this issue testify. However, etrate the virtuous life. As I will show, some Old Believers, other older ways of thinking about time and the ideal Chris- in their pious respect for the ancient and genuine, even in- tian life may differ significantly from the contemporary Pen- cluded pre-Christian “pagan” elements in their rites. Mean- tecostal understanding. The Eastern Orthodox Church has while, all of them in various ways—and this could be seen been concerned more with the continuity and institutional as definitional of the identity of Old Believer—erected zeal- authority of the one true faith than with conversion. Con- ously observed boundaries against changes instituted by the sequently, ruptures in the history of the church itself have official church authorities, and by extension against the law come to have extraordinary and agonized significance—they and external authority as such. This paper argues that this have become the events around which religious loyalties are ardent determination was in fact to insist on a transfigured scattered. This article discusses the Great Schism of the Rus- and “messianic” (Agamben 2002) interpretation of the reli- sian Orthodox Church in 1666, which ‘”divided not only the gious community in time. Activity of the present, reiterating Church, but the whole of society” (Petrov 2007:11). The the ancient istina and always constituting itself in opposition schism was caused by the introduction of ritual reforms by to the ways of the official church, was to manifest a postschism Patriarch Nikon and supported by the Tsar. It split the central purity, to be a step toward salvation and indeed a spiritual religious authorities from the plethora of Old Believers (sta- revolution. rovery), so-called because they remained faithful to what they Mentioning revolution in Russia requires me to broaden this discussion. Let us begin with Oleg Kharkhordin’s sug- Caroline Humphrey is Professor in the Department of Social gestion (1998) that we should reconsider the religious roots Anthropology of the University of Cambridge (Free School Lane, of different conceptions of civil society. He draws attention Cambridge CB2 3RF, United Kingdom [[email protected]]). This to the specifically Russian Orthodox idea. Unlike the Calvinist paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 29 VII 14, and electronically vision of an autonomous, prepolitical congregation that itself published 19 XI 14. creates a minimal state, or the Catholic conception of an

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2015/55S10-0007$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678476 Humphrey Schism, Event, and Revolution S217 alternative spiritual authority that defends its congregation by Kharkhordin as “the Dostoevskian project” was most against the powerful , the equivalent Orthodox staunchly and in its purest form advocated by the very people version—espoused notably by Dostoevsky—is of a spiritual cast out from the church and repressed by the Soviets, notably transformation of humanity and the reconstruction of the the Old Believers. Indeed, it was the Old Believers’ insistence entire world on religious principles. Ecclesiastical courts on the priority of religion over state authority that was the would regulate all aspects of life, so that the merciful authority very reason for their (Cherniavsky 1966). of the church would be substituted for bloody state punish- This provides the first clue about the relevance of revo- ment handed down by secular courts. The world, as it were, lution, for the excommunication of the Old Believers in the dissolves into the church without residue (1998:955–956). seventeenth century was not a one-sided matter. By rising up “Paradoxically,” Kharkhordin continues, “the Russian Revo- and refusing to obey, the dissenters in effect cut themselves lution may have tried translating the Dostoevskian project off from the official church. They deemed the ritual and li- into reality” (1998:957). And he then goes on to develop the turgical reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652 thesis, already suggested in his book The Collective and the and 1666 ungodly in motivation since they were aimed to Individual in Russia, that Soviet collectives embodied long- align Russian Orthodox practice with that of the Greek standing Russian morally based social forms, found earlier Church. That church, it was argued, was corrupted and com- not only in the peasant commune but also in Orthodox con- promised by its position in the Ottoman Empire and bor- gregations. This paper suggests that we could go further. The rowings from Roman Catholicism, and hence the reforms implication of Kharkhordin’s train of thought is that the Oc- could only have been designed for the worldly purpose of tober Revolution, despite its own rhetoric, was a revolution strengthening the Russian position in international politics. in some sense within, not against, an encompassing “reli- The Great Schism was at least as much propelled by an active gious” conception of society. Such a vision would provide the uprising of dissenters as by the insistence of church authorities Revolution with an alternative genealogy from the one we are on their own authority. used to. Rather than assuming that the historical antecedents Now the confrontational attitude of the schismatics to the of October 1917 could only be the aborted revolution of 1905 Tsar and the state, along with their support for peasant revolts and the of 1789, we might refer instead and their communal organization led to generations of pop- to the Great Schism of Russian Orthodoxy in 1666. This ulist intellectuals portraying them romantically as proto-rev- would allow us to bring in new ideas of revolution itself. Why olutionaries and socialists (Etkind 2003). Soviet writers should Russia, particularly in the future, always have to bear reached a similar conclusion: the theological objections of the the mark of 1917? Other concepts of revolution, as I shall try dissidents were depicted as trivial obfuscations, while the re- to show in this paper, enable us to think about the kind of ligious movements were interpreted as fundamentally class historical ruptures that have occurred within Christianity and protests against a regime of exploitation.2 Both of these ac- investigate their potential both for social theory and for so- counts were strategic depictions of the dissenting sects by cietal transformations. external observers with their own political agendas.3 This pa- Kharkhordin argues, rightly, to my mind, that both Or- per, rather, examines the question of the revolutionary quality thodox and Soviet communities maintained themselves of schism as it were “from inside”—that is, by looking at the through circular self-administered corrective practices. These Old Believers’ own statements in relation to their actual social consisted fundamentally of three moves: to denounce sin, to organization. From this it emerges that the situation was the admonish into righteousness, and—if the sinner was recal- opposite of the Soviet view: it was theological-ritual differ- citrant—to excommunicate (1998:957). This paper examines ences and not unbearable socioeconomic conditions that were the nature of excommunication and its relation to schism and the raison d’eˆtre of the dissident sects (Heretz 2008:80). And concepts of revolution. Kharkhordin says little further on the these were not merely intellectual differences but convictions topic except to note the official line that the excommunicated that required self-sacrifice—even the ultimate sacrifice—on would see the error of their ways, repent, and be readmitted the part of the adherents. into the fold. But as we know, this never really happened in The centuries-long persecution of the Old Believers as her- either the Orthodox Church or the Soviet cases. For in 1656 etics and schismatics (raskolniki) provides the context in the Old Believers were not excommunicated but “anathe- which their main religious inspiration came neither from the matized” (cursed), meaning there was no way back for them.1 prophet, nor from the apostle, but from the martyr. This Millions of such permanently excluded people, and later those suggests a subtle contrast with the emphasis of the “new phil- executed and imprisoned by the Communist authorities, con- osophical Paulines” (Robbins 2010:634) on the apostle as the tinued to form a large part of the Russian population. Yet— key figure in bringing the conversion Event into the lives of and this is significant—the spiritual transformation described new converts. Giorgio Agamben, a leader in these discussions,

1. I am very grateful to Dominic Martin for pointing out to me the 2. See discussion in Heretz (2008:78–80). important distinction between excommunication (bringing a sinner back 3. Similar interpretations have been advanced by some Western an- into line) and anathema (a permanent ban for heresy). thropologists, e.g., Dunn and Dunn (1967:30n). S218 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 differentiated the prophet, a person in immediate relationship seems to me compatible in both writers (Kaufman 2008). This with God, from whom he received a word that is not his, and time, in Agamben’s formulation, is neither the world’s end who is oriented to the past or the future, with the apostle, nor the coming world, but the time that lies between them; who is the emissary for a particular concern that he himself in his poignant phrase this is “the time that is left to us” must accomplish on this earth and in the present (2002:1). (2002:5) now, in which to accomplish the Christian life. The The martyr is similar to the apostle in that his or her message actions of people during the messianic time are reiterations is for the present time, but the emphasis in this case is on that are transfigured by their being undertaken in the light an exemplary preexisting certainty, upheld against terrible of the holy presence or, in the language of the Old Believers, , rather than a new revelation. of the essential truth (istina) of the Father, the Son, and the In some ways, this idea of the martyr can also be related Holy Spirit. Each element of the past becomes an allegory or to revolution and thus to a concept of the religious life that figure of the present time and finds its fulfilment in it (2002: is not simply negative—not only the obstinate rejection of all 8). that seems external, unholy, and overpowering. Martin Hol- braad (2013) has argued, using the example of Cuba, that a commitment to self-sacrifice is a defining quality of the rev- The Old Believers in History olutionary subject. The premise of self-sacrifice lends revo- lutionary politics an ontological foundation that makes it rad- If we can see self-sacrifice on behalf of convictions as a theme ically different from broadly “liberal” understandings of common to political and religious revolutions, the Russian politics. Self-sacrifice, he suggests, is “a catalyst for an act of Great Schism nevertheless initiated its own original historical political cosmogony. The chief characteristic of the cosmos process. The dissenting groups’ understandings of an envel- that the command of self-sacrifice sustains . . . is its all- oping cosmos were creative, in the sense that they each in- encompassing totality” (370). If “political cosmogony” applies sisted on a different point in what was (in principle) the same a fortiori to the Soviet Revolution, I shall suggest that it is foundational theology. Out of opposition to autocracy and equally applicable to the Old Believers. The two best known the Patriarch emerged an unheralded emancipatory and egal- of many Old Believer martyrs, Protopop Avvakum (1620/1– itarian social practice. This was to challenge established power 1682) and Boyarina Morozova (1632–1675), sacrificed their regimes in gender and learning as well as the military- lives for their convictions. Avvakum was burned at the stake, administrative state. Women from the start became prominent and Morozova suffered death by starvation while being im- martyrs and exemplars (Paert 2003); wealthy and poor, mer- prisoned in a dungeon. To refer again to the themes of the chants, artisans, and peasants, all accreted to the movement. event, the subject, and the models of discontinuity that have All were anathematized. If they survived they been central to the recent anthropology of Christianity, the were scattered in exile to distant parts of the empire. From tortured existence of these martyrs can be seen as exemplary a diversity of groups and geographies, Old Believer practices of “the event” as theorized by Badiou (2001, 2007). Both of erupted into a variety of “persuasions” (tolk, sects or these heroic figures had been highly placed in Russian society, traditions), each of which upheld its own truth (known as Avvakum as a favorite priest of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich and predanie, the truths handed down). The eventuating self-sac- Fedosia Morozova as a wealthy aristocratic widow with a rifice was equally diverse, ranging from self-immolation to prominent position at court. For both, their casting out and fasting and other forms of deprivation; some groups tended the schism of the church was a rupture with the situation to grim eschatological dwelling on the approaching apoca- and the social world as they had known it. If this rupture lypse, while others—the great majority—formed staunchly defines the schism as an event in Badiou-ian terms, the Old independent yet economically interactive and successful com- Believers can be understood as the subjects of this event and munities in their places of exile. their martyrs as demonstrating exemplary faithfulness to it. Using materials from the Old Believers of Trans-Baikalia But is there not a fundamental flaw in likening the “back- in Siberia,4 I shall argue that even though they now seem so ward-looking” Old Believers to either Christian initiation or absurdly unlike political revolutionaries—for it is well known revolution? After all, the Pauline event proclaims a new truth that by the twentieth century these people were not at all and a rupture with previous knowledge according to Badiou revolutionary in the conventional sense and relatively few (2001:7–8), and common definitions of revolution invoke a supported the revolt of 1905, the vast majority having been radical resignification of signs, whereas these people appear actively hostile to the Bolsheviks (thousands emigrated to to be doing the opposite: clinging desperately to preestab- China and Mongolia rather than submit to the Soviet regime) lished significations. My argument against this objection is adapted to a quietist life in collectives—they are instructive that the content of what is held to be the old and original, for considering radically alternative, theology-led kinds of so- when enacted in the present as a deliberate spiritual stance, cial change. There are ways in which the processes of Old becomes new in the sense that it partakes of a newly defined messianic time. Although Agamben’s view of Paul is often 4. For a survey of all Old Believer divisions in Russia at the present contrasted with that of Badiou, the notion of messianic time time, see Levitonova (2007:756–757). Humphrey Schism, Event, and Revolution S219

Believer self-organization can be seen as embodying an in- In the case of the Trans-Baikal Old Believers, their dissenter cremental revolutionary dynamic–that is, if not convention- ancestors of the seventeenth century had been chased (or ally revolutionary, socially transformative in the sense outlined scattered themselves) to various Russian provinces. From by Kharkhordin. there, still persecuted by the authorities, many escaped over the border to Vetka and Starodub’ya, areas then part of Po- Fission and Fidelity to the Event land. Here they flourished as farmers and traders, attracting many other people from Russia to join them. Seeing this, the Joel Robbins refers to the importance of the Badiou-ian idea Russian government invited them to return, but they refused. of the “divided subject” in the anthropology of Christianity; In 1735 and again in 1762, Russian armies were sent to retrieve the divided subject is “one that works constantly to overcome them by force. Tens of thousands of Old Believers were the life that it has led in the light of its newfound fidelity to rounded up and then exiled to Siberia as part of a colonization the event and its universal implications” (2010:647). In Rob- bins’s New Guinea case the divided subject is produced by policy for remote lands (Bolonev 1985:20–24). This was a vast doubt: Urapmin converts worry that in part of their lives they and organized dispersal, where people were moved in convoy have not really broken with the past. For the Old Believers, from one end of the empire to the other, batched in groups, by contrast, the break is with the other political and religious family by family, with names and ages documented, to settle adherences of the contemporary period, including with other at designated sites in valleys near the Chinese border. These Old Believers. It was the constant remaking of this break, I first exiles were soon joined voluntarily by other peasant co- suggest, that was their way of reaffirming fidelity to the event. religionists, or prison escapees, etc., but the overwhelming The history of the Trans-Baikal Old Believers shows that, self-perception of the Trans-Baikal Old Believers is that they irrespective of the diverse origins of these people, in any one were all dumped in strange and terrible regions by force. There community there was a process of repeated fission that both they tried as best they could to isolate themselves from the reiterated the Great Schism and reestablished the anxious fault forces representing their captors/persecutors—who were now line that divided the virtuous from the sinners. uninhibitedly identified with Antichrist—and through their The evidence from Old Believers’ own writings is that, from own inventiveness and devoted labor to recreate a holy way the start of the schism, this was a theological and philosophical of life. confrontation, with ultimate stakes. Both sides were con- With this situation we can see the Old Believers as “his- vinced that Moscow was the only remaining spiritual capital torical” in a theoretical sense and again make a comparison of the original Christianity, the “Third Rome,” but they drew with revolutionaries. Yampol’skii (2009) argues, following He- diametrically opposed conclusions. On one side, Nikon and the church reformers could argue that precisely because Mos- gel, that freedom is the necessary companion of the existential cow was the essence of Orthodoxy, all its actions and changes situation of strangeness and uncertainty, since such conditions were legitimate. Any opposition was wicked and dangerous entail making choices. Each new decision—not being exter- heresy, punishable not only by excision from the church but nally enforced or a repetition—is the manifestation of change also by state power (since the Tsar was the supreme authority and movement forward. If there is no choice but only de- in Moscow). On the other side, it was equally plausible to termination, there is no history: “history” is always the history argue, like the dissenters, that because Moscow was Ortho- of freedom. In this respect, Yampol’skii writes, revolution is doxy, nothing could be changed. And as Mikhail Cherniavsky at least initially the fullest expression of history; it accom- has written, getting it right was of shattering consequence: “If plishes the metamorphosis of indeterminacy into new mean- Moscow were to fall from grace, betray the faith as had the ing (2009:19). In this sense, one could see the Old Believers first two Romes, it would mean not only the fall of Moscow as a better case of “history” than the classic revolutions. For as a state, as divine punishment, but the end of the whole those revolutions were caught out by their entanglement in world; a fourth Rome there could not be, and Moscow’s fall political struggle, by their project of total domination, which would signify the end of the possibility of salvation for all was invariably realized through harsh limitation of freedom. men, and the coming of the last days” (Cherniavsky 1966: Whereas the Old Believers, for whom antagonism against the 12). When the Orthodox Church leaders anathematized the structures of state power was definitional of their existence, Old Believers on the grounds that destruction of the unity of tended to be equivocal about consolidating hierarchy even in the church was an evil act that would hasten its fall, they made it clear that they considered the sectarians far more their own communities, opening up endless points on which dangerous than people who were merely adherents of other decisions had to be made. religions such as Islam or . But the same accusation One dilemma was that, having rejected the official Ortho- is exactly what the Old Believers made in reverse. For them, dox Church, the dissenters were without priests, yet they were the Nikonian clergy of the main church were apostates, and still ardent adherents of the Orthodox in which the such was the terrible downfall they were bringing about that sacraments were the essence. This impasse can only be ap- they should rightly be seen as the embodiments of Antichrist. preciated in the light of the Old Believer preoccupation with S220 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 ritual.5 For them, as for Russian orthodoxy in general, the the lives even of the renegade priests a misery (Rovinskii 2005 holy rites—which were often known as the “mysteries” (tain- [1873]:146–147). stva)—were essential and should not be seen as the “expres- The priestless groups were far more radical. They started sion” of something more fundamental, the “beliefs.” The Old from the assumption that the reign of Antichrist was closing Believer writer F. E. Mel’nikov (1874–1960; n.d.) explains: in on the world. With the of the entire clergy the Religious understanding is unlike logic or mathematics in priestly sacraments were suspended; it was necessary to live that in it an idea or motif is unbreakably connected to its without them—the exception being only baptism, which form of expression. A logical theorem can be proved math- could, according to the canon, be performed in extremity by ematically irrespective of the language or style used. But lay people (Heretz 2008:65). A number of the Trans-Baikal religious and aesthetic feelings do not work that way: the Old Believers belonged to a radical priestless sect called the idea or motif is organically attached by the law of psycho- Fedoseevtsy, which had split from the larger Pomortsy ag- logical association to the text, ritual or the rhythm of sounds. glomeration because of certain “weaknesses” (poslablenie) . . . However well a wonderful poem is translated into among the latter (Bolonev 2009:243). The Fedoseevtsy held prose—its charm (obayanie) disappears. When an Orthodox that sanctified marriage was impossible in this era of Anti- Russian priest pronounces at the altar “Gore imeem serdtsa,” christ and that sexuality outside marriage was a . (Let us lift up our hearts!) the Orthodox believer experiences Yet most of them could not restrain their “incontinence,” a rise of religious feeling that helps remove any worldly leading to a wretched loathing of the body, which kept drag- troubles. But if the priest, even the same priest, makes this ging them into sin despite their heroic efforts. The unfor- exclamation in Latin, the same believer, even if he knows tunate children resulting from such unions were called greshki that it has the same meaning, does not experience the same (“little sins”) and besenyata (“child demons”). However, far surge of emotion. Thus the religious world-conception (mi- more numerous were groups that reflected the positive, hard- rosozertsanie) and atmosphere of each society is indissolubly working, agriculturalist spirit of these people: “they are rich, connected with the texts and rites with which they were successful, healthy, strong and self-confident,” wrote one ob- brought up. . . . server at the end of the nineteenth century (Rovinskii 2005 Only we [Old Believers] can die for ritual. Ritual...was [1873]:115). Going their own ways, assured of their rightness created by the spirit, and like memories of previous expe- and superiority (2005 [1873]:126), one such group known as riences of religious feeling, it again rouses such an emotion; the “idol worshippers” held services in the fields and bowed if his soul is not asleep, external appearance and ritual be- to a sacred stone (the idol); another, for whom pre-Christian comes once again inspired for the person and a life-creating ideas were clearly central, was the “land worshippers” who strength for him. prostrated to the Earth as creator of godly strength; a third were the “sanders,” who used warmed sand instead of water Already in Poland the dissenters had divided into “priestly” when baptizing a child (see Motitskii 2007:139–143 for a de- (popovtsy) and “priestless” () communities. The scription of numerous such groups). These Old Believers em- former, holding that the world had not yet succumbed entirely braced ancient Slavic rites while at the same time unlocking to the Antichrist, had recourse to renegade priests from the the social hierarchies of contemporary Russia. Unlike in the state church—the begly (running or runaway) priests. The patriarchal official church, women could lead Old Believer majority of the groups in Trans-Baikalia were of this persua- religious communities; this reflected women’s effectiveness sion and thus were known as beglo-popovtsy. They searched and potent practical influence. Authority, religious learning, for defecting priests all over Russia and then had to hide them and specialist skills were not concentrated among a few but from the authorities. Sometimes, failing to find a priest, or if were widely distributed (Rovinskii 2005 [1873]:152–153). their fugitive priest was arrested, a group might succumb and In short, the Trans-Baikal Old Believers never merged into accept a priest nominated from the official church who agreed a single hierarchy with a unified practice. From the eighteenth to perform the old rites; but usually such priests were obsti- century up to the present, they have endlessly played out the nately rejected, and the rites were performed by devout local potentiality of the situation, splintering by choice, and cre- women (baby) or men learned in the scriptures (nachetchiki) ating new groups (“sects” tolk and “concordances” soglasiye). until such time as a new incumbent could be found (Bolonev Their capacity for division was at the heart of social practice, 2009:250–252). Some groups ended by joining a priestly Old such that there was no Old Believer village in Trans-Baikalia 6 Believer church that linked groups across Russia, but in oth- that did not contain several sects (Vasil’yeva2009:60–64). New ers the obstinate elders were used to freedom and often made groups were created by charismatic pastors, each convinced that current society had “fallen away” from the ideal and that 5. This gave rise to the alternative name by which Old Believers are their own version of the rites was the most worthy way of known, “the Old Ritualists” (Staroobryadtsy). serving God. After 1905, when Old Believer practice was for 6. This was the Belaya Krinitsa hierarchy that started with the instal- lation of the Greek Orthodox bishop Amvrosii (1791–1863) as its head. a time permitted by the state, even the most solid sects were See Naumescu (2013) for an excellent analysis of the doubts that assailed divided by a decision that had to be made: whether to register one such community in Rumania in the temporary absence of a priest. with the government as a religious group or to refuse to do Humphrey Schism, Event, and Revolution S221 so on the grounds that this would be an unacceptable com- Believers as ungodly (for comparison, see Robbins’s discus- promise with secular power. With each splintering, ties were sion [2010:636] of St. Paul’s rejection of law in favor of faith). cut with “unclean” (nechistie) groups. This was expressed spa- The effect was to spread the notion of the spirit of Antichrist tially by separating from the rest of the population into new over an increasing range of people and materials that sur- compact territories, and it often involved families having to rounded the Old Believers on all sides. move to join like-minded souls, or the setting up of remote, This set of deductions, despite certain inconsistencies,9 es- reclusive settlements in the forests (Vasil’yeva 2009:63). Mean- tablished a thought-world in which—rather than striving for while, other groups—generally the larger ones—reached ac- conquest as in political revolution—most energy was devoted commodation with the outside world, becoming successful to staving off the Antichrist in all its manifestations and pre- farmers, traders, or Cossack guards but always retaining in paring for the Apocalypse as best one could. Many of the Old principle an acute boundary against others.7 It is the dyna- Believers came to see power itself as the manifestation of evil. mism of this process that enables one to see it theoretically They were willing, particularly in the seventeenth century, to as a kind of constant moral revolution unfolding across Rus- instigate and take part in peasant uprisings that could be sian expanses and beyond. couched in religious terms, although others among them re- There is an internal reason, originating in Old Believer fused even this and preferred self-immolation and suicide. theology, that explains not only the endless segmentation but But, and this is where Old Believers, rebellious or not, were also why schism could not result in the metamorphosis of radically different from any political revolutionary, they had society as a whole evoked by Kharkhordin. This lay in the nothing to put in the place of autocratic government, for absoluteness of the concepts of good and evil, and in partic- their own theology forbade it.10 ular in the vital energy attributed to notion of the Antichrist. Yet the application of the idea of “revolution” to themselves Remember that the Old Believers accused the dominant of- was not foreign to the Old Believers. The following response ficial church of heresy. If this evil presaged the fall of Moscow in the year 2000 of an Old Believer preceptor (nastavnik)when (the Third Rome) and hence heralded the coming apocalypse, asked in an interview about the “Fedoseev Revolution” ex- the fateful moment, according to scripture, must be preceded plains the religious view: by the Antichrist. The implications of the idea were so mon- “This is a complex and interesting idea. . . . If this revolution strous, as Cherniavsky writes, that even Avvakum did not find is possible, it is possible only as the manifestation of some it easy to pin this label on Nikon or the Tsar.8 However, biblical Ideal, which existed not so much for Fedosiy Vasil’ev himself interpretations gave Avvakum some leeway: Antichrist was a as for some of his strange followers—nameless people, orig- person, but there also was the preceding spirit of Antichrist, inal radicals, or— in ordinary Russian—fanatics (izuvery). and this vaguer, but also more encompassing, idea left some . . . Though the Old Believers were very little influenced by hope that the fateful process could be reversed if only people European Protestantism, the Idea [they upheld] was not would hold out against it (Cherniavsky 1966:13). As apostates, unlike that of certain early Protestants, not in dogma, but Nikon, the Tsar and the bishops, soldiers and others who in a certain aesthetics: communes, retreat from the world, obeyed them all came to manifest the spirit of Antichrist. But extreme radicalism, rejection of everything beyond the what did this actually refer to? Cherniavsky convincingly ar- boundary of our Community (obshchina), our Teaching— gues that their apostasy (particularly that of the Tsar) lay in a strict distinction between ‘Ours’ (svoi) and ‘Alien’ (chu- what the reform of rites signaled: the justification of this world zhie).” by this world. Since in the dissenters’ view the traditional rites But isn’t this very similar to a Party type of structure: were the instantiation of the true faith, their reform could be cutting off, communes . . . ? nothing other than change for some other (nonreligious, po- “It could be said to be similar to an order. Mystical, very litical) reason, and the latter was inadmissible as a form of closed, a spiritual reservation. . . . Such a movement cannot legitimate reasoning. But it had begun to appear all around be inspired by human forces....TheSpirit breathes where in the seventeenth century. For example, the first law of the it wills. Where it comes from, and where it goes, no one Tsar’s Ulozhenie of 1649 had established a new category of knows. Inspiration (vdokhnovenie) is spontaneous, and this —political crimes, that is, secular offenses against the spontaneity is not dictated by any human necessity. When state. This law and its executors could only be seen by Old a young person turns to the Old Faith, he discovers some

7. As Heretz notes: “Each transaction and meeting involved defile- 9. The dissenters, of course, had to argue that the early Tsars, unlike ment. The Fedeoseevtsy’s ideologues devised an elaborate program of the recent ones, were the true guardians of the faith. cleansing penance and prayers for all acts of daily life that involved contact 10. One of Russian Orthodoxy’s foundational theological pillars is the with outsiders” (2008:67). principle of collective organization—sobornost’ (the quality of catholic 8. Since the Tsar as institution could not have become a precursor of unity). This is the seventh of the Orthodox Church. Old Be- Antichrist overnight because the role was inherited, the conclusion had lievers made sobory (gatherings of lay and clergy) their form of self- to be drawn that the apostasy of the sovereign was not an accident or government. During the sobor the Holy Spirit is said to penetrate and temporary but part of an irrevocable divine and satanic process (Cher- organize itself inside the participants such that the transcendent and niavsky 1966:12–14). otherworldly unity of the church is actualized among them. S222 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

particular ontological taste, and this cannot be found any- Baikal Old Believers call themselves the Semeyskie (the family where else.”11 people). Yet unlike in the case of the Old Believers of the Urals observed by Douglas Rogers,13 fission took place not so Thus, it is clear that there are several reasons why the Old much by analogy with the lines of family division as by ref- Believers could not be political revolutionaries in the classical erence to crucial boundaries with the world outside. In the French or Bolshevik mold—their mysticism, self-exclusion, Soviet period, for example, some Old Believers would not their aversion to institutions of power, and also the fact that touch money because it was imprinted with the portrait of they would not (and could not) act as the vanguard on behalf Lenin. The same rationale, focused on seemingly inconse- of any other group or class. For in their view, the “alien” quential objects as marks of the ungodly, also created splits population outside not only was overshadowed by notions of within Old Believer communities: heresy, apostasy, godlessness, etc., but also had shown itself time and again, under different forms of government, to de- Our faith. There are four , our granddad said. It was spise and persecute the religious ideals the Old Believers stood because of our faith in Christ that they exiled us, and pur- for. Yet if we do not limit “revolution” to the Leninist or even sued us. Well, we were all of the priestly faith; there was Trotskyist versions but conceive the idea in its widest sense, just one faith: with priests. But then the elders started to the Old Believers become relevant in an interesting way: for develop themselves (razvivat’sya). And I asked granddad they always understood that no one else was going to do it why they developed themselves. Well, a priest was riding for them; they themselves had to be the change they wanted along. In those days tobacco was a sin, forbidden. And he to see (Zizek 2011:29). [granddad] went to a rich man’s place and they all went to If one consequence of autonomy and self-created rules is the bathhouse to get washed, and a pipe with burning ashes the endless creation of new assemblages, as in fact happened fell out from that priest [‘s pocket]. Well they started to leave with the Old Believers, the tension with the idea of God’s will immediately, and it all went on from there as it still does is resolved by the above-mentioned “inspiration” from Him, now, a kind of war. They won’t make concessions, it is that such that any revolution must take the form of a personal kind of faith, and so four faiths were made: with priests, and collective transformation that eschews worldly domina- without priests, the dark faith, and the Slav orthodox faith. tion. This is a revolution of the inside, which does not re- There were four, my granddad said, and we are of the priest- 14 nounce the world as such, but rather denounces the domain less faith. of Antichrist, and thus it pits the domain of revolution as a One could easily read a kind of paranoid impetus into the struggle for the world as well as for the purity of the self.12 disavowals and exclusion of others by the Old Believers, their countless of one another,15 and their read- Memory, Avvakum, and the World Outside iness for the Apocalypse. It is true that the priest’s pipe and his visit to the rich man’s bathhouse stand for all kinds of A particular organization of memory seems to have provided sin and dangerous worldliness. But I think that one word in the means for a certain way of thinking about fission and the above account shows that paranoia is not the only, or creation. By “memory,” I refer primarily to a category of oral even the best, interpretation. The split from all those who accounts of the past, collected by ethnographers among Trans- employed priests is seen not as a negative but a positive: the Baikal Old Believers from the 1920s to recently, which Kush- elders began to razvivat’sya—to “develop themselves,” which nareva (2004) refers to as “non-story-telling prose” (neska- could also be translated as “open out” or “evolve.” This zochnaya proza). The villagers differentiated such accounts thought, if we consider it along with other Old Believer nar- from myths or legends, since while they embodied religious- ratives,16 is surely compatible with Castoriadis’s notion (2007) ethical precepts, they were considered to be factually true. of a “creative imaginary.” From this we can get some clues about how memory is used to produce frameworks that might organize the resources on 13. “We might see family divisions, long a part of rural life . . . as part of a conceptual model of a moral community and its trajectories in the basis of which people would take action. which the course of the schism was understood” (Rogers 2009:99). Old Believer memory is dominated by the notion of their 14. Tashlykova (2011) from recordings made in Tarbagatai and De- uniqueness as subjects and their primary settlement of an syatnikovo in 1989–1991. unknown and terrible land. The wilderness is tamed: by build- 15. Rogers’s work also shows how the notion of “schism” in Old ing the first house, the first husbandry, and the production Believer communities of Upper Kama does not apply only to the events of the seventeenth century but continued to be an active idea-practice; of bread. The process of “making one’s own” (osvoyeniye)is he describes in particular an event in 1866, when the elders of one village accomplished by families, a notion so central that the Trans- refused to obey a series of councils from across the region, and as a result they were dramatically excommunicated, resulting in a split in the com- 11. “Fedoseevskaya Revolyutsiya,” interview given by Preceptor Il’ya, munity (2009:74–80). August 8, 2000. http://zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/00/349/82.html; ac- 16. Even the “dark faith” (temnaya vera), although widely considered cessed January 25, 2013. to be the most closed, gloomy, and bigoted of the Trans-Baikal Old 12. I am grateful to Martin Holbraad for a comment on an earlier Believer sects, is described by its followers as a positive and deliberate version of this paper, which helped me to this formulation. reaction to . “A tired man was going along. Well, he was going Humphrey Schism, Event, and Revolution S223

The twentieth-century Old Believer narratives of the per- is how to live happily. And what is that about? You might secution and exile of Avvakum create a foreshadowing of marry a Chinese, or a Buryat, but all the same everyone family histories, taking a branching cosmo-geographical form prefers their own. And so? Who ordered you, what devil that also emphasizes physical experience. Avvakum wrote au- forces and pulls you all into the one pit and keeps you there? tobiographical accounts of his tribulations in Siberia, though Or who thought again? Think, daughter, think, and don’t it seems that these documents were not available to the Trans- jump into that worm-filled pit. You are young, think again Baikal Old Believers (Selishchev 1920:12). Their accounts of and particularly respect your parents and keep lord God in his life differ greatly from professional histories (Artem’yev your heart and you will always have a bright road and hap- 2003). Instead, the tellers draw the great martyr close (“my piness. (Tashlykova 2011) great-grandfather knew him well, like a brother”) and trace The old woman’s narrative provides us with an example a series of foundational episodes in which Avvakum is the of the individual emerging from the collective and becoming originating actor, purified of his actual entanglements with visible: she does so as a divided subject. Grandma expresses his Tsarist guards. For decades Avvakum was a wandering at the same time a recognition of the diversity of truth and itinerant in Siberia. He survives by learning how to put his a malediction against enforced unity with the alien (the en- only implement, a knife, to best use or how to plait fish traps closing “circle” and the “worm-filled pit”). Such an acknowl- from willow twigs and set them in midriver, and how to edgment of the existence of other truths seems in fact quite domesticate wild ducks. He refuses to compromise; in endless rare in the materials at my disposal, but even without it, this self-sacrifice he moves to new places, to far distant Dauria, arena—the constant effort to maintain our truth in the face to the very ocean, to the end of the earth. He hides from the of external blandishments (which Avvakum calls “cheats” and authorities among wild Tungus, teaches them and baptizes “without foundation,” 2003:5)—is one that people have to their children. He chooses good places for Old Believers to negotiate in their own ways. This, in other words, is the arena settle, and on his way back finds a hut he had built, now a of struggle to maintain fidelity to the event. flourishing village—the village of the storyteller (Eliasov 1962: 361). These narratives emphasize the experience of living in Conclusion danger, of using resolutely whatever resources are to hand, and relying on oneself to create a godly life. These accounts are unlike those studied by anthropologists It is evident from Old Believer narratives, however, that the in (mostly Protestant and Evangelical) Christian communities idea that there is a pristine truth for us came by the twentieth in other parts of the world in that they focus neither on the century to coexist with an acknowledgment of a plurality of event of conversion nor on a millenarian utopia.17 The rup- faiths. This hardly seems to be a stable position, more a kind tures here concern movement and foundation in this world, of struggle amid shifting blacks and whites, where exclusion/ the Siberia of the storytellers. The Trans-Baikal Old Believer excommunication serves at one moment as utter condem- imagination thus focuses on a combination of two elements: nation and at another simply as a mark of difference and original truth amid -corruption and separation beginning. At these points of difference, one should think from those who have fallen.18 It provides a distantly located carefully about the choices to be made. A girl came to ask an echo of several of the themes in this issue: the role of notions old woman about marrying outside the faith, and the reply of absolute good and evil and the coming Apocalypse in en- was: couraging splitting can be related to Handman’s (2014) no- As for me, it amazes me how many nations there are on tion of Christian critique; the mirrored opposition of Old earth, how many do you think? Many. Each lives in their Believers versus “Nikonians” chimes with the differentiating processes referred to by Bialecki (2014), while the volatility own way, each one lives as God showed them. That’s how of the sects can be contrasted with Barker’s (2014) discussion they live. What kind of life would it be if the whole wide of institutional stability. world were gathered inside one ring—because everyone The Old Believers’ orientation to the deep past can be looks for their own truth; we are searching for truth, they compared with discussions of other Christian timescales in are searching for truth. And you’ll find it somewhere with this issue (Vilac¸a 2014), yet they have their own specificity. a Buryat, or a Japanese. He has his truth, but in his own In Avvacum’s writing, the schism has the gravity of a cosmic way. [But] we don’t understand anything, and look what jumps in our heads. So why should you group them all 17. The quasi-millenarian idea of Belovod’ye, the pure Christian land together? There’s a little saying about this: the goose wants “in the East,” was not widespread among Trans-Baikal Old Believers, to fly upwards, but the fish is attracted to the river, and that though it was prevalent elsewhere in Russia, especially in the Altai in the nineteenth century (Mal’tsev 2009). to make some money—people envy others. But [other] people were 18. Rogers has made something like the same observation in different educated: suddenly three or four old men agreed among themselves and language: “Idioms of identity and difference over time have . . . centred said, ‘Let’s think. Let’s make our own faith.’ And they created the dark either on reclaiming the true faith of the past . . . or on heresy and faith. They did not light lamps, everything was [done in the] dark” schism, in which others fall away from the true Christian path but one’s (Tashlykova 2011). own faith persists unchanged” (2009:102). S224 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 beginning. Reiterating Dionysius’s19 observation of the dark- compassed within the Godly and that this is a matter already ening of the sun, the moon turning bloody, when Christ was given in the ancient theology and rites. The revolutionary crucified, Avvakum recalls the eclipse of 1654: “it became dark will, as my earlier quotations from the devout make clear, is at midday . . . for three hours they stood on the river bank always already a will of God. It is within this supreme, mys- crying; the sun died away; the moon shone from the west tical, and barely glimpsed will that freedom has to be found. . . . at that very time Apostate Nikon perverted the faith, and because of this God showed his anger towards humanity” (Avvakum 2010:7–9). The schism as a re-beginning initiates what I have called, following Agamben, the messianic time Acknowledgments of the present, wherein what would otherwise have been mere I am very grateful to Joel Robbins and other participants in worldly activities are transformed retroactively, as it were, by the Wenner Gren Symposium for their helpful comments. conceiving them as reenactments of ancient heroism and the This paper owes greatly to Matthew Carey, Martin Holbraad, “good deeds” (dobrie dela) of the martyrs. Avvakum’s call to and especially Dominic Martin for the wonderful insights they his followers seem to have followed closely Paul’s command brought to bear on an earlier version. from Galatians 6:10: “Therefore while we have time let us work good.” The seesaw in Old Belief from messianic to es- chatological temporality could derail this general stance—the References Cited “working good” could be snuffed out by the paralyzing inertia Agamben, Giorgio. 2002. The time that is left. Epoche´ 7(1):1–14. of fear before the coming Day of Judgment. But far more of Artem’yev, A. P. 2003. Daurskaya ssylka protopopa Avvakuma. Voprosy Istorii, the Old Believers were confident to embrace action in the no. 5. http://ostrog.uco2.ru/publikacii/4_12.htm Avvakum. 2003. Zhitie Protopopa Avvakuma im Samim Napisannoe. Pamy- knowledge that it would be a means for holy service and atniki literatury XVII veka. Moscow-Augsberg: Werden-Verlag. praise. For this, however, the acts had to be correct—in ac- ———. 2010. Zhitie Protopopa Avvakuma: opyt perevoda na sovremennyi russkii cordance with the plethora of “writings” that carefully dis- yazyk. Transcribed by N. V. Ponyrko into contemporary Russian. Sankt- Peterburg: Pushkinskii Dom. tinguished the rites given by God, including in some cases Badiou, Alain. 2001. Ethics: an essay on the understanding of evil. Trans. and practically the whole of a ritual-infused lifestyle, from those intro. Peter Hallward. London: Verso. subject to ungodly change. As I have mentioned, such a stance ———. 2007. The century. Cambridge: Polity. Barker, John. 2014. The One and the Many: church-centered innovations in differs from the Pentacostalists’ preoccupation with the prob- a Papua New Guinean community. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10): lem of pre-Christian pasts or non-Christian cultures (Vilac¸a S172–S181. 2014). Robbins writes that even when transformed by the Bialecki, Jon. 2014. After the denominozoic: evolution, differentiation, de- nominationalism. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S193–S204. advent of universal grace, the Pentacostalist converts must Bolonev, F. F. 1985. Semeyskiye. Ulan-Ude: Buryatskoye Knizhnoye Izda- “curate” these rejected elements, making a break that is “less tel’stvo. than clean” (2010:647). In the Old Believer case, the past is ———. 2009. Staroobryadtsy Zabaikal’ya v XVIII-XX vv. Ulan-Ude: BNTs SO RAN. drawn into the present. The “less than clean” break is with Castoriadis, Cornelius. 2007. Figures of the thinkable. Trans. Helen Arnold. the contemporary everyday world, other ideologies, and the Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. pressures of simply surviving and carrying on the “good Cherniavsky, Michael. 1966. The Old Believers and the new religion. Slavic 2 0 Review 25(1):1–39. work” as that has been imagined. \ Dunn, S. P., and E. Dunn. 1967. The peasants of central Russia. New York: Old Believer values and forms of thinking have always given Holt, Reinhart & Winston. rise to communities of a different kind from the surrounding Eliasov, L. E. 1962. Protopop Avvakum v ustnykh predaniyakh Zabaikal’ya. In Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury, vol. 18. Ya. S. Lur’ye, ed. Pp. 351– society. Abhorring the Russian state—unlike the official 363. Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, institut russkoi literatury church, which is, as ever, closely associated with it—these (Pushkinskii Dom). Dostoevskian forms cannot possibly absorb the whole of so- Etkind, Alexander. 2003. Whirling with the Other: Russian populism and religious sects. Russian Review 62(4):565–588. ciety, as Kharkhordin acknowledges, but they can provide a Handman, Courtney. 2014. Becoming the body of Christ: sacrificing the speak- “social alternative” (Murav’yev 2007) in which new forms of ing subject in the making of the colonial Lutheran church in New Guinea. gender, family, and pastoral relations can emerge. I have ar- Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S205–S215. Heretz, Leonid. 2008. Russia on the eve of modernity: popular religion and gued that there are certain parallels between this and the traditional culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. inherent freedom of revolution as a matter of principled Holbraad, Martin. 2013. Revolucio´n o muerte: self-sacrifice and the Ontology choice in a spirit of self-sacrifice. I have also suggested that of Cuban Revolution. Ethnos 79(3):365–387. Kaufman, Eleanor. 2008. The Saturday of messianic time (Agamben and Ba- the “free” decisions of the Old Believers must always be en- diou on the Apostle Paul). South Atlantic Quarterly 107(1):37–54. Kharkhordin, Oleg. 1998. Civil society and orthodox Christianity. Europe-Asia 19. Dionysius the Areopagite was converted to Christianity by St. Paul, Studies 50(6):949–968. but the text Avvakum refers to has been attributed to a fifth–sixth-century Kushnareva, L. L. 2004. Khristianskiye i mifologicheskie syuzhety v neskazochnoi fol’klornoi proze staroobryadtsev. Kandidat dissertation, Ulan-Ude. http:// author named Pseudo-Dionysius, whose biography circulated in several www.dissercat.com/content. versions in seventeenth-century Russia. Levitonova, Ekaterina. 2007. Does history repeat itself? public discourse of 20. See the excellent studies by Doug Rogers (2009) and Irina Paert the contemporary Russian Old Believer Elite. The Slavonic and East Eu- (2004) describing the accommodations made by Old Believers in the ropean Review 85(4):753–779. Urals in the Soviet period. Mal’tsev, A. 2009. Belovod’ye. Pravoslavnaya Entsiklopediya 4:534–535. Humphrey Schism, Event, and Revolution S225

Mel’nikov, F. E. n.d. Staroobradchestvo i obryadoveriye. http://semeyskie ———. 2010. Anthropology, Pentecostalism, and the new Paul: conversion, .narod.ru/bibl_meln_sio.html. Accessed January 2013. event, and social transformation. South Atlantic Quarterly 109(4):633–652. Motitskii, V. P. 2007. Zabaikal’skoe staroorbryadchestvo: proshloe i nastoy- Rogers, Doug. 2009. The Old Faith and the Russian land: a historical ethnog- ashchee (XVIII–XX vv.). In Istoriya i Kul’tura Semeiskikh Zabaikal’ya, vol. raphy of ethics in the Urals. Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press. 2. V. L. Petrov and E. V. Petrova, eds. Pp. 135–157. Ulan-Ude: Beleg. Rovinskii, P. A. 2005 (1873). Materialy dlya etnografii Zabaikal’ya. Izvestiya Murav’yev, A. 2007. Sotsial’naya al’ternativa russkogo staroobryadchestva. Sot- VSORGO, Tom IV, no 3. Republished in Istoriya i Kul’tura Semeiskikh sial’naya Real’nost’, no. 10, pp. 65–79. Zabaikal’y, vol. 1. V. L. Petrov and E. V. Petrova, eds. Pp. 118–159. Ulan- Naumescu, Vlad. 2013. Old Believers’ passion play: the meaning of doubt in Ude: Beleg. an Orthodox ritualist movement. In Ethnographies of doubt: faith and un- Selishchev, A. M. 1920. Zabaikal’skie Staroobradtsy. Irkutsk: Gosudarstvenii certainty in contemporary societies. Mathijs Pelkmans, ed. Pp. 85–118. Lon- Irkutskii Universitet. Tashlykova, M. B. 2011. Religioznyye predstavleniya sovremennykh sibirskikh don: Tauris. staroobryadtsev. http://mion.isu.ru/filearchive/mion_publcations/sbornik Paert, Irina. 2003. Old Believers, religious and gender in Russia, 1760– _Sib/5_6.html, accessed September 2011. 1850. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Vasil’yeva, S. V. 2009. Staroobryadtsy v Zabaykal’ye: uchebnyye materialy. Ulan- ———. 2004. Memory and survival in Stalin’s Russia: Old Believers in the Ude: Buryatskii Gosudarstvennyy Universitet. Urals during the 1930s–50s. In On living through Soviet Russia. Daniel Vilac¸a, Aparecida. 2014. Culture and self: the different “gifts” Amerindians Bertaux, Paul Thompson, and Anna Rotkirch, eds. Pp. 195–213. London: receive from Catholics and Evangelicals. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. Routledge. 10):S322–S332. Petrov, V. L. 2007. Kratkoe slovo o Protopope Avvakume. In Istoriya I Kul’tura Yampol’skii, Mikhail. 2009. Revolyutsiya kas sobytiye smysla. In Antropologiya Semeiskikh Zabaikal’ya, vol. 2. V. L. Petrov and E. V. Petrova, eds. Pp. 8– revolyutsiya. I. Prokhorova, A. Dmitiyev, I. Kuklin, and M. Mayofis, eds. 19. Ulan-Ude: Beleg. Pp. 17–52. Moscow: Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye. Robbins, Joel. 2007. Continuity thinking and the problem of Christian culture. Zizek, Slavoj. 2011. Zero-degree protests. London Review of Books, September Current Anthropology 48(1):5–38. 8, pp. 28–29. S226 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Christianizing Language and the Dis-placement of Culture in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea

by Bambi B. Schieffelin

Highlighting the language ideologies and speech practices critical to missionization, this paper examines the intro- duction of evangelical Christianity in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea, and its uptake in local communities. It analyzes the mission’s linguistic and cultural ideologies—valorization of the vernacular language, rejection of cultural prac- tices—and the consequences of these opposing valences. It details Bosavi pastors’ mediation and transmission of these ideologies through their translating practices, showing how local interpretations produced innovation in linguistic categories and transformation of cultural repertoires. I argue that this perspective contributes to continuity and discontinuity debates in the anthropology of Christianity. This paper also details how this mission’s tropes of division and separation and oppositional binaries when translated in Bosavi provided the linguistic categories that guided Bosavi Christians in reshaping the moral geographies of their communities. Finally, it addresses related shifts in the local significance of place and emplaced experiences more broadly, what I call “dis-placement,” the result of mission initiatives carried out by local pastors through which relationships between persons, activities, memory, and place become transformed and lose their meaning.

In communities worldwide, the introduction and uptake of tinue to be, central to Christianity and missionization. While evangelical Christianity has resulted in profound changes in sometimes imagined as simply turning textual objects (from how people view themselves and their worlds. These changes words to book-length treatises) from one language into an- have been primarily studied by social and cultural anthro- other, translation theories and practices are intrinsic to every pologists and have led to the emergence of an anthropology language and specific to speech communities. Translation de- of Christianity. In joining this scholarly enterprise, I wish to pends on cultural and linguistic knowledge, which includes highlight what linguistic anthropology and its focus on lan- semiotic and pragmatic conventions. As we know from mul- guage and language ideologies can offer to this conversation. tiple translations and versions of the New Testament, for ex- First, attention to speech practices and language ideologies ample, translations are often contested because of their po- can contribute to anthropological theorizing about continuity tential as sites for interpretation, as well as their intertextual and discontinuity in the context of evangelical Christian mis- connections to original texts that themselves define religious sionization and Christianization more broadly. In particular, communities.1 From the perspective of linguistic anthropol- Christian missionaries and the people they are missionizing ogy, translation is a culturally shaped communicative activity tend to think in “received categories” that shape how they that has always been critical in the global circulation of people, culturally understand and explain their worldviews. Both texts, objects, and knowledge. Thus, careful attention to how groups also hold particular views of the relationship between translation is thought about and practiced can contribute to culture and language or cultural and linguistic ideologies and our understanding of globalization processes that figure sig- practices and what they signify. Culture and language as con- nificantly in evangelical Christianity’s creation of a particular ceptual objects may be defined in many ways, seen as deeply type of textually based community that is often imagined to interdependent or independent symbolic systems. be more textually stable and consistent than it actually is.2 Second, translation practices have always been, and con- Ironically, my analysis of social and linguistic processes that helped shape the early phases of missionization in Bosavi

Bambi B. Schieffelin is Collegiate Professor and Professor of 1. For example, Handman’s (2010) insightful analyses of language Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology of New York choice and translation practices in Protestant churches among Guhu- University (25 Waverly Place, New York, New York 10003, U.S.A. Samane (PNG). [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 23 VI 2. B. B. Schieffelin (2007a, 2008b) addresses changes in Bible trans- 14, and electronically published 19 XI 14. lation practices in Bosavi.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0008$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677896 Schieffelin Christianizing Language S227 parallels Christian tropes of division and separation. Exam- the cultural and the linguistic, two systems usually thought ining this mission’s ideologies of language and culture shows to act in tandem. While the mission insisted on discontinuity how its assignment of radically different valences to language in cultural domains, it simultaneously privileged continuity and culture resulted in their detachment from each other and in linguistic ones, an orientation grounded in this mission’s subsequent change to both in several critical domains of Bos- own conceptions of culture and language. Not surprisingly, avi society. In addition, in pre-Christian Bosavi society, per- Bosavi pastors, who played a critical role in missionization, sons were deeply connected to local named places, and their drew on their cultural prisms and language ideologies as they emplaced experiences with others gave meaning to relation- translated Christian messages from Tok Pisin (the national ships and activities throughout their lives, as well as providing lingua franca) into their vernacular, interpreting Bible pas- ways to memorialize them. These mission-initiated dynamics sages and missionary meanings and producing their own ar- of cultural and linguistic change resulted in what I call dis- ticulations of what fundamentalist Christianity is and is not placement, processes through which connections between about. Their understandings and the ways in which they com- persons, activities, and place become detached and change. I municated them in Bosavi communities have reshaped ev- draw on my ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork on mis- eryday sociality, language structures and practices, and cos- sionization in Bosavi (1975–1995) and research of other eth- mology and created a local Christian theology, though it must nographers of Bosavi, as well as archival evidence produced be said that not all Bosavi people have taken up these ideas by missionaries, to track the trajectory of transmission of these in the same way, nor have these ideas held everyone’s attention mission ideologies mediated through Bosavi interpreters and over time. translators. Before taking up dis-placement, some framing The goal of missionization is transforming persons. Lan- about continuity and discontinuity, and how we—and ev- guage ideologies and discourse practices play central roles in eryone else—tend to think and speak in received cultural transforming and replacing received social categories and are categories is in order. essential in theorizing and conceptualizing this type of change. New language and discourse practices are prerequisites to changing ways of thinking and feeling, critical to the intro- Continuity/Discontinuity and duction of and socialization into cultural practices that con- Received Categories stitute Christianization in mission contexts. For those inter- ested in conversion, language provides not only the scripts In writing about evangelical Christianity, Robbins (2003, that convey the content of introduced ideas but also the dis- 2004, 2007) poses a critical set of questions regarding the cursive structures for reevaluating and assigning new mean- status and nature of cultural continuity in anthropological ings to and affective stances toward precontact experiences theorizing and how it affects the ways in which anthropol- and relationships. Such verbal practices and their achievement ogists, as well as local people, try to make sense of the varieties are never neutral but are part of larger hegemonic systems. of Christianity encompassed by this term. Robbins (2003) In Bosavi, conversion to fundamentalist Christianity re- recommends that we go beyond a preference for viewing con- quired a rupture between the past and the present, essential tinuities and think more productively about cultural discon- to the creation of discontinuity in how one understood or tinuity, suggesting that one of the main reasons we have been valued cultural practices constituting persons, place, and com- inhibited in making this move has to do with “how anthro- munity. Missionization, through its totalizing discursive pologists imagine that people perceive the world” (230). framework, used particular language practices and linguistic Drawing on studies of Pentecostal and charismatic religious ideologies to accomplish this radical transformation and rup- movements, Robbins suggests that we assume that “people ture. New concepts, including ideas about time (B. B. Schief- only understand the world in terms of their received cate- felin 2002) and theory of mind (B. B. Schieffelin 2007a, gories” (230). With regard to religious transformation, where 2008a) were introduced into Bosavi, but the focus here con- language practices are always relevant, he adds, we expect that cerns how pre-Christian concepts about social relationships “people cannot but view the new ‘through the prism of in- and place were replaced with Christian ideas about social digenous categories,’” citing LiPuma (2000:212). My argu- relationships and space.3 In some sense, this should not be ment here is that even as received categories embedded in surprising, as Robbins (2006)4 has pointed out that Chris- language use do play a powerful role in fostering cultural tianity in general, with its focus on the person of Christ, not continuity, language can also be a key player in processes of radical change. 3. Gieryn’s (2000) conceptual differentiation between place and space Robbins’s encouragement to think about discontinuity is is useful here. Place entails geographic location and is unique; place has a productive point of departure. In contexts of missionization, physicality, material form; and place is invested with meaning and value. language practices are always central and deeply tied to the As Feld and Basso (1996) point out, without naming, identification, or representation by ordinary people, a place is not a place. See Bandak formation and production of new social and cultural cate- (2014); Casey (1993, 1996); and Cresswell (2004) for further distinctions gories. In my research on the introduction of fundamentalist between place and space. Christianity in Bosavi, I found a curious disconnect between 4. Citing Davies (1994); Sack (1986). S228 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 on a particular place it takes to be holy, is not a territorially discontinuity and continuity allowing for theorizing in terms focused religion. Furthermore, Christianity tends to empha- of points of integration and connection, as well as how they size a universal rather than a territorial or ethnic-based sense become disarticulated from each other or reassigned new va- of community, and conservative branches of Protestantism, lences. for example, fundamentalist and Pentecostal groups, explicitly disregard territory in favor of creating a particular type of Reframing and Relocating imagined global community. In what follows, I examine this shift from place to space, highlighting the role language plays We all tend to think in “received categories,” what Sapir (1958 in reshaping the moral geographies of Bosavi communities [1929]:162) called “language habits” or what Whorf (1956) as evidenced in practices of sociality and lived environments. described as “fashions of speaking.” This concept of inter- In Bosavi, this shift was dramatic, as the mission’s notion preting experience through language is central to appreciating 5 of space not only interrupted but sought to erase and replace the role of language in Christianity and conversion, because Bosavi ideas about place. Accomplished in a relatively brief in the course of becoming Christian, persons (and commu- period of time, this discontinuity project of dis-placement nities) must shift from habitual uses of language (and other required refiguring the meaning of place in linguistic and embodied practices), to new or potential ones, which are cultural practice and ideology. This happened across several typically made explicit in the course of evangelization. Con- social and linguistic domains with the introduction of new ceptualizing language as a verbal activity that can guide world- spatial metaphors that also came to signify social division, views, or any interpretive practice, provides a powerful, added identifying and reclassifying persons in terms of relative and dimension to the notion of received categories, highlighting evaluative spaces and spatial categories. This was evident both the role of agency and choice in contexts of knowledge ac- in the village (at the interpersonal level) and in talk (in terms quisition and change, as well as knowledge loss. of moral categories), ways of speaking that have come to index Throughout the life cycle, speakers ordinarily acquire more each other and prevail. According to the Australian mission than one language variety, register, even dialect—mixing va- and local Bosavi pastors acting as missionizers, traditional rieties and switching codes to express identities or stylistic notions of place, which are connected to practices and persons and aesthetic preferences. Just as speaking in new ways can that evoke the pre-Christian past, play no role in the biblically change ways of thinking and acting, speakers can also lose based narrative of the end-times. They must be forgotten. verbal competencies and their associated ways of thinking and While notions of place and place names (toponyms) were a feeling from lack of use, for example, when such varieties major means for indexing and memorializing social identity become stigmatized in association with practices deemed un- and relationships, both autobiographically and community acceptable within the context of Christianization. Languages wide, spatial categories, including insider/outsider, now dis- also undergo transformations, some more rapidly than others. tinguish membership and relationships in Christian com- These processes are shaped by language ideologies, which, like munities. In many situations these new social categories re- languages and speakers in contact with each other, also result placed those based on kinship. Through their introduction in complex changes, both synchronically and diachronically and use they articulate and accomplish new Christian-based due to nonlinguistic factors, in particular, power asymmetries, social hierarchies and power asymmetries in this previously be they political, social, moral, and/or economic. How this “egalitarian” society. happens and the consequences of this change for speakers Two sets of practices that became increasingly interrelated and languages are especially salient and relevant during Chris- over time (1975–1995) are relevant to understanding how tian evangelization. such profound transformations are accomplished. The first Harding’s (2000) compelling study of the language and includes the totalizing discursive framework (in the Fou- politics of American fundamentalist Baptist preachers offers cauldian sense) of fundamentalist Christianity introduced in provocative points of comparison with the Bosavi situation, Bosavi through missionaries—whose rhetoric is based on a since both center on fundamentalist Christianity. Harding literalist biblical interpretation in which truths do not change asks how the Bible-based language of American fundamen- across time or space and binary oppositions prevail. Their talist Christians works as a rhetoric of conversion, how it discursive framework is viewed in conjunction with a second persuades and produces effects (Harding 2000:xii). While not set of practices: Bosavi versions of this discursive framework 5. The ideas of Sapir and Whorf about linguistic relativity have often created and articulated by first-generation Bosavi pastors dur- been referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This is a somewhat mis- ing church services, the major context for Christian language guided interpretation of their writings, since neither Sapir nor Whorf socialization. Local translations from Tok Pisin into Bosavi wrote about hypotheses. It is more productive to focus on how language of the New Testament not only changed the Bosavi language practices affect the way we habitually think, categorize, and remember at all levels but also produced local discursive frameworks for events, persons, and things in our lives. While many of their formulations changed over time, both Sapir and Whorf assumed language homoge- interpreting that text. The close examination of the early use neity, a one-language/one-culture model, in addition to a model of a and emergence of these two sets of linguistic and cultural monolingual speaker/speech community which we now know is an ide- practices and ideologies makes visible the tensions between alized exception rather than the rule. Schieffelin Christianizing Language S229 framing it as such, she is in fact investigating the language text of multiple registers, codes, and systems of signification. ideology that underlies her assertion that conversion requires New terms designating social classification, such as “Chris- “acquiring a specific religious language or dialect” (34). tian/non-Christian” or “insider/outsider” enable the creation Harding’s perspective on the centrality of language acqui- and deployment of multiple subjectivities, alerting us not to sition for conversion can also be reframed as language so- buy into an old one-language/one-culture type of thinking. cialization: socialization to use language and socialization Whether they consider themselves modern, postmodern, or through the use of language, a process that takes place between neither, most people participate in seemingly polyvalent or experts and novices throughout the life cycle (Ochs and contradictory cultural practices.6 Missionization, however, di- Schieffelin 1984). Language socialization is critical in mis- rectly and often explicitly challenges habitual language prac- sionization and offers a theoretical perspective for investi- tices in order to effect a particular type of change and, as gating how language is both displayed and, where translation such, offers a dramatic context in which to document multiple is involved, reshaped to affect how one views the world and, attempts to break unreflective or unconscious language habits ultimately, one’s self in that world. The embodied practices and put new ones in their place. These changes in both the that Harding describes are deeply intertwined with a particular words and fashions of speaking are among the critical em- language ideology, which is based in Western philosophical bodied practices that can lead the charge toward discontinuity. and religious traditions, one that she in fact shares. In be- This is especially ironic in Bosavi where mission policy insisted coming communicatively competent in Bible-based language, on the use of the vernacular for proselytizing as the only way to speak in this way, rather than another, indicates more than to convert local people. From the Bosavi perspective, the ver- competence. It is an act of identity that presumes sincerity nacular was essential to the cultural definition and identity and belief. As Harding points out, listening to the Gospel of the community, part of a semiotic framework that tied enables you to experience belief, but belief that becomes you language to identity and place. comes only through speech: speaking is believing (Harding 2000:60). Brief Background to the Bosavi People and The introduction and uptake of Christian language prac- the Asia Pacific Christian Mission tices illustrates an important lesson from Sapir’s (1958 [1929]) and Whorf’s (1956) discussion of habitual language practices The Bosavi people live north of Mount Bosavi on the Great 7 and the potential humans have for acquiring new fashions of Papuan Plateau in Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands. speaking. Speakers in the secular as well as the Christian com- In this rain forest environment, 2,000 or so Bosavi people munity within which Harding (2000) worked share a ver- inhabit scattered communities ranging from 60 to 100 people. nacular code, English. We should not assume, however, that They practice swidden horticulture and hunt and fish for most just because the code is the “same” that there is continuity of the animal protein in their diet. There are four mutually in thinking (especially in particular moral and religious do- intelligible named dialects of the Bosavi language, one of mains) for those who become Christian. Harding’s argument which is called Kaluli. Here I refer to the language as well as strongly supports a discontinuity argument in terms of belief, the people as Bosavi. The majority of people are monolingual but what makes the case especially relevant is that there is in their vernacular and, at least through 1998, most village continuity at another level: between the new discursive frame- activities were carried out in the Bosavi language. Like other works (Bible-based language) and mainstream language ide- small-scale “egalitarian” societies in Papua New Guinea, be- ology of American secular and religious (Christian) speech fore contact with anthropologists, missionaries, and govern- communities. One is supposed to speak sincerely most of the ment representatives, Bosavi people lived in a nonliterate time. Language ideology, however, can become separated from world. the language with which it is habitually associated. This com- Government contact in Bosavi began in the 1930s but was 8 monly occurs when contact between speech communities always and has continued to be extremely intermittent, as is takes place, as in colonizing and missionizing contexts, es- often the case where populations are small, scattered, and pecially where translation occurs. Such slippage can result in relatively inaccessible and where local resources (e.g., timber) a misalignment in the relationship between speaking and be- are not easily extractable. Such areas, however, are of interest lieving, and it is in such contexts that misalignments and/or to missionaries, and in 1964 two members of the Unevan- realignments become visible or audible. gelized Fields Mission (UFM) made brief contact with Bosavi In addition to whatever vernacular(s) are spoken in a com- people. They laid the groundwork for its missionizing effort, munity, missionization brings at least one other language with its fashions of speaking and language ideologies to deliver the 6. There are interesting correspondences between how Bosavi create Good News. These languages and their translation help con- and acquire new repertoires of knowledge, such as Christianity and lan- stitute and convey new cultural logics, destabilizing or re- guage socialization of bilingual and multicultural subjectivities. 7. For additional scholarship on the Bosavi people, see Feld (2013 placing received categories and the activities and worldviews [1982], 1988, 1996); E. L. Schieffelin (1976, 1981, 1990). they constitute or reflect. Words and expressions that are 8. Schieffelin and Crittenden (1991) provide a detailed ethnohistorical stable or unitary may take on multiple meanings in the con- account of first contact in the Bosavi area. S230 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 which began with the construction of a small airstrip and “Dark, chaotic, filled with spirits,” and could not wait to clear preliminary linguistic work (B. B. Schieffelin 2000). the trees and grow grass. They demonized the forest or bush While sharing a number of doctrinal tenets with Pente- (hena usa) as a place where whatever people were doing was costals and charismatics, the UFM rejected their ecumenical suspect, out of sight of pastors and Christians who stayed in orientation as well as what they saw as their dramatic, highly the village. As far as they were concerned, time in the bush emotional, and visible signs of Christian conversion, such as (hunting, gathering, socializing) was time not spent in church, speaking in tongues and other gifts of the spirit. They also and they characterized people who chose to stay in the bush found the idea that there might be something of value in the as stubborn and resistant, making bad choices. This created local culture repugnant(Weymouth 1978) and rejected the a tense opposition between church/village and bush activi- view taken by mainstream missions (e.g., Catholics, Luther- ties.11 ans) that anthropological insights into local cosmologies could The mission presented everything as an issue of choice, so potentially facilitate conversion or at least create syncretic that decisions about everyday life on earth was said to de- bridges. This small, conservative, nondenominational, “faith” termine life after death, heaven or hell. Such notions of choice mission interpreted the Bible literally and viewed original and division were not part of pre-Christian Bosavi cultural scripture as the divinely inspired center of all preaching. They belief, where death, for example, was always due to super- emphasized a doctrine of the “last things”—death, judgment, natural causes such as and not related to the past heaven, and hell, elaborating the dire consequences of the or present moral or social status of the person ensorcelled. Second Coming, which they believed was imminent, for non- From the missionaries’ perspective on time, the present was believers. always about preparing for the future. Their task, to constitute Renamed the Asia Pacific Christian Mission (APCM), ac- a community based on their moral identity in postapocalyptic tive missionization began in 1970 with the arrival of an Aus- time, was realized through a discourse of division, which, tralian missionary couple who established a mission station located in scripture, was conveyed through tropes of warfare 9 set apart from the villages. They had their own ideas about and other common Christian themes of opposition. Melanesians and held that ordinary Christians, guided by their Needing signs of evangelical progress, the missionaries faith, could convert the unevangelized without knowledge of looked for the performance of acts of that signified the local culture. The only mission in Bosavi, their goal was Christian beliefs. In a prayer letter sent to their Australian rapid conversion and their missionization activities intensive. supporters, they reported that Bosavi Christians had decided Over 2 decades, they told Bosavis who wanted to become not to attend traditional dances, evidence of their change of Christian to give up traditional practices; many, but not all, heart. “It was an opportunity to point out that it is in these did exactly that.10 For them, evangelical work, rather than vital social matters that the line will be drawn between Chris- education or development projects, was the highest priority tians and “outsiders” and that Christ’s forecast of division for because, due to satanic and government influences, those liv- his sake will be inevitable, and some of the cost of being a ing in Bosavi had become “a people so bewildered as to barely Christian will have to be counted” (prayer letter, 1973). For be able to discern the good from the bad” (prayer letter, 1971). this mission, ideas of division were linked to processes of Like other conservative Christians, members of the APCM othering, and those who would not conform were labeled categorized persons in terms of evaluative binary oppositions, “outsiders”; the benefits of a Christian future outweighed any including Christian/non-Christian, fundamentalist/nonfun- cultural or societal consequences of such division in the pres- damentalist, and saved/unsaved. Such evaluative binaries that ent.12 signaled social and moral difference were also emplaced in Like many missions in Papua New Guinea, the APCM paid their descriptions of the tropical rain forest and life in the little attention to local or cultural realities of geographical bush. Coming from Australia, their expectations of what civ- boundaries.13 With government support, the missionaries ilized land should look like shaped their view of local envi- ronments. They described the jungles and rain forests as cleared the land and established a mission station, naming it with the local place name. The station, however, was a new

9. Schieffelin and Crittenden (1991:262–268) summarize government type of space, a religious and social center with authorities contact and the establishment of the mission station, consisting of a (missionaries) who controlled the land, enabling and prohib- school, clinic, church, small trade store, and grass airstrip. Feld (2013 [1982]:xiv–xxiii) highlights the impact of the government and mission 11. When speaking to the anthropologists, Bosavis who became Chris- on expressive practices from the mid-1970s through the late 1990s. tian said they felt cut off from their pasts and that meanings of the places 10. E. L. Schieffelin (1977) details Bosavi responses to Christianity in where memories resided, or were emplaced, were neutralized. the early years of missionization. His example of spirit mediums who, 12. They did express concern about marriage practices, fearing that during se´ance performances, comment on Christian ideas illustrates the Christian men might marry non-Christian women, compromising the tensions that existed between traditional beliefs and Christian beliefs, two groom (prayer letter, September 1985). versions of the world coexisting. In some ways, the translation practices 13. At the end of the nineteenth century, in an effort to avoid conflict discussed in this paper also reflect an initial coexistence, but over time, among missions seeking “unevangelized fields,” “spheres of influence” Christian practices overwhelmed traditional ones, including those of spirit were established, though over time, many missions, including the UFM, mediums. circumvented or ignored these agreements (Trompf 1991:148–149). Schieffelin Christianizing Language S231 iting the circulation of people, objects, and information about semiotic systems, they assumed that detaching cultural mean- it. The missionaries determined what activities could occur ings from linguistic codes was relatively straightforward.16 and what languages were used (Tok Pisin, English, and Two decades of missionary activity did little to change their Bosavi). They defined themselves and the station as the center preconceptions or descriptions of Bosavis as a “Stone Age” (misini us) from which their everyday activities and moral people living in ’s bondage and chaos, a generic collec- stances were transmitted through training pastors and teach- tion of witch doctors, cannibals, and headhunters. Their job ing Bible school. Bosavi pastors learned these new spatial was to repudiate traditional beliefs and practices, all of which categories, transforming and extending them and others into were counter to biblical morality. They required those who social and moral designations in villages. wanted to become Christian to do the same and make a Language choice was central to how the missionaries com- complete break with their past, which meant not only sepa- ration from but clear rejection of many traditional activities, municated their ideas and those in scripture to members of cultural beliefs, values, and practices. This included dissoci- this nonliterate society. In contrast to their view of local cul- ating from kin who did not take up Christian ways. In terms tural practices as obstacles to conversion, like most Protestant of local cultural and social practices, cultural discontinuity missions, they regarded vernacular languages as critical to was the only acceptable choice, in contrast to the linguistic proselytizing and conversion (e.g., Handman 2007). APCM continuity of the vernacular they required. missionary-linguist Murray Rule described the vernacular as “the shrine of the people’s soul” (1977:1341), evoking Edwin Bosavi Shifts from Place to Space W. Smith’s 1929 book on Bible translation, which articulated the language ideology that underlies many Protestant mission As a consequence of missionization and the totalizing Chris- and Bible translation projects (Summer Institute of Linguis- tian discourse that organized it, Bosavi concepts about place tics, Wycliff).14 Smith viewed vernacular language as a shrine (and named places) as the locus of symbolic meanings and holding something sacred, as the path to the heart, and deeply social relationships shifted to Christian ideas about space. linked to cultural practices. He expected missionaries to be Generating new terms and idioms to express these spatial fluent in the local vernacular so as to convey the most im- binaries and metaphors from Christian rhetoric and practices portant message, that of the Bible, as well as to be able to resulted in a break with Bosavi customary practices, though compile dictionaries and grammars to create vernacular lit- within certain domains, continuities were evident. These con- eracy materials. tinuities, sometimes ephemeral, were backgrounded against The Bosavi missionaries did not match this ideal. Fluent more substantial reframing and renaming of categories of in Tok Pisin, however, they used it to communicate with the persons and places that took place through Christian language socialization. few Bosavi men who could understand it. Their goal was rapid In much of Papua New Guinea, everything happens in a conversion, and while they carried out basic vernacular lit- named place. In Bosavi, locality and place names served not eracy initiatives (B. B. Schieffelin 2000), they put little effort only as mnemonic anchors for significant ceremonies and into written Bible translation. Instead, using the Tok Pisin events as remembrances of personal experience but also as Bible, Nupela Testamen (1969), they trained local men to reference sites of everyday sociality (E. L. Schieffelin 1976). become pastors, leaving to them the work of translation, Feld’s (1988, 1996) ethnomusicological research (1970–1990) which would be exclusively oral and relatively spontaneous further elaborated the relationship of Bosavi poetics, senti- (Tok Pisin to Bosavi). While the missionaries thought of the ment, and place, showing, for example, how the sequential vernacular as simple, inadequate, and lacking in essential vo- citation of place names in song and lament created maps that cabulary, they nonetheless imagined that local pastors’ literal memorialized social relationships and their temporalities. translations from Tok Pisin into the vernacular would make While place name sequences were deeply connected to the the meaning of the Gospel transparent and accessible.15 Not place where, rather than the time when, people had done viewing linguistic and cultural practices as interconnected things together, as Feld (1996) notes, when talking, singing, or lamenting, “it is striking to notice how quickly and thor- 14. Missionary-linguist Edwin W. Smith worked in southern Africa oughly a person and a memorable feature of his life are nar- (1902–1915) and viewed linguistic and cultural practices as intercon- ratively located in a placed space-time” (111).17 For Bosavi nected. Smith (1929) writes, “The missionary aims at influencing, not people, named places encoded shared memories, and people’s the shallows of a people’s life, but the deepest depths—to touch the notions of the social and symbolic relevance of their places springs of conduct, to reach down into the inner-most recesses of their being. There is no path to the heart save the mother-tongue” (43). Prom- inent in the British and Foreign Bible Society, from 1933 to 1935 he was 16. The possibility that Bosavi people had their own language ideol- president of the Royal Anthropological Institute (B. B. Schieffelin, “‘The ogies was not one that the missionaries could imagine. In addition, that Shrine of a People’s Soul’: Ideologies of Vernacular Languages,” unpub- there would be profound differences in the pragmatics of language use lished manuscript). across cultures was not something they had ever considered. 15. The UFM/APCM drew selectively on Nida’s (1964) theories of 17. B. B. Schieffelin (2007b) examines the centrality of place in chil- functional equivalency in translation. dren’s earliest language socialization activities. S232 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 in the bush differentiated them from each other and their as Christian space. Instead of traditional bush material con- neighbors, as well as the larger outside Christian world. struction, the pastor’s house was constructed with nails and Language and place were also linked.18 One’s dialect con- used sawn timber for windows and a door, which had a lock. veyed one’s mother’s identity, or the place of the person who In contrast to low interior dividers in longhouses over which raised you, and who you were related to. Given the affective husbands and wives could see each other as they cooked or associations inscribed in the vernacular, Smith’s (1929) ob- slept around their fire pits, woven bamboo walls created sep- servation that “the mother tongue is the key which unlocks arate rooms for cooking, socializing, and sleeping. Over time, the door of a people’s heart” (45) provides another well- other Christians followed suit, and with new Christian-style founded reason for its use in proselytizing. dwellings in proximity, village layout was rearranged, affecting For Bosavi people, the activity of speaking their vernacular the organization of everyday sociality and the types of talk offered continuity and an embodied, semiotic indicator of one heard in each area. In Christian spaces, one was supposed who they were and where they were from. These indexical to talk quietly, pray, or sing hymns. Loud or angry words, relations, central to Bosavi sociality and social life more gossip, and profanity (among other verbal acts) were forbid- broadly, were deemed not relevant in Bible translation and den. The missionaries strongly encouraged Christians to give related literacy activities, as linguistic varieties that signaled up their places in the longhouse so they would not participate one’s local affiliation were literally erased in Christian con- in or overhear negatively evaluated activities. figurations of Bosavi identity.19 For Bosavi people, however, Before mission contact, kinship and gender shaped social the lexical changes that were taking place in the vernacular interactions and social differences (age, gender, marital status, through calquing or loan translations were not locally per- etc.) were marked and regulated by verbal and nonverbal ceived as “changing” it. In contrast, introduced genres and practices. For example, observing traditional taboos (e.g., discursive strategies that emerged as a result of mission and food, cross-gender contact, and verbal and visual in-law government contact while still in the vernacular were meta- avoidance) not only indexed social status but also spatially linguistically marked as new as they were introduced or new determined who could interact and share with whom. Chris- fashions of speaking (B. B. Schieffelin 2008a, 2008b). tians, who were expected to give up traditional taboos, also experienced changes in communication patterns as well as Local Responses to the Mission’s Message other aspects of sociality. In so doing, they constituted new categories of similarity and continuity made visible in their In Bosavi, sharing space is like sharing food; both are contexts village and household configurations, as well as creating new in which one participates in acts of sociality and reciprocity, forms of division and discontinuity clearly marked through enacts affiliation and identity, and exchanges information. It new visual and verbal practices meant to distinguish Christian is precisely these social acts and the ways they are remembered spaces from non-Christian places. that transform “space” into “place” (Casey 1996; Feld 1996). Mission rhetoric aimed to establish the primacy of religious The uptake of Christianity altered patterns of shared spaces affiliation over all other types of social and linguistic identity, through changes in house style and village layout, changes and Bosavi pastors drew on what they had learned at the that came to index Christian and non-Christian orientations mission station to accomplish this in villages. Taking the mis- and identities. sionary’s statement about drawing a line between Christians Traditional Bosavi villages (60–100 individuals) were com- and outsiders literally, they positioned themselves as the ‘cen- posed of a gender-segregated communal longhouse in which ter’ or on the ‘inside’ us,20 using the phrase ‘Christian center’ all ceremonial and domestic activities took place. In the late geleso us, and designated non-Christians as living ‘to the side’ 1960s, government patrol officers, claiming reasons of hygiene or on the periphery ha:la:ya. but also viewing such longhouses as “primitive,” urged smaller Translating the Christian concepts of division and exclusion dwellings. Extended families built smaller houses (modeled into the local vernacular had far-reaching discursive and prac- on the longhouse) along the sides of the village yard, while tical consequences; for example, received categories of com- keeping their places around the fire pits in the longhouse munity membership or kinship could change, and did. The where they cooked, socialized, and slept when they felt like spatial terms us ‘center’ and ha:la:ya ‘periphery’ became icon- it, which many often did. ically linked and semiotically extended to new social binaries The mission not only supported this move to smaller family with shifting membership. Bosavi people interested in be- dwellings but also encouraged pastors to adopt Christian life- coming Christians adopted these new labels to index social styles, resulting in new de facto forms of village social division, differentiation based on religious affiliation. Christians, claim- which could be seen and heard. Building a church, pastor’s ing superiority over those “to the side,” used these terms to gardens, and house helped constitute one area of the village reposition themselves and grant themselves authority over their non-Christian relatives. There was virtually no contes- 18. In Tok Pisin one refers to one’s mother language as tok ples,and people from your place are called wantoks. 19. These remain visible through orthographic struggles that conveyed 20. The concept of center us is found in several key idioms, e.g., nulu dialect and thus indexed place distinctions. usa ‘in the middle of the night’, hena usa ‘in the forest, bush’. Schieffelin Christianizing Language S233 tation of this newly named hierarchy by non-Christians in evaluation for Christians), he did not hear the medical orderly this previously egalitarian society.21 call out for him to treat his sore leg. The pastor made it clear As they emerged, these new social categories were used to Tulinei, and everyone else in church, that being in the across speech contexts. Example 1 illustrates their potency. It wrong place means you cannot hear and thus cannot be is taken from a 1976 audiocassette letter initiated by Hasili, healed, rhetoric that, when used by a pastor, directly linked an unmarried man who had been among the first Bosavis physical to moral healing. Pastors repeatedly warned people involved in the church. Not literate, he asked me to record that it was not enough to be in the correct physical space, and play the cassette to his relatives, Degelo and Osolowa, the village, but one had to actively inhabit the correct moral the first Christian couple from Bosavi to attend a 3-year pastor space, the church. training school in Lae, and whom I had planned to visit. He them that their money, which he had been keeping, “Things of the Earth” has been stolen along with his own, and also reports the probable cause for the : the discovery of his affair with As part of traditional cultural , Bosavi people had Osolowa’s sister, his cousin. Previously ‘Christian center’ relationships with different types of spirits who were posi- geleso: us, he now describes himself as ‘gone to the side’ tioned along a vertical axis. The spirits of the dead (ane mama ha:la:ya ane and banned from the church for 2 years. Degelo’s ‘gone reflection’) primarily lived above (iwalu) them in the 22 audio recorded response to Hasili illustrates the use of these treetops as birds, and people lived on the ground or earth concepts. (hena). Local pastors used this vertical spatial relationship to reframe how people were supposed to think about themselves in relation to a new Christian iconography. Discarding tra- Example 1 ditional beliefs about the ane mama, they positioned God and Jesus high up (iwalu), emphasizing that they are always above 1. misini usami godeya: ene wi wa:la iliki everyone. People were located on the ground or earth (hena), Iaminside the mission, staying in God’s name and Bosavi pastors designated them as henfelo: kalu (literally ‘person of the earth’). This not only emphasized the difference 2. ge o:go: mada ha:iten hena lab ge nodo: sedaleob:da: dowo: but also expressed the importance of people literally looking ko:m up to Jesus and God and taking a submissive stance. While you are now really in heathen land, you completely went seemingly unremarkable, in sermons and through these idi- to Satan’s side oms pastors resignified the value of the ground or earth and bush more generally, assigning them a negative meaning that Degelo positions himself ‘inside the mission’ as well as would participate in a new binary opposition, earthly/non- staying ‘in God’s name’, new terms of emplacement. While earthly. The Christian idiom ‘things of the earth’ hen felo:wa: Hasili had referred to himself as ‘to the side’ ha:la:ya, as part no: keligo:, which could be taken as an abstract Christian of his new moral geography based on Christian rhetoric, concept, was taken literally by many to refer to a broad cat- Degelo (line 2) extends the difference between Hasili and egory of things and desires and for this mission included himself. He relocates Hasili even further out, reassigning him money and other commodities said to be tainted.23 Those to a cosmic realm, ‘heathen land’, and ‘Satan’s side’, locations who wanted to become Christian were told to avoid all ‘things that connote death. As Hasili is living in Bosavi, this reference of the earth’. to ‘heathen land’ can also refer to the village. Degelo goes on Furthermore, in the broad outlines of the apocalyptic nar- to assert that even if the money is found, he wants none of rative of the end-times with its division between believers and it, as he is no longer interested in “things of the earth,” another nonbelievers, not only was the earth depicted as a place of important Christian category discussed below. chaos but pastors established a new social category based on Misini usa ‘inside the mission’ indexed everything that the this cosmological spatial division: ‘those who are left on the bush was not. It was orderly, scheduled, and modern, and earth’ hen felo:wa:no: ta:fa:no: ha:na:ib and those who were what everyone did was visible and public. A physical space, not.24 This social division stood in contrast to the pre-Chris- more importantly, it was a moral space. The missionaries tian idea that at death, everyone more or less stayed together wanted villages to be like that too and they, along with local in the same realm of the mirror world. The idiom “things of pastors, told people to stay in the village, attend church, and the earth” was also conflated with hena usa ‘bush deep in the be seen. In one 1984 sermon, the local pastor singled out and land’ or the forest, and Christian associations of the bush with chastised Tulinei, an older, non-Christian man, for being ‘far away’ ko:na: from the village, not ‘close by’mo:uwo:. Because 22. See E. L. Schieffelin 1976:212–215; Feld 2013 (1982):30–31, 45. he was off in the bush (a location with a negative moral 23. Hen felo: ‘earth’ from hen ‘ground’, felo: (past tense felema ‘open up, roll out’). Robbins (2006) also notes the salience of “things of this 21. This is connected to expressed Bosavi senses of autonomy, un- ground” among Urapmin Christians. derscoring the importance of people making their own choices, ina:li 24. In Bosavi Christian rhetoric, heaven was infrequently mentioned, asula:sa:ga:. in contrast to talk about death, which is opposed to not dying. S234 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 its negative moral connotations were opposed to being inside tism and continued commitment. One could be wiyo: dife for a Christian space, which was explicitly designated as positive. a long time, and many were. For example, in her response to Hasili’s 1976 cassette letter, The second stage, geleso moso ‘plain or empty Christian’, Osolowa (Degelo’s wife) draws on this opposition to make referred to people who attended church and participated in her point; her lexical switch to the Tok Pisin term bus ‘bush’ Bible study, but were not yet baptized. Combining the term further emphasizes her negative stance. for Christian (geleso) with the term moso, which often mod- ified words for food, for example, man moso ‘plain or empty sago without greens, meat’, it meant that something desired Example 2 was missing. People often identified as geleso moso for years niyo: mogago: henamima ko:lo: bus amima ko:lo; niyo: mada before they were baptized. The third term, ho:na to:lolo: geleso: usa, nafa usa so:l ‘pushed down in the water’, referred to baptized Christians we are not in a bad land, not in the ‘bush’; we are inside who used this label to discursively position themselves at the a Christian space, inside a good space end point along a continuum of Christianization. These terms created hierarchical categories of Christian af- filiation and recognition and, along with other phrases, were New Social Categories for Becoming used to discursively mark and assert Christian identities. Ex- a Christian ample 3 is from a 1976 audiocassette letter exchanged by two Christian Bosavi men, Degelo (who was enrolled in pastor As part of the mandate that they distance themselves from training in Lae) and Kulu, an unmarried man living in Bosavi. their past, Bosavi Christians developed ways of speaking to Kulu had sent news of his baptism, and what follows is my distinguish categories of ideas and things that they rejected transcript of Degelo’s audio taped response to him. from those that they desired. They not only expressed their affirmation of discontinuity with their past but vigorously aligned themselves with Christian stances and activities. In Example 3 conversations they bracketed practices and beliefs that they rejected as “what their fathers knew/did,” thus making public 1. ne ho:na to:lolo: ge ha:lu geleso kalu dowo: and explicit that they were no longer relevant or valuable to Iwasbaptized, you were just becoming a Christian their own subjectivities. For example, when talking about 2. o:go: mada ge ha:la:doba: elen ko:sega ya:sa:ga: nelo:wa hymns, they pointedly remarked that hymns were “not one’s doma:miyo: .... father’s songs” (gisalo).25 These expressions, drawing on kin- you were on the side but now you are staying with me ship and generation, indexed the requisite opposition and 3. mo: ge ha:la:ya elenba kosega hedele ge ho:namiyo: se mo: discontinuity required for expressed membership in the to:lolo: a:namiyo: niyo:liya:yo: ha:lu ele o:ngo:wo: difa:ya sen Christian community. Bosavi Christians continued to use no, you were not really to the side, but because you their vernacular but also reconfigured it through constant had not yet been baptized it was like there was a small references to Christian concepts as a way of expressing their boundary marker between us new identity. 4. a:la:fo:ko:sega o:go: ge ta:nufo:miyo: nelo:wamiyo: ko:lo:— Christians also developed new terms to designate what they mada sagalo: a:la: so:lo:l—a:la:fo:ko:lo:—mada hedele kobale identified as three stages of becoming a Christian, which they mada — also used as additional categories of social differentiation. The so now you have crossed over to where I am, I am saying first category, wiyo: dife ‘name put down’, referred to a public that I am really happy so really act of writing one’s name (or more usually, having the pastor 5. o:go: ge mada ho:na to:lolo: ko:m a:la:fo:ko:lo: made ne write one’s name) in the local church registry. This not only sagalab hedele nilo:doba:da: dowo: nelo:lo:ba:da: doma:miyo: signaled one’s willingness to attend church services and con- lo:do: a:la: asula:sa:ga; tribute labor to church activities but writing one’s name in now that you are finally baptized I am really happy you a book made it official, permanent, and modern. People self- were on our side, you are obviously on my side I see so identified using this term as a reason for not participating in thinking like that non-Christian activities, (e.g., anything related to traditional 6. o:go: na:no: imilisi bowo: o nowo: imilisi dowo: imilisi ceremonial activities, smoking tobacco). Pastors said that dowo:lo:do: a:la: asula:sa:ga: mada o:m so:lo:l— while God could see this book, what really mattered was bap- now we are like we suck from the same breast, or have the same mother, same father, so thinking like that I am 25. Making efforts to link local Christians to larger social units, local saying thank you pastors sometimes referred to the fact that Papua New Guinea calls itself a Christian country and that they were part of the Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea. These constructs, however, were largely illusory Degelo’s response not only conveys a certain amount of in terms of local experiences, as no national and very little provincial Christian competition between the two men, both of whom government presence was evident and larger polities were not understood. had been among the first Bosavis to have extensive contact Schieffelin Christianizing Language S235 with native pastors and the Australian missionaries, but it is regard to accomplishing the desired transformation—con- also an example of a new rhetorical style articulating differ- version—of Bosavi people. Mission ideology held that Bosavi ence. Degelo, one of the first local pastors, while pleased with culture and language were distinct and independent entities this news, nonetheless reminds Kulu that they were not always and could be easily separated and evaluated in different ways. the same. Using new Christian categories of difference (line In fact, in order to accomplish their goals, they had to be. 1), he refers to himself as already baptized when Kulu was Thus, from this mission’s perspective, to become Christian just becoming a Christian (literally ‘a little bit Christian’). He meant achieving a cultural break or rupture (discontinuity), uses the binary images of Christian space, telling Kulu (line but to do so required linguistic continuity, the use of the 2) that he had been “on the side,” but has now crossed over vernacular language. to the center, where Degelo is; as he puts it, “You are staying Bosavis categorized cultural practices prohibited by the with me.” Degelo (line 3) then reformulates his previous as- mission as a discrete set of taboos (mugu). Those desiring to sertion about Kulu being ‘on the side’, making explicit how convert as well as those already baptized were expected to the difference felt to him. Using the word for a boundary observe them without modification. This stood in contrast to marker (ele) that distinguishes one person’s garden or land how Bosavis treated and talked about their vernacular: lan- from another’s (always a named place), he proposes that guage was viewed as relatively malleable and could be adapted Kulu’s baptism has not only removed this “boundary marker,” through linguistic innovations to create a Christian language that is, their difference, but Kulu now shares Degelo’s space variety or register. There were even ways to get around the in the Christian center/periphery dichotomy, one that has no prohibition of particular taboo words and phrases. With local place name. Positioning himself (and Christianity) in the cen- pastors translating Christian concepts from Tok Pisin into ter, Degelo (line 4) describes Kulu as having crossed over to their vernacular, along with their own linguistic and cultural where he is, additionally elaborating (line 5) that it is “our” ideas, linguistic innovations did not challenge local language (plural) side, (the side of the Christians), then repeating his ideology since Bosavis had historically incorporated lexical assertion that it is his, “my” (singular) side. From Degelo’s items and song texts from other places into their verbal prac- Christian framework, it is all about taking sides, ones that are tices.27 The development of a new Christian vernacular lan- in opposition to and in competition with each other, and his guage variety (misini to) was just more systematic, extensive, response articulates this new way of thinking about who they and purposeful than anything that had been previously ex- are. Where they are is one way of defining who they are, perienced, and written Tok Pisin (Nupela Testamen) which though the spatial domain that Degelo outlines is far from provided the source, had its own local prestige. the traditional Bosavi sense of place, which indexed identity Audio recordings, transcriptions, and ethnographic anal- from shared, named places and emplaced experiences. yses of the development of these new discursive practices over Degelo’s last utterance (line 6) further emphasizes their 20 years offer evidence of how Bosavis themselves were ac- relatedness as Christians and, by implication, their difference tively involved in these processes of change as they worked from non-Christians. Using kinship terms, Degelo invokes at understanding, translating, making sense of a different dis- images of shared siblingship as he reassigns Kulu, his cross- cursive universe through their own interpretive procedures, cousin, to the category of brother. He portrays them as two reshaping their language while staying close to the literal children not only drinking from the same breast (same meanings of Tok Pisin as dictated by this mission’s literalist mother) but as also having the same father. Shared blood is tradition. While many of the details are particular to Bosavi the closest one can get, and through language, Degelo creates given its history and trajectory of missionization, I would a new fictive social relationship of equality, evoking kinship, argue that linguistic innovations and the emergence of new 26 and, without mentioning it, place. social categories can be documented in any context of dy- namic and rapid change, even when those innovations are Conclusions interactionally produced and potentially ephemeral. Such transformations, however, are usually out of the awareness of This paper offers a perspective from linguistic anthropology speakers, and not part of a narrative of conversion or cultural as a contribution to understanding Christianization, in par- change. These and other textual and interactional materials ticular, how various processes and dynamics of continuity and show that depending on whose perspective is foregrounded discontinuity can be viewed and theorized. Taking the view (mission, local missionizers, anthropologist), as well as what that multiple interests and competing ideologies are always practices and ideologies are foregrounded (linguistic, cul- at play in such contact settings, the focus has been on how tural), questions of continuity and discontinuity become com- one type of Protestant mission—a fundamentalist one— plexly interwoven and dynamic. While one domain might be viewed culture and language, and its stance toward each, with 27. Without an ideology of linguistic purism, speakers historically in- 26. One is reminded here of Weber’s (1993 [1922]) notion that mem- corporated new words and ideas into their language when there was a bers “set the co-religionist in the place of the fellow clansmen” (211). reason to do so. Feld (2013 [1982]) describes the incorporation of song In Bosavi one creates closer kinship relationships. texts and ceremonies from other areas into Bosavi traditional practices. S236 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 changing, others might stay more or less the same, at least into Christian and non-Christian space helped produce ma- according to local perceptions.28 terial and embodied senses of this new regime. In contrast to maintaining their local vernacular,29 the In 1990, however, the Australian missionaries decided to meanings and importance of place and place names have leave Bosavi. Frustrated by their sense that many Bosavis could rapidly shifted from ones that were locally produced and cen- not stay “inside the mission” and fell “to the side,” their prayer tral to senses of self and memories to introduced Christian letters expose their doubts that Bosavi Christians could be notions of space. We see a clear case of discontinuity in this included in their global Christian community. As unantici- domain, and this has had a profound impact on cultural and pated outside opportunities to earn money appeared from social life. This dis-placement, a consequence of APCM rhet- government, development, and resource extraction projects, oric, is not unique to Bosavi and is occurring with variations many young men left Bosavi seeking “things of the earth.” It throughout Papua New Guinea. As Robbins (2006) has ar- remains to be seen how Bosavis, having been through inten- gued, there is a great deal to learn from examining a single sive missionization, manage not only to find their place but case in detailed and locally significant terms in order to un- also to create a coherent sense of who they are in a rapidly derstand the various ways in which different societies give changing social world. meaning to places and maintain social and symbolic con- nections to them but also to track how they give up strongly felt associations that define their very sense of who they are, Acknowledgments in some cases, rather suddenly.30 Similar to the Urapmin case described by Robbins, Chris- Thanks are offered to the National Science Foundation, the tianity has also provided Bosavis with a new set of conceptual American Philosophical Society, and the Wenner-Gren Foun- categories and ritual means to dissociate themselves from their dation for Anthropological Research for fieldwork support in senses of place. In Bosavi what is salient is the promise of Bosavi; to the National for the Humanities, the joining an imagined Christian community of global propor- American Council of Learned Societies, the John Simon Gug- tions that is not grounded or emplaced, but one based on genheim Memorial Fellowships, and New York University’s membership as a result of choice, difference, division: those Humanities Initiative for the time necessary to think about who converted and those who did not. In Bosavi, as these this project; and to Joel Robbins, wantok tru tru. new conceptual categories were translated into the vernacular and became part of local Christian discursive practice, they References Cited were well on their way to becoming “received categories” that Bandak, Andreas. 2014. Of refrains and rhythms in contemporary Damascus: would shape social life and relationships. Through vernacular urban space and Christian-Muslim coexistence. Current Anthropology usage, these discursive practices would become naturalized, 55(suppl. 10):S248–S261. thought of as the way things are, or at least for Christians, Casey, Edward S. 1993. Getting back into place. Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press. the way they say they are. By saying it enough times, Christians ———. 1996. How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time. hoped to produce a new social reality and set the terms of In Senses of place. Steven Feld and Keith Basso, eds. Pp. 13–52. Santa Fe, engagement, which through the late 1980s, they were able to NM: School of American Research. Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: a short introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell. do. Changing local senses of time, and reorganizing villages Davies, W. D. 1994. The Gospel and the land. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press. Dundon, Alison. 2012. The gateway to the Fly: Christianity, continuity, and 28. The “starting” point of a particular time frame is also a factor spaces of conversion in Papua New Guinea. In Flows of faith: religious reach when examining change of any type, even when working in a relatively and community in Asia and the Pacific. Lenore Manderson, Wendy Smith, small-scale society without written records or a literate tradition. Matt Tomlinson, eds. Pp. 143–159. Dordrecht: Springer. 29. Bosavi people do not describe their language as changing or dif- Feld, Steven. 1988. Aesthetics as iconicity of style, or ‘lift-up-over-sounding’: ferent. Schieffelin and Feld (1998), however, document linguistic inno- getting into the Kaluli groove. Yearbook for Traditional Music 20:74–113. vation, addition, and loss attributable to the influence of Tok Pisin loan ———. 1996. Waterfalls of song: an acoustemology of place resounding in translations as well as new styles of speaking with pragmatic implications. Bosavi, Papua New Guinea. In Senses of place. Steven Feld and Keith Basso, eds. Pp. 91–135. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research. 30. While Urapmin share many similarities with Bosavi, there are also ———. 2013 (1982). Sound and sentiment: birds, weeping, poetics, and song important differences, especially with regard to the notion of territoriality, in Kaluli expression. 3rd edition. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. local ground spirits, opportunities for development, and the type of mis- Feld, Steven, and Keith Basso, eds. 1996. Senses of place. Santa Fe, NM: School sionization that occurred. Dundon (2012) offers another perspective on of American Research. ideas about place, spatial transformation, and conversion among the Gieryn, Thomas F. 2000. A space for place in sociology. Annual Review of Gogodala, who were missionized by the UFM in the early 1930s, 40 years Sociology 26:463–496. before missionization in Bosavi. Elaborating Robbins’s notion of conti- Handman, Courtney. 2007. Speaking to the soul. In Consequences of contact: nuity, she claims that Gogodala read their landscapes for evidence of language ideologies and sociocultural transformations in Pacific societies. Miki their ancestral culture’s deep connection to Christianity. In addition, she Makihara and Bambi B. Schieffelin, eds. Pp. 166–188. New York: Oxford University Press. views acts of emplacement that included clearing the ground, abandoning ———. 2010. Events of translation: intertextuality and Christian ethnothe- traditional longhouses for small family dwellings, and inscribing these ologies of change among the Guhu-Samane, Papua New Guinea. American places with new Christian significance as central to missionary success. Anthropologist 12(4):576–588. This was not the case in Bosavi, but Dundon’s work is suggestive of what Harding, Susan F. 2000. The book of Jerry Falwell: fundamentalist language and can happen over successive generations of Christian experience. politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schieffelin Christianizing Language S237

LiPuma, Edward. 2000. Encompassing others: the magic of modernity in Mel- ———. 2007a. Found in translating: reflexive language across time and texts anesia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. in Bosavi, PNG. In Consequences of contact: language ideologies and socio- Nida, Eugene. 1964. Toward a science of translating. Leiden: Brill. cultural transformations in Pacific societies. Miki Makihara and Bambi B. Nupela Testamen. 1969. Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea. Schieffelin, eds. Pp. 140–165. New York: Oxford University Press. Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 1984. Language acquisition and so- ———. 2007b. Langage et lieu dans l’univers de l’enfance. Anthropologie et cialization: three developmental stories and their acquisition. In Culture Socie´tie´s 31(1):15–37. theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion. Rick Shweder and Robert LeVine, ———. 2008a. Speaking only your own mind: reflections on talk, gossip, and eds. Pp. 276–230. New York: Cambridge University Press. intentionality in Bosavi (PNG). Anthropological Quarterly 81(2):431–441. Robbins, Joel. 2003. On the paradoxes of global Pentecostalism and the perils ———. 2008b. Tok bokis, tok piksa: translating parables in Papua New of continuity thinking. Religion 33(3):221–231. Guinea. In Social lives in language—sociolinguistics and multilingual speech ———. 2004. Becoming sinners: Christianity and moral torment in a Papua communities. Miriam Meyerhoff and Naomi Nagy, eds. Pp. 111–134. Am- New Guinea society. Berkeley: University of California Press. sterdam: John Benjamins. ———. 2006. On giving ground: globalization, religion and territorial de- Schieffelin, Bambi B., and Steven Feld. 1998. Bosavi-English-Tok Pisin tachment in a Papua New Guinea society. In Territoriality and conflict in dictionary. Pacific Linguistics, Series C, vol. 153. Canberra: Research School the age of globalization. M. Kahler and B. Walter, eds. Pp. 62–84. New York: of Pacific Studies, ANU. Cambridge University Press. Schieffelin, Edward L. 1976. The sorrow of the lonely and the burning of the ———. 2007. Continuity thinking and the problem of Christian culture: dancers. New York: St. Martin’s. belief, time and the anthropology of Christianity. Current Anthropology ———. 1977. The unseen influence: tranced mediums as historical innova- 48(1):5–38. tors. Journal of the Socie´te´ des Oceanistes 33(56–57):169–178. Rule, Murray. 1977. Institutional framework of language study: the Asia Pacific ———. 1981. Evangelical rhetoric and the transformation of traditional cul- Christian mission. In Language, culture and society and the modern world. ture in Papua New Guinea. Comparative Studies in Society and History 23(1): Fascicle 2: New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study, vol. 3. S. A. 150–156. Wurm, ed. Pp. 1341–1344. Canberra: Australian National University. Schieffelin, Edward L., and Robert Crittenden. 1991. Like people you see in a Sack, Robert D. 1986. Human territoriality. Cambridge: Cambridge University dream: first contact in six Papuan societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Press. Sapir, Edward. 1958 (1929). The status of linguistics as a science. In Selected Smith, Edwin W. 1929. The shrine of a people’s soul. London: Edinburgh House. writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture, and personality. David G. Trompf, Garry W. 1991. Melanesian religion. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- Mandelbaum, ed. Pp. 160–166. Berkeley: University of California Press. sity Press. Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1990. The give and take of everyday life: language so- Weber, Max. 1993 (1922). Sociology of religion. Boston: Beacon. cialization of Kaluli children. New York: Cambridge University Press. Weymouth, Ross. 1978. The Gogodala society in Papua and the Unevangelized ———. 2000. Introducing Kaluli literacy. In Regimes of value. Paul Kroskrity, Fields Mission, 1890–1977. PhD dissertation, Flinders University of Aus- ed. Pp. 293–327. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research. tralia. ———. 2002. Marking time: the dichotomizing discourse of multiple tem- Whorf, Benjamin L. 1956. Language, thought, and reality. Cambridge: MIT poralities. Current Anthropology 43(suppl. 4):S5–17. Press. S238 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Being Christians in Urbanizing China The Epistemological Tensions of the Rural Churches in the City

by Jianbo Huang

With the rapid urbanization of China in the last 20 years, hundreds of millions of rural residents surged into the cities searching for better livelihoods. Hundreds of thousands of these urban migrants have been Christians. The Christian migrants not only found themselves confronted by the same overwhelming city life and culture as other new rural-urban migrants, they also found a new church setting marked by unfamiliar expressions of their familiar faith and different ways of understanding, approaching, and experiencing God as well as new ways of understanding self and the world. Besides the “moral torment” and identity tension between being “Chinese Christian” and “Christian Chinese,” they are struggling with at least two distinct Christian epistemological styles, one of which is more inward, emotional, and practice centered and the other of which is more outward, intellectual, and text centered.

According to Rodney Stark (1996), early Christianity was In this article, I will briefly look at the major social changes mainly an urban movement. The case in China was almost that have accompanied this rapid urbanization and their im- the opposite in the last 50 years.1 According to the officially plications for Christians in China with a particular focus on recognized Christian (Protestant) organization, the Protestant one of the newly founded migrant-worker churches in Beijing, Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), the great majority of the capital and one of the country’s megacities. Based on the Christians in China live in rural areas even today (Huang and description of daily life and church life, the article will first 2 Yang 2005). Yet the picture began to change gradually when answer some basic questions. Who are the people who attend “urban revivals” of Christianity occurred in 1990s (Yang church? Are migrant churches more like urban churches or 2012), and this trend has sped up in the last 20 years as rural churches? And what do the migrant-worker Christians urbanization rapidly took off and remapped the nation’s pop- do to survive and thrive both physically and spiritually? ulation. Because most of the Christians in migrant-worker churches Since I began my fieldwork with a migrant-worker church are not new converts but rural Christians who moved to the in Beijing in 2006, I was intrigued by the fact that the rural city, this article will mainly tackle the following questions. churches and the rural Christians who just moved into the city were so different from the urban churches and urban Christians. In addition to their poor living conditions and 1. Protestants first came to China in 1807 and invested most of their resources in the coastal cities, with the exception of the China Inland shabby meeting places, their understanding of the faith and Mission. When the missionaries were forced to leave China in the early their religious practices are not familiar to the urban Chris- 1950s, they left 700,000 Chinese Protestant Christians behind. It surprised tians, who have more education. The rural Christians seem many people that after 30 years of political campaigns, the Protestant to be more emotional in church gatherings, and they place Church survived and even experienced a great revival, particularly in the more emphasis on prayer, miracles, and personal experiences, countryside of Henan, Anhui, and Zhejiang provinces in the 1980s and 1990s. According to the state council, there are more than 10 million while the urban Christians tend to be more intellectual, more Protestant Christians as of 1996. text oriented, and their faith is more focused on reading and 2. Churches that are not part of the official TSPM organization are interpreting the Bible. I was also told by members of the generally called “house churches,” or “unregistered churches.” It has been church that they find it challenging as they are adjusting to a vigorous movement alongside the state-approved TSPM since the 1950s, the new and strange city life. The internal tension experienced even in the years of extremely harsh and hostile political campaigns against religions, especially “foreign religions.” It is generally believed by rural Christians who now live in the city thus became my that house churches have even more members than the TSPM churches. major research interest. Protestantism and Catholicism are considered two distinct religions in China, and they count at this point as two of the five state-approved religions. This article discusses only the Protestant Church. TSPM first Jianbo Huang is Professor at the Institute of Anthropology of East came into being in 1950s to express its loyalty to the new republic. It China Normal University (500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, has been the official organization for Protestant churches, though in the China [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 1980s the China Christian Association was formed as its sister organi- 13, accepted 17 VI 14, and electronically published 6 XI 14. zation, mainly dealing with the church’s internal affairs.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0009$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677882 Huang Christians in Urbanizing China S239

What does it mean to be a Christian in the city? What are 88 million, in 2003 it was 114 million, and in 2012 it was the moral and intellectual struggles Christians face in a Chi- 250 million. nese society under a secular regime that claims to be strongly The extreme process of urbanization has not only resulted atheist? What are the changes and even tensions for rural in a geographical relocation of the population, it has also Christians as “strangers in the city” (Zhang 2001) who live a effected almost all aspects of society and culture: transpor- different life in the “strange” city? In other words, this article tation, communication, information flow, popular culture, focuses on the “being” of Christian Chinese living out their and so on. What is more important is that the previously Christian faith in different social settings, not the “becoming” “rural or earthbound” people are now able to “float” from or conversion of Chinese Christians. Particularly, I will illus- place to place looking for work, and this reality has changed trate the tension and the gradual changes to the religion of the nature of social control and interpersonal relations (Ai rural Christians in the city from more emotional to more and Huang 2007). rational, from more ritualistic to more textual, and from more As part of Chinese society, Christianity is no exception to spontaneous to more focused on order. In short, in this article massive social change. The changes in the Christian churches I am looking at differences between rural and urban expres- in China have resulted from great geographical transforma- sions of Christianity, at least in China, but moreover I am tions: from rural to urban, from west to east, and from inland looking at how members of both kinds of churches have come to coast. These changes are also reflected in the changes in to interact with each other as they have been brought close mission emphasis and resource allocation from rural areas to together by urbanization’s development of rural churches in the cities.4 And, naturally, the church structure has changed the city. from the preexisting dualism of rural and urban churches. Now a third type of church is emerging, one that stands Urbanization and Its Effect on somewhat between rural and urban and can be called the Christianity in China “rural church in the city” (Huang 2012b). The growth of urban churches has of course benefited from From 1949 to 2011, China’s population increased from 400 the rapid urbanization process, including receiving rural million to 1.4 billion, while the number of Protestant Chris- Christians newly moved to the cities. In fact, for these rural tians increased from fewer than 1 million to more than 23 Christians, knowing how to live a Christian life is another million according to official statistics.3 Along with the mod- major challenge in addition to making a living in the city. ernization process, the image of “earthbound China” (Fei and The first issue is how to find a church, and a suitable church, Chang 1945), or rural China, has been gradually replaced by in a strange place. a more and more urban outlook. Even if it is not as highly Because of the limitation of the urban churches in terms urbanized as the United States and Europe yet, it is definitely of size and accommodation and the social and cultural gap an urbanizing China, where you can see crowded cities and between the urban migrants and the urban citizens, many deserted villages, especially in the last 20 years, observations new churches have been established, particularly for the newly supported by the following statistics on the level of urbani- migrated people from the countryside, the so-called floating zation: in 1949 it was 10.6%, in 1978 it was 18%, in 2000 it people, peasant workers, or migrant workers, as most official was 36.09%, and in 2011 it was 51.27%. documents refer to them.5 For the migrant-worker Christians, One should keep in mind that these statistics do not include another challenge appears: how to build a church in the city the large group of migrant workers because the state-imposed where people live a different life from that of the countryside. residential registration system only counts “nonpeasant” res- In the following section, I will focus on one such migrant- idents as urban citizens. Classified as “peasants” according to the residential registration system, these migrant workers are 4. Does this mean the decline of the rural church? It is true that in not entitled to urban citizenship even if they have worked many rural churches we find a slowing of growth in the past two decades, and lived in the cities for many years. They are suffering from and in some cases even a decline in terms of church attendance. But institutional and social prejudice. Consider an- overall, rural churches are still the majority in China in terms of size, though voiceless, while we can see more and more influence from the other set of official statistics on the increasing migrant-worker urban churches via theological training and return villagers. The rise of population in cities: in 1994 it was 60 million, in 2000 it was the urban church is very noticeable, gaining converts from the more educated citizens, even including the social elites. These new urban 3. Although some overseas Christian organizations overestimated the churches are becoming more and more influential, but they are not number of Christians as more than 100 million, most scholars believe necessarily the major body of the Christian church yet. the number of Protestant Christians to be somewhere between 40 and 5. With more than 20 million residents, there are only 17 churches, 60 million. In fact, a nationwide survey by Baylor University in 2007 4 meeting points, and 50,000 Christians under TSPM. Though there are shows Protestant Christians as about 3% of the total population. Nev- thousands of unregistered churches spread over the city, most of them ertheless, Christianity expanded unexpectedly and quickly in China, and are very small in size, with 20–50 members. A few large unregistered its expansion has been considered the greatest revival ever in terms of churches, such as Shouwang Church, Zion Church, and Gospel Church, the population growth in such a short time. are mostly composed of highly educated urban citizens. S240 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 worker church in Beijing, the capital city of China, which has It is important to realize that although the church now is a population over 22 million.6 in the city of Beijing, its members’ way of expressing their faith and the way in which the church operates is still largely A Rural Church in the City of Beijing “rural.” In fact, we may even say that the migrant-worker church is more “rural” than “urban” (Liu and Huang 2011). In 2001, a Christian couple came from Anhui Province to Beijing as missionaries to the city.7 They designated migrant workers as their primary targets of ministry. Since then, this Church Leadership and Operation unregistered church has been growing at an amazing rate, In terms of the church leadership structure and the way it with an average of 4–5 new fellowships or meeting points set functions, the church we studied has a lot in common with up each year. By the end of 2006, this church had established the rural church, and it is quite different from urban churches, a network of 27 meeting points with more than 1,000 mem- with clearer power structures and divisions of work and even bers. Though the leaders of the church are from Anhui, most well-developed church charters. In fact, it is based more on of the church members are from Henan Province, which is the charismatic leadership, with very few written church doc- the most populated province in China and also the most uments or internal regulations. Christianized province. The church now has 12 full-time coworkers who live a very As is true of most other “house churches,” or unrecognized basic and harsh life in the city.9 These coworkers include 8 churches, this church has no name. The leaders of the church several full-time preachers from the hometown of the leaders boast of their independence and even avoidance of any de- and most members as well as preachers who have grown up nominational connection, though in fact the major leaders in the church and transitioned from part-time to full-time are still closely tied with the rural church network in their pastoral positions. The salary for all these full-time preachers hometown, and their teachings and faith practices demon- is only 300 yuan per month. They all live in small and simple strate strong influences from the Baptist tradition and Cal- bungalows on the outskirts of the city, with very simple fur- vinist theology. niture and no heating. They have little access to any enter- The establishment of new fellowships is based on the needs tainment not to mention any of the luxuries in the city. Every of the believers. If three to five Christians happen to live in one has a very tight schedule, busy with preaching, Bible the same area and want to meet together as a fellowship, the studying, visiting the believers, and so on. If they happen to church sends preachers or coworkers to teach them. From have any free moments, they use this time to preach the gospel this small size, the fellowship keeps growing thereafter, mainly to strangers in the street. from two sources. One pathway is that the believers share the The core leadership of the church is the coworkers’ council, gospel with their friends and bring them as new believers to consisting of leaders of each fellowship and the full-time the fellowship, who then account for 15%–20% of the total preachers. There are altogether more than 20 of them. The number. The other pathway is that existing believers find out coworkers’ council has the highest decision-making authority. about the fellowship and then join, and these Christians typ- The coworkers’ council holds meetings once a month, each ically account for the majority of the church members. The time lasting for a whole day. The morning is for prayer and different fellowships vary in terms of size: the bigger ones Bible study, and the afternoon is for the discussion of church have 40–50 people or even 60–70 people; the smaller ones affairs. The coworkers attending the council meeting are re- have 10 or more. Most of the meeting places are located in quired to fast for the entire day. During the meeting, the suburban areas or the margins between the urban and rural major leaders of the church put forward proposals concerning areas. All these meeting places have the obvious geographical church affairs, and the rest of the council give their opinions relationship that almost all the attendees live in the local area. and suggestions before they finally reach an agreement. The 6. In addition to the church established as part of a rural church affairs discussed in the council meeting cover many large and network we investigated, there are other types of migrant-worker small issues, from how to arrange the Christmas celebrations churches, such as small independent fellowships, “factory churches,” etc. to what essentials to buy for the church. All these things need 7. I carried out this research as one of the coinvestigators for the the consensus of the coworkers. In fact, there are always some research project “Rural Churches in the City” (from 2005 to 2012, which coworkers absent from the meeting. In some cases, the num- included studies in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Dalian, Shijiazhuang, and Kunming). Dr. Liu Qi conducted part of the fieldwork in Beijing ber of attendees falls short of 50% of the total number of and released some early findings a few years ago (Liu, 2009). Yingshang coworkers. Those who fail to show up for the meeting give (of Anhui Province) Church is one of the five largest rural church net- up their right to discuss church affairs. Considering this, the works in China since the 1980s, claiming to have more than 1 million decisions made by the coworkers’ council are somewhat ac- members. 8. Although in the last 10 years, more and more urban “house cidental. But we also noticed the increasing demand to have churches” began to pick up church names (e.g., Shouwang, Zion, Gospel, a more structured church leadership team, and they are even City Revival), and each church has more than 1,000 members. They no longer meet in “houses” or “families”; instead, they meet in office build- 9. Tong gong, or “coworker,” is a widely used term for church leaders. ings, highly “visible,” while still not “recognized” by the state. Many of them are not full time and are unpaid by the church. Huang Christians in Urbanizing China S241 talking about picking a church name, just as many of the three general activities unite the whole church: a praise and urban churches have done. worship meeting, a coworkers’ training meeting, and a council Apart from the coworkers for the church as a whole, each meeting of all the leaders of each fellowship. All of these fellowship has its own set of coworkers that varies in number activities are scheduled on Saturdays. There is also a weekly from two to eight. The appointment of coworkers for the Bible study and preaching training meeting for all the preach- fellowship is not as restricted as for the church. When the ers on Tuesdays. Each fellowship has its own prayer meeting preachers come to a fellowship to preach and find brothers on a weekly basis, and some fellowships also have a weekly (di xiong) and sisters (zi mei) with faith and enthusiasm, they Bible study group. encourage these brothers and sisters to take on some church Among all these meetings, the whole congregation treats responsibilities. In this way, enthusiastic believers naturally the Sunday service with the highest respect. They seldom miss become the coworkers for the fellowships. When brothers and Sunday services. As for other activities, they work around sisters offer their houses for fellowship meetings, they also their schedule as they choose which ones to attend. Usually, become the coworkers for the fellowship. The affairs con- believers with no children are careful to attend various meet- cerning each fellowship are discussed and decided among the ings more frequently. One sister said that sometimes she fellowship coworkers. The church provides these fellowship would have to miss the Bible study and prayer meeting during coworkers with some spiritual help, such as lending them the week because she had to take care of children. She envied Christian literature, inviting them to various training pro- the other sisters who did not need to take care of children, grams, and so forth. Usually, the fellowship coworkers are because it is more convenient for them to attend more ac- eligible for preaching ministry one or two years after they tivities. In fact, the preachers usually take their children with became Christians. them when they go to preach at fellowships. Such a migrant-worker church does not usually maintain The food and meeting sites for the various meetings are regular communication with the urban churches. However, very simple. Sometimes the meetings are held in one of the the one I studied did come to know a leader of an urban brothers’ or sisters’ homes, and sometimes the church rents church during an Evangelists’ Camp in October 2004. After a place for meetings. Generally speaking, these meeting places that, they began to cooperate with an urban church, such as are all very basic. They have no heating systems and are mostly inviting the choir of the urban church to sing hymns during located on the outskirts of the city, which means it can be Christmas or inviting the leader of the urban church to come very cold in the winters, two to three degrees (centigrade) to preach. colder than the temperature of urban areas. The biggest place that the church rents is about 50 m2 and costs 500 yuan per month. Most of the large-scale activities Church Activities and Meeting Places involving the whole church are held there. Normally these The migrant-worker church carries on most of the rural activities last for a whole day, so the church also provides church way of preaching and mobilizing church members, lunch for the believers. Lunches are also very simple: steamed but they have found that in most cases they do not have buns, salty pickles, and vegetable soup (with a little meat). enough meeting places. Most rural churches have a church Sometimes there is not even soup. Tables are set up in the building, no matter how shabby it may be. Besides meeting middle of the room, with 5–6 people sitting around a table. places, the lifestyle and even the concept of time in the city After lunch, they go out for fresh air. Some people volunteer is very different from what migrant workers are used to in to do the cleaning. Dust covers the concrete floor, so when the countryside. In other words, their attempts to do the same people try to clean the floor, they kick up a huge amount of things in a different social context are sometimes rendered dust in the room. problematic and inefficient by the constraints they face in Besides this place, all the other meeting places for different their new home areas. fellowships are in the homes of the brothers and sisters. One The time for Sunday services varies with each fellowship, of the places is the home where a sister and her family live, with some scheduled in the mornings and some in the af- which covers 15 m2 and has very simple furniture. When they ternoons. In some cases, they have to meet on Saturdays are meeting here, they put a table in the middle of the room simply because there are not enough preachers on Sundays. and some stools around the table. Believers sit on the stools The church assigns preachers for each fellowship. The place- and some even sit on the beds. Such simple meeting facilities ment of preachers is based on a free-to-go basis; therefore, it are determined by the members of the church, most of whom is quite flexible and features a dynamic distribution. The full- have low levels of income. The tithe they offer is very limited; time preachers usually rotate among the different fellowships. usually the total amount of tithe of each fellowship is some- If a certain fellowship is short of a preacher now and then, thing between 200 and 300 yuan each month. So they cannot they come together and watch a video of a sermon by a afford to have the bigger and better kinds of meeting places preacher in the church or listen to a preacher invited from the city churches have. And they are also used to the simple somewhere else. meeting facilities they have, though the church leaders ex- Apart from the scattered meetings of different fellowships, pressed the need for a more “stabilized” meeting place so that S242 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 they can maintain longer relationships with the church mem- distinctions, the migrant-worker Christians nevertheless tend bers and have more regular meetings. to meet with other migrant-worker brothers and sisters even though they could enjoy better facilities in other city churches, Strangers in the City and the Church whether under the TSPM or the house churches of urban as a Community Christians. A brother, a peddler in the neighborhood, expressed an In his pathbreaking study, Joel Robbins (2004) coined the attitude typical of other migrant-worker Christians: term “moral torment” to describe how the Urapmin people I felt much at ease here [the migrant-worker church]. When of Papua New Guinea experience and deal with the moral I came to Beijing, I first went to Chongwenmen church [a dilemmas that have arisen as they turned to Christianity TSPM church]. Just too many people there, I had no friends through the process of “becoming sinners.” This partly applies there. I went there once a week only for a Sunday service. to Chinese Christians in that Han Chinese are saturated with Then I went to a house church in Guomao [central business the Confucian idea of human nature as essentially “good,” district of Beijing]. The brothers and sisters were very nice whereas as Christians their primary conviction has to do not to me, but I cannot understand the teaching there. Too only with the existence of a god, and of the sole Christian theological. And I don’t have much to say to brothers and God, but also with theological claims that human beings are sisters there. Only last year I finally found our church in fundamentally “evil,” or “bad,” or, in Calvinist terms, marked this compound, I found many laoxiang [fellow countrymen] by their “.” here. It is like a home to me. And as Chinese Christians, they need to deal with the neg- ative historical legacy of Christianity as a tool for imperial In other words, migrant-worker churches provide a home invasion of the Western powers since the nineteenth century. away from home that offers social cohesion and security. Their cultural and political loyalty is under suspicion: as the This is an important reason why migrant churches attract expression traced back to the late nineteenth century goes, rural Christians who have to deal with discrimination and a “one more Christian, one less Chinese.” Even today, the ma- precarious urban life. Besides, although in church services jority of Chinese still view Christianity as a “foreign religion.” they all speak Mandarin (Putonghua) because they are from Therefore, the issue of social and cultural legitimacy for Chris- different hometowns, the idea of laoxiang is still very powerful tians in China requires Chinese Christians to confront seri- in that not only do laoxiang talk to one another in their ously the necessity and possibility of becoming Christian Chi- specific dialect after the group services but they also give each nese. We may call the experience of this confrontation one other job opportunities, and many laoxiang tend to be work- of “legitimacy torment” (Huang 2012a). ing in the same or similar jobs. On top of this, migrant-worker Christians find themselves in the same situation as other migrant workers: they are “strangers in the city” (Zhang 2001). They suffer from all Church as a Spiritual Institution kinds of social and cultural discrimination. In addition, their Many of the members of this church had been farmers from church is not legally recognized, which means the migrant- birth. There is nothing they can do to change such a fact. worker Christians are always under scrutiny and are potential Most of them had miserable life experiences. During inter- targets of police crackdowns. So the question we must ask views, many of them burst into tears. Now that they have about the lives of the migrant-worker Christians is simple: made it to the modern city, they are still lingering at marginal what resources do migrant-worker Christians draw from their status, worrying about food to eat and clothes to wear. They faith, given the additional tensions it adds to their stressful have to manage to survive among all the rules and regulations lives? in the city as well as to bear the discrimination and disdain of urban people. Many of them admire the lives of educated Church as a Social Support Group people and of urban residents in general. To them, the hard- At the practical level, the church provides vital social con- ship of life is not an abstract idea but a real life experience. nections for the migrant workers, especially for newcomers In fact, the church seems to emphasize the themes of earthly to the city, in that the church or the members of the church trials and the notion of the “glory of Heavenly citizens.” The share information about job opportunities or even basic former theme teaches that people should release their earthly knowledge of how to manage life in the city, from public worries and miseries to God and enjoy peace and joy from transportation to postal services, the location of markets for God. During our fieldwork, at numerous times we heard cheaper goods, and so forth. What is more important is that speakers from the pulpit referring to the Bible verse “Come although they feel rejected and regarded as a socially lower to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give class, the migrant workers find acceptance and recognition in you rest” (Matt. 11:28). The latter theme serves to downplay their own groups. In fact, even for Christians who are taught the pursuit of academic degrees and earthly wealth as it si- that the new faith already superseded the existing social class multaneously promotes the real value of Christian identity. Huang Christians in Urbanizing China S243

The excerpt of a sermon below is a typical example (some sounds very similar to the term “Christian citizenship” in key points are emphasized in italic). Guatemala (O’Neill 2010). In a similar fashion, some African Therefore, brothers and sisters, we know that a child always Methodist migrants produced a sort of “virtuous citizenship” comes to this world with cries. This is what happens to a in England (Fumanti 2010). In short, the migrant church child. What, then, may happen to adults? Pains await them. appeals to migrant workers because it offers an explanation Children cry because of pains in their childhood. Adults do of the sufferings and hardships in life, making it at least ac- the same thing. There are a lot of trials and pains awaiting ceptable and understandable (Geertz 1973). What is more, them. We feel pains, especially when our family is faced with for the migrant-worker Christians, the “new self” after con- trials and difficulties, when our family members are troubled version also means a kind of self-acceptance or assurance, by diseases; we feel pains when our marriage is challenged though paradoxically through a process of self-denial. with problems; we feel pains when we do not have the daily bread to feed our family; we feel pains when many of our Church as a Sacred Community children do not have the need for their parents. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are immersed in various pains all along Migrant-worker churches also provide an acceptable site for our life. Dear brothers and sisters, one can never find the real the expression of pent-up emotions, the display of which are comfort and satisfaction without Christ. otherwise forbidden or frowned on in Chinese society. Chi- Our Lord Jesus once told us that wherever He is, we will nese men are usually taught and expected not to show affec- be with Him. He would never lie to us. We are not treating tion or emotion in public, because to do so would indicate His words as self-deceptive false hope, nor are we seeking a lack of self-control. In fact, compared with most urban spiritual stimulation. Because this is the word of God! It’s churches, the migrant-worker church has plenty of venues real! Heaven is real. It’s not absurd. It’s not just a beautiful for the expression of feelings and emotions, such as emotional tale, but a real existence. So says the word of God. Jesus said prayers with shouting and tears, dancing as worship, and some that He would have told us if there were no Heavenly homes other forms of faith practices that are normally rendered as for us. He would never lie to us. You work hard for half of “charismatic,” although they do not think of themselves as a your life before you can finally afford a three-bedroom Pentecostal church (Kao 2009). apartment. It costs even more to furnish it. You may think In their meetings, both the leaders and the assembly seem you are successful. Or you spend a lot of money buying an to present their faith with a lot of emotion, and sometimes urban hukou [permit; registered permanent residence], then they express their faith in slightly radical ways. When the you feel that you are successful. But, bear in mind, all these preachers are preaching, they tend to speak very loudly and can never compare to what we are going to have in Heaven. with a lot of gestures and body language. Sometimes, they It’s completely beyond comparison. In Heaven, we will not even dance and jump in order to imitate characters from the be living in a three-bedroom apartment, we will not be Bible. Such ways of preaching usually work well for the as- having a wood floor. A wood floor is good enough for now. sembly because it helps them to concentrate better and also But Revelation tells us that there is plenty of gold, jade, makes difficult and abstract doctrines easier to understand. agate, and so on. They are the best of the best. (Hallelujah! When the believers are singing hymns and praying, they also Amen!) Who needs hukou up there—they are free. An urban adopt rather emotional ways, such as shouting loudly or cry- hukou is nothing compared with citizenship in Heaven. An ing with tears and so forth. urban hukou costs 100 thousand yuan, but the citizenship of The teachings of the church also give affirmation to emo- Heaven is free of charge. (Hallelujah! Amen!) tional forms of expression, such as being released from emo- tional tensions and being fully dedicated while praising and We have to understand the fact that it is almost impossible worshiping God. With time, the general assembly would con- for poor migrant workers to buy an urban hukou based on sider these the standardized ways of expression, which they their income. It costs much more than 100 thousand yuan, would use to measure the preachers or other brothers and and more importantly, it is not only about money. To most sisters. For instance, a sister said that she liked one of the of the migrant workers, it is obvious that the city is only a preacher’s preaching because it was “powerful.” Others show place for them to obtain some cash to send to their families their admiration for those who can pray for a long time or back home in the countryside, and as Hansen (2012) points who pray with tears: “They pray very well. They could pray out, the state conceptions of ideal citizenship are of little for a long time, which I can’t.” “He is passionate when preach- relevance to the migrant workers. They are not recognized by ing, and he prays with great strength, too.” Remarks such as the official system, and they themselves do not feel they belong these have repeatedly appeared in the notes of our interviews. to the city. The city is just a temporary place of residence for When the church members grow in terms of spiritual maturity them. For migrant Christians, the sense of being just a so- and ways of expression, they influence new Christians as they journer on the earth is much stronger than it is for the urban were previously influenced by others. Thus, it passes down Christians who have hukou and more stable jobs. as church traditions. In fact, the idea of “citizenship of Heaven” in the sermon In short, the church for the new rural migrants plays a S244 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 vital role in their everyday lives in the city. It is a community everyone has to abide by the clock, which seems standardized, in itself, no matter whether it is just an imagined one (An- isolated from any personal perceptions. In fact, even the con- derson 2006). And in a certain sense this echoes Yan Yunx- cept of time is changed, from the “natural time” or agricul- iang’s research on a village in northeast China. He pointed tural rhythms to clock time. Lao Wang, a 55-year-old migrant out the rising perception of the individual and the individ- worker from Anhui Province, still remembers vividly that he ualization of Chinese society, but this process only produced was scolded harshly for being late when he first came to the individuals without social virtue or civility, which is harmful city and worked for a factory. He said “clock time” in his for societal development (Yan 2003, 2009). What I would mind was then only “suggestive” because he was so used to argue is that for man as a “social animal,” group or com- do things by watching the change of sunlight, as in the Chinese munity life is crucial, even fundamental. For the rural mi- saying “work at sunrise, rest at sunset” (see Scaff 2005). grants who find themselves in a strange city, a support group Even more uncomfortable for the migrant workers is the becomes even more significant and attractive. area of interpersonal relationships. A face-to-face interaction model was replaced largely by an impersonal model. In fact, Strangeness of the City and the Tensions a brother complained, “They (urban people) are so strange. within the Community After many years, they don’t even know the names of the people who live in the same hallway.” Indeed, the city is full So far we have seen that along with the urbanizing process of people who are strangers to each other, and the city is in China, churches in China inevitably change in many as- strange to these rural people who are used to knowing ev- pects, not just geographically, as rural people (including eryone in their rural community. Christians) move to the city looking for a living and pros- perity. For the migrant Christians, the church, either an ex- “Occupy Beijing”: Evangelizing the Urbanites isting church in the city or a new church of their own, pro- Although the migrant-worker church consists of mostly mi- vides a vital place for them to live a life in an unfamiliar and grant workers from all over the country, and a majority of even unfriendly urban society in terms of providing a social them were already believers before coming to the city, there support group and explanations of life itself. But the strange- are a few new converts from among local residents. And the ness of the city to the migrant workers, the joining of different church leaders often talked about reaching out to urban peo- kinds of people with others who have better education and ple. In a preachers’ training course, the major leader of the are second generation believers, and the different understand- church called out to the more than 100 migrant-worker Chris- ing and practice of the same faith in the urban churches create tians under training to “occupy Beijing.” And the audience new challenges for the migrant-worker church and individual responded with great enthusiasm. Christians who shared much more in common before all the It may sound unrealistic for the uneducated rural Christians changes happened. to preach to the educated city dwellers. But they did succeed in some cases and even found a few local new believers willing “City Is Strange” to open up their apartments for church gatherings.10 But the As we have said, the church helps migrant-worker Christians recruitment of new believers from the city causes new ten- get around in the new urban situations as “strangers in the sions. city” by utilizing the existing social relations of blood or place Despite the small proportion of members they make up, of origin. And the migrant-worker church carried on some the new urban converts are very different from the other of the rural church features in teachings, rituals, and other migrant workers, whether they have been longtime believers practices. Besides the aspect of continuity, discontinuity can before coming into the city or are new converts. Some of also be noticed. In fact, the expression “rural church in the them are locals living in the city, and some are from the city” itself is a paradox, or at least it implies internal tensions, countryside but have finished college educations and are now because city life is simply different from rural life. working in the city. They have more income than the migrant It is very obvious that migrant-worker Christians are under workers. It is clear that there are tensions between this group great stress brought about by the quicker pace of city life. of people and the rest of the church. Quite a few people mentioned during the interviews that they Many of these people became Christians because of signs are sorry that they hardly have any time to read the Bible, and wonders that have occurred in their lives. But most of pray, and attend Christian meetings. We can see that the them have gone through a tough period of rational discovery “stranger-featured” interpersonal relationships and quicker and turmoil. Similarly, after their conversion, they pay atten- pace of city life have brought great challenges to the Christian tion not only to signs and wonders and personal experiences faith of the migrant workers. And this lifestyle leads to dif- 10. This looks very different from the case of Wenzhou, where the ferences in time management and understandings of time. In Wenzhou urban churches reach out to the new migrant workers and the rural area, people traditionally do things during the day- help them start new churches specifically for the migrant believers (Cao time largely based on personal experience, while in the city, 2011). Huang Christians in Urbanizing China S245 of God but also to a rational understanding of the Christian clear-cut definition and make things repeatable and transfer- faith as well as doctrinal and theological knowledge. The able, just like a recipe for Western food. While as rural Chinese teachings from the migrant-worker church pulpit emphasize Christians they have been living a life that is not so black and signs and wonders and charismatic experiences. They are not white, like the Chinese way of cooking, it has no precise recipe. organized according to a more educated standard. As a result, Experience and intuition largely differentiates a good cook these people often express that they are “not well fed.” In from a terrible cook. other words, they feel that the preachers’ teachings are not In a similar manner, interpersonal relationships changed enough to meet their needs, especially intellectual needs. profoundly from the rural to the urban areas. While urban Such a difference in emphasis also makes it hard for them people highly value privacy and distance from each other, the to accept some of the traditions of the rural church. For boundaries between people are blurred in rural tradition. This instance, quite a few people said that they could not under- also applies to their different understanding of the idea of stand why someone would get up at three or four o’clock in being on time. the morning and pray. Through such a remark we could see Despite their disagreements with the urban church, the the conflicts between the mind-set of the urban citizens and migrant-worker church leaders find it imperative to make that of the migrant workers. But as we mentioned before, some adjustments in the city so as to meet the needs of the such a tradition originated in the countryside and has been church members living a life with more and more urban greatly consolidated and widely accepted, so there is nothing features. The more exposure and interactions they have with that the urban Christians can do to change it even though the urban church, the more migrant-worker church leaders they will not accept it. felt pressure to take action, even if unwillingly. Some people may set aside their sense of conflict and con- Indeed, all these perceived changes lead to the result that form to the mainstream ways of faith practice and expression in the migrant-worker church, at least in the church I studied, in the migrant-worker church. A “sister,” a local Beijing res- members need to reckon with two types of preaching, per- ident, said that she had never before developed the habit of ception, and practice of the same Christian faith: one is more getting up so early and praying. One day she hosted a preacher inward, emotional, and practice centered, and the other is from the countryside in her house. This preacher got up at more outward, intellectual, and text centered. It resonates with 5:00 in the morning and prayed every day. She was deeply Yang Derui’s work on Daoist training in China since the touched by the piety of this preacher and decided to do the 1950s. He studied the historical change of the training cur- same thing. Eventually she has also formed such a habit. As riculum for Daoist monks. He argued that along with the the rural preachers teach through words and demonstrate modernization process and nation-building efforts, the tra- through actions, some of their traditions are also influencing ditional training form of personal discipleship was replaced and changing some of the urban Christians. by an institutional training course just like a normal school. But we have to acknowledge that this is a very rare case. He further pointed out that this happened not just as the Most urban new believers stop attending the migrant-worker state required but also as a result of the demand from the church and switch to an urban church. Or, they may remain Taoist leaders who were eager to accommodate and adjust to in the church, unsatisfied, and get teachings and spiritual the new political and social situation (Yang 2010). nourishment from other sources, including through the In- Interestingly, in his research on the Vineyard Church in the ternet. The access to more Christian literature in the city and United States, Jon Bialecki (2011) identified two Christian greater exposure to urban churches and Christian seminaries language ideologies: one inward looking (centripetal) and the may help meet the needs of the new urban believers in the other outward extending (centrifugal). Bialecki pointed out migrant-worker church, but in the long run, it also creates that the two ideologies are sharply contrasting, but both are even more tensions. valued, and each has different implicit concerns about the importance of self-identity and the sorts of boundaries that make up the ethical subject. Similarly, in the case here, we “Urban Church Has Too Much Knowledge” can also find two distinctive ways of understanding and living Compared with the rural and the migrant-worker church, the out the Christian faith. urban churches tend to emphasize more rational thinking and the solemn order of meetings. Actually, the migrant-worker Conclusion and Discussion Christians, especially the church leaders who have longer and stronger rural church traditions, often comment that the “ur- In summary, along with the rapid urbanization process in ban church has too much knowledge” or that the “urban China in the last 20 years, hundreds of millions of rural res- church only teaches knowledge.” In other words, they are not idents surged into the cities to find a better living, and among satisfied with only an intellectual understanding of the faith them are hundreds of thousands of Christians. Christian mi- but tend to emphasize the experiences and feelings, aspects grants found themselves encountering not only an over- of faith that are hard to capture in normative descriptions. whelming city life and culture, just as other new urban mi- In fact, as we mentioned earlier, urban life tends to promote grants did, but also a new church setting and even an S246 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 unfamiliar expression of their familiar faith. This meant dif- move into the cities. It seems more likely the case that both ferent ways of understanding, approaching, and experiencing types are represented in both rural and urban churches, God, and of course new understandings of self and the world. though different kinds of churches may incline more or less In other words, from the case of the rural church in the toward either end of the continuum. And this again reminds city, we realized that “rural” or “rural church” is not only a us that Christian theology is intrinsically paradoxical, de- geographic and economic concept but more of a cultural manding more than just one single “logic” or picture to show concept. Even if a church locates in the city, it may still remain its complexity. largely a rural church. The same applies to being urban or Further, we might say that the case of the migrant-worker being an urban church. Of course, for Christian churches, the church reveals the internal tensions of Christianity. In this urban can also be a theological concept, which demands fur- regard, we may reconsider the history of Christianity, even ther investigation. the nature of Christianity. It is never only about experience For the migrant Christians, we found that besides the or only about knowledge. God is both a known God and also “moral torment” (Robbins 2004) and “legitimacy torment” an unknown God; both God of light and God in darkness. (Huang 2012a), they are struggling with one more type of It is a complex paradox. This could also help us appreciate “torment.” Simply put, we may call it “intellectual torment.” and critique Marshall Sahlins (1996) for his insightful work The rural-urban migrant Christians have to deal with at least on tracing back Western social science to ancient Christian two sets of epistemological understandings: one is more in- theology. ward, emotional, and practice centered, and the other is more outward, intellectual, and text centered. We also observed the gradual change in the migrant-worker church, from emo- Acknowledgments tional to more rational styles of experience and liturgical prac- tice, from more ritualistic to more textual approaches to re- I am very grateful for the two anonymous reviewers’ com- ligious knowledge, from more participation to more listening ments and critiques. And special thanks to Joel Robbins for to sermons, from more speaking to more observing, and from his insights and suggestions. more spontaneity to more order. But we need to be aware that the “intellectual torment” experienced by migrant-worker Christians is probably more true for the second generation because they grew up in the References Cited city, learned about and live urban lives, even consider them- Ai, Juhong, and Jianbo Huang. 2007. Strangers in the margins of the city: faith and social life of the migrant worker Christians. Logos and Pneuma: selves to be urbanites while they are still culturally, socially, Chinese Journal of Theology 26:115–136. [In Chinese.] and politically categorized as rural residents. This gap in their Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined community: reflections on the origin and lived experience highlights the gap between urban church and spread of nationalism. Rev. edition. London: Verso. Bialecki, Jon. 2011. No caller ID for the soul: demonization, charisms, and rural church and the difference between these ways of ap- the unstable subject of Protestant language ideology. Anthropological Quar- proaching and practicing Christianity. terly 84(3):679–703. We may also be aware that urban life and urbanization may Cao, Nanlai. 2011. Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, power, and place in contemporary Wenzhou. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. tend to subdue the emotional and experiential side of “knowl- Fei, Hsiao-Tung, and Chih-i Chang. 1945. Earthbound China: a study of rural edge,” but that does not mean they have completely elimi- economy in Yunnan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. nated it. On the contrary, man acquires all kinds of knowledge Fumanti, Mattia. 2010. Virtuous citizenship: ethnicity and encapsulation among Akan-speaking Ghanian Methodists in London. African Diaspora 3: by all the human senses, not just intellectually. In fact, Paul 13–42. Lee, a leading pastor of a major urban church in Beijing, who Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Religion as a cultural system. In The interpretation of is a graduate from Fuller Theological Seminary in the United cultures. New York: Basic. Hansen, Anders Sybrandt. 2012. learning the knacks of actually existing cap- States, expressed his concerns about the urban church for italism: young Beijing migrants and the problem of value. Critique of An- lacking the “zealous love and passion for Christ” that can be thropology 32(4):415–434. found among the rural church and the migrant-worker Huang, Jianbo. 2012a. Legitimacy and the becoming of local Christianity. International Journal of Sino-Western Studies 3:43–60. [In Chinese.] churches. In other words, experience and intellectual knowl- ———. 2012b. Rural churches in cities: urbanization and migrant worker Chris- edge may not necessarily be an either-or situation. Rather, tians in China. Hong Kong: Logos & Pneuma. [In Chinese.] they could be coexisting, even complementary to each other, Huang, Jianbo, and Fenggang Yang. 2005. The cross faces the loudspeakers: a village church perseveres under the state power. In State, market and for a fuller and deeper understanding of both religious and religions in Chinese societies. Joseph Tamney and Yang Fenggang, eds. Pp. nonreligious matters. 41–62. Leiden: Brill. It is true that the inward and practice-centered type of Kao, Chen-Yang. 2009. The Cultural Revolution and the emergence of Pen- tecostal-style Protestantism in China. Journal of Contemporary Religion religiosity is more associated with the rural church while the 24(2):171–188. outward and text-centered approach is more of an urban Liu, Qi. 2009. A close look into an immigrant workers’ church in Beijing. church feature. But this does not necessarily mean the latter : Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 12(4):91–98. Liu, Qi, and Jianbo Huang. 2011. Migrant workers’ church on the fringe of the takes over, or even completely replaces, the first as a “better” city: a study of charisma. Hong Kong: Center for the Study of Religion and or “higher” expression of faith even as the rural Christians Chinese Society, Chinese University of Hong Kong. [In Chinese.] Huang Christians in Urbanizing China S247

O’Neill, Kevin Lewis. 2010. City of God: Christian citizenship in postwar Gua- change in a Chinese village, 1949–1999. Stanford, CA: Stanford University temala. Berkeley: University of California Press. Press. Robbins, Joel. 2004. Becoming sinners: Christianity and moral torment in a ———. 2009. The individualization of Chinese society. Oxford: Berg. Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yang, Derui. 2010. The characteristic and significance of contemporary Taoist Sahlins, Marshall. 1996. The sadness of sweetness: the native anthropology of training curriculum. China Agricultural University Journal of Social Sciences Western cosmology. Current Anthropology 37(3):395–415. 27(1):29–43. [In Chinese.] Scaff, Lawrence. 2005. The mind of the modernist: Simmel on time. Time Yang, Fenggang. 2012. Religion in China: survival and revival under communist and Society 14(1):5–23. rule. New York: Oxford University Press. Stark, Rodney. 1996. The rise of Christianity: a sociologist reconsiders the history. Zhang, Li. 2001. Strangers in the city: reconfiguration of space, power, and social Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. networks within China’s floating population. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni- Yan, Yunxiang. 2003. Private life under socialism: love, intimacy, and family versity Press. S248 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus Urban Space and Christian-Muslim Coexistence

by Andreas Bandak

Christians in the Middle East have traditionally clustered around cities. As minorities in a Muslim majority context, difference manifests itself in many ways. In recent decades, the sounds of the city, in the form of calls to prayer from minarets and church bells, have increased, while green and blue lighting likewise crafts a plural setting that is not only audible but visible to all. In this article, I explore Christian ways of inhabiting the city in Damascus, . The orchestration of space is intensifying as the region appears to be becoming an ever more vulnerable place to live for a Christian minority. I argue that an anthropological engagement with Christianity may do well to listen to the particular refrains that are formed in and of the city. Such an engagement attests to the ways in which Christianity is lived in particular locations but also how Christianity is continuously made to matter.

Any person living or traveling to a city in the Arab Middle out of church bells or devotional hymns on particular feast East will notice the ways in which religion is sounded out by days as well as the ornamentation of Christian churches with way of calls to prayer from muezzins in a concerted effort to clear blue neon tubes or crosses adorned with blue lighting. summon the Muslim faithful to direct their attention to de- It is these forms of orchestration of social space that this votion. In recent decades, the sound has increasingly been article addresses, since they are part of a climate that has assisted by loudspeakers, amplifying the call and enabling it rarely been as vulnerable as it is now. to penetrate bodies and buildings at greater distances than The Arab revolts, spreading from Tunisia to Libya, , ever was possible before the advent of such modern tech- , and Syria, have had rather diverse repercussions for nology. The number of mosques erected, refurbished, or re- Christians in the region. What seems clear, however, is that newed in many parts of the Middle East has been drastically the old modus vivendi has been sundered and will not be increasing, aided by Saudi Arabian funding, and so the general brought back. The sounds and lights heard and seen in Da- sense of living in cities has been given a reformist framing mascus in the summer of 2013 are not merely those of church that one cannot avoid hearing, seeing, and sensing regardless bells and muezzins from the city’s numerous mosques but of one’s religious inclination or lack thereof. One of the par- also the sound of bombs exploding, heavy artillery, people ticular traits that has emerged over the past 15 years or so is wailing and shouting. Issues relating to diversity and unity that of decorating minarets with clear green neon tubes in therefore seem as pertinent as ever in the current climate of order to not merely sound out but light up and color the the Middle East, and for many people the question of marking cities as well as the urban space in the color of Islam. The places has become highly relevant. In this article, I explore urban space is therefore increasingly punctuated by amplified the themes of unity and diversity with a primary point of calls to prayer and the visible luminosity of Islam as night departure in 20 months of fieldwork conducted among Syrian falls. Light forces itself on the inhabitants for better or worse Christians in Damascus between 2004 and late 2010. (see also Bille and Sørensen 2007), as does sound. For Chris- tians and other religious minorities, the general atmosphere of an intensifying Islamic presence is seen and felt in these Questions of Belonging—Contexts, Refrains, signs, and so Christians themselves rebuild their own sense and Rhythms of the city in a response that consists of an amplified sounding The Middle Eastern city is a topic that has been dealt with Andreas Bandak is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cross- by prominent anthropologists. One of the first, Dale Eickel- Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen man, focused on the idea of the Islamic city in his work in (Karen Blixensvej 10.4.10, Copenhagen S., DK-2300, Denmark Morocco (1974; see also Hourani and Stern 1970; Lapidus [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 1969, 1973). And in Janet Abu-Lughod’s classic formulation 6 VIII 14, and electronically published 19 XI 14. (1987), the myth of the Islamic city was exposed as a particular

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0010$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678409 Bandak Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus S249 product of and for a specific audience. For others, such as ing an anthropology of Christianity in new directions.2 Ques- Michael Gilsenan (1982), the Middle Eastern city has been a tions of belonging point toward the diverse relationships in- topic worthy of research, but the actual stakes that minorities dividuals and groups have in a modern city and nation-state. have in the cities have hitherto not been substantially dealt The purpose of this article is concomitantly twofold. On the with. Within another tradition, it is the city per se that has one hand, it contributes to an understanding of the lived been dealt with. Henri Lefebvre famously proposed an analysis experiences of a Christian minority in a Muslim majority of Mediterranean cities by looking at their rhythms (2004; context. On the other, it explores the particular sonoric di- see also Bachelard 2000; Crang 2001). In this analysis, how- mensions that work as territorializing forces. To accomplish ever, he never seriously dealt with the particularities of the both aims, I think through the concept of the refrain as orig- cities themselves. He instead focused—with a circumscription inally coined by Gilles Deleuze. This concept will help us of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phrasing (2002 [1945]:79)—on analyze how a Christian minority is folded into diverse his- the city as conceived from everywhere. While such a strategy tories of both peaceful coexistence and latent conflicts. The refrain will be explored throughout the article, but, in order may work on a general level, I will here assert the need to to make a start, I shall define it as a sedimentation of particular look at the city from a particular somewhere. Taking my cue melodic lines that people intone and follow in their daily life. from studies of both Middle Eastern cities and the city per The article hereby contributes to an understanding of be- se, I here want to delve into questions of what it means to longing as sonoric, affective, and materially grounded. belong to a city and what we can learn by viewing this en- For an anthropology of Christianity, this may be an im- deavor from the perspective of Christians living in Damascus portant way of incorporating various contexts where Chris- today. tianity makes a difference. My argument is not that refrains For a country like Syria, a glance at the distribution of the are Christian per se; rather, I argue that Christianity asserts estimated 23 million inhabitants quickly gives an impression various forms of repetitions that register as refrains in identity of diversity. The population consists of 10% Christians, 74% politics as well as matters of faith and community building. Sunnis, 12% Alawites, and 3% , with the remaining 1% In Syria, various forms of Christianity are lived out in a Mus- made up of Jews and various minor Islamic sects (see Lesch lim majority context that colors the kinds of Christian re- 2005:vii; van Dam 1996). Syria’s Christians are divided into a pository that are melodically being put to use. Here, the po- range of different confessions primarily belonging to the Cath- litical contexts of an intensifying Islamic presence color olic and Orthodox Churches.1 Beyond these dominant confes- Christian attitudes and thereby the particular refrains that are sions, there are a number of small Protestant and Anglican sounded out. Christianity increasingly poses refrains as coun- churches. It is therefore not accurate to speak of one Christian terpunctual to Islam. An anthropological engagement with minority when, in reality, there is a plurality of churches and Christianity may here do well to listen to the particular re- confessions (Abdu 2003). At the same time, it is not unrea- frains that are formed in and of the city. Such an engagement sonable to work with the category of Christians, although this attests to the ways in which Christianity is lived in particular depends, as will later be argued, on the various histories and locations and, furthermore, how Christianity is continuously contexts that are actualized in concrete situations. made to matter for individuals as well as for wider societies. By attending to the rhythms of the city, I want to explore Let us now take a closer look at the refrain and, from there, modes of belonging in the fragile Syrian nation. The sound delve deeper into the specificities of inhabiting Damascus in of the prayer calls from minarets, street vendors shouting out a Christian way. their wares in the streets, the singing and marching of school- children to the songs and slogans of the state—all these rhyth- Refrain and Territory—Markings of Place mic repetitions, in different ways, accentuate questions of There is always a frailty associated with maintaining a place belonging as both empirically and analytically critical to guid- as a place (Appadurai 1995:205). Twentieth-century philos- ophy and anthropology have shown how place is not given 1. In the Levant, there has traditionally been a strained relationship between the great variety of churches. This strained relationship has in large part been due to Catholic proselytizing among the Orthodox 2. In the body of literature that has developed over recent years, East- Churches, with the ensuing sedition and divisions (Masters 2001; see also ern Christians have also begun to attract attention (Hann and Goltz 2010; O’Mahony and Loosley 2010). Because of this history, intra-Christian Mahieu and Naumescu 2008). Here, what is asserted is that Orthodox relationships have often been problematic. However, in recent years, the traditions have generally preferred continuity over rupture. This may intra-Christian cleavages have tended to be buried while Islamic reform- complicate the initial formulations in an anthropology of Christianity, ism is turning into the Other. In the context of this special issue, see also as the way Christianity matters manifests itself with great variety across Bialecki (2014), Barker (2014), and Handman (2014) for perceptive dis- the globe. Here, I do not want to disregard Joel Robbins in his claims cussions of denominationalism in various Christian settings. In these on Christianity’s importance for culture (2004, 2007). However, I would articles, we learn a great deal about Protestant and Charismatic varieties be hesitant to assert that Christian difference plays itself out in the same of separation and integration. In Catholicism and Orthodoxy, respec- manner over the entire globe. Culture is affected by Christianity and tively, schism has been highly formative in reactions both inside and Christian logics; however, this finds expression on different levels also toward the Church (see also Humphrey 2014 in this issue). depending on whether we talk about older or newer forms of Christianity. S250 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 as a primordial size but is the outcome of human practices, sation, a calling, or a movement out into the world on the efforts, and domestication (e.g., Casey 1996, 1997; Hirsch and line of a melody. These three aspects must be understood as O’Hanlon 1995). This is what has variously been designated simultaneous ways of organizing and meeting the world. Even as the relationship between earth and territory (Deleuze and if sound is understood as a central component of human Guattari 1996:114–115) or as the relationship between space world making, the refrain can be understood as going beyond and place (Heidegger 2000:45). What is significant is that the strictly sonoric and audible. The refrain organizes the earth and space must undergo a continuous process of cre- effects of recognizability, sensitivity, and musicality, and this ation to become habitable. Human beings make their mark holds purchase for both individuals and groups. With such on earth and space, which is thereby territorialized and ac- an understanding, Deleuze and Guattari define the refrain in quires the characteristics of being a territory or place. It is a way that deals with more than just the sonorous or audible: no longer neutral space, no longer passive earth, but is in- scribed and under the demarcation of the people who are dwelling there and thereby create a location. Whether this In a general sense, we call a refrain any aggregate of matters comes about in the construction work of building a home, of expression that draws territory and develops into territorial church, or mosque or in the daily chores in and of the home motifs and landscapes (there are optical, gestural, motor, etc., in the form of cooking, cleaning, or children’s play, it includes refrains). In the narrow sense, we speak of a refrain when all the activities that, in different ways, territorialize the place an assemblage is sonorous or “dominated” by sound. (De- as someone’s place (cf. Ingold 2000). In a similar way, it is leuze and Guattari 2004 [1987, 1980]:356) highly important for the Christians of Damascus to mark the territory as theirs.3 What is fundamental in relation to the The most central feature of the refrain is therefore the creation question of belonging is that repetition and rhythms are being of motifs in the landscape by way of particular and recurrent marked in the surroundings (see also Rabo 2005:19–20). Pu- repetitions—for without repetition, social life itself is threat- pils walking to school, the sound of church bells on Sundays, ened (Kierkegaard 1963 [1843]:131). the daily prayer calls from mosques, the lighting of minarets It is central to an understanding of the refrain to point out and church towers at night—these aspects are all part of the that repetition in itself cannot be defined as a refrain. Even rhythms that constitute Damascus as a place, and the famil- if repetition is never of the self-same but, as Kierkegaard iarization and even embodiment of this place comes through pointed out, comes with difference, repetition has the poten- these recurrent rhythms, which mould particular intensities. tial to allow motifs and themes to be toned in as recurrent The whole texture of the area is, in this sense, to be understood features that thereby become refrains. The refrain, in other as what Gilles Deleuze describes as sound qualities (2008 words, consists of a kind of orchestration, which includes [1964]:62), which feeds what he and Fe´lix Guattari describe acts, vision, hearing, smell, words, gestures, and affects. The as refrains (Deleuze 1995a [1990]:25, 1995b [1990]:137, 146; refrain transforms the material universe into tonal qualities Deleuze and Guattari 1996:41, 93–94, 232–233, 2004 [1987, and creates the opportunity for forms of belonging. In the 1980]:343–344). The heterogeneous qualities of a given area actual experience of the sounds of home and area, the noise are bundled in particular constellations that, for the individual and music become the sounding board for sociality and, as as well as the group, appear melodic—as resonance effects. such, a central part of belonging. In the words of Katherine The refrain has three aspects. It works like a song that a scared Stewart, the refrain is “worlding” (2010; see also Bandak 2014; little boy hums to reassure himself and thus creates a center Bennett 2001; Feldman 2006; May and Thrift 2001).4 By fo- of peace in the chaos of the world, with its monsters hiding cusing on refrains in and of the landscape, we can see how under beds, in laundry baskets, and behind doors. By hum- diverse experiences, affects, thoughts, and actions are assem- ming a song, a circle is made around a fragile center; space bled and made to last with varying degrees of intensity. is hence organized by sound, all of which marks territory, amplifies it, and fortifies it. From here, possible openings to the surrounding world are made possible, like an improvi- Processions in the Landscape—the Refrain

3. In the recent engagement with Pentecostal and Charismatic varieties Unfolded of Christianity, the extent to which Christianity is a deterritorializing force is often stressed. From this understanding, Christianity does away One refrain is found in the major Christian celebrations in with place and directs the Christian message at the world as such (see, Damascus, when Christians lead processions out from the e.g., Schieffelin 2014 in this issue). However, this reading seems less fitting premises of their respective churches, proceeding into the for older forms of Christianity like Orthodoxy and Catholicism, where place has never lost out entirely. Here, particular places, such as Jerusalem, Rome, Damascus, and Moscow, matter as divinely chosen, and they thereby attest to critical ways in which Christianity is also territorializing and continues to be so (Boylston 2012; Christian 1989 [1972]; du Boulay 2009; Stewart 1991); there is also the issue of whether the Virgin reigns 4. For an earlier and inchoate discussion of aspects of the refrain, I in virtual space, too (Apolito 2005). have a discussion in Danish in Bandak (2011). Bandak Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus S251 neighboring quarters.5 This is particularly audible in the pre- On one day of Ramadan, I am with Habib, a Christian dominantly Christian areas of Bab Touma, Bab Sharqi, Qassaa, interlocutor in his midforties. We are at his home, and I ask and Qusour.6 At the front of the procession, the Syrian flag him about the general atmosphere during Ramadan. Habib is carried by a male leader, who is followed by a number of quickly avoids the question only to comment on the ap- people carrying different religious flags and pennants signal- proaching Christmas: “Christmas is very beautiful here in ing various groups and affiliations within the given religious Damascus, everything is decorated both here and in Qassaa denomination; then come rows of boy and girl scouts and, and Qusour. . . . It is very beautiful. And then there is ‘Eid finally, a marching band consisting of a broad array of brass Mar Barbara,’ it is very beautiful!” Habib is moved as he talks instruments and drums. All those participating wear uniforms about Christmas and the Feast of Saint Barbara, a Christian marking their church membership. The noise is deafening saint who is celebrated mostly with and for the children with and infernal as the militaristic tones rise toward the sky from carnival and costumes. Having said this, Habib immediately the narrow streets. There is a liveliness to these events. Unlike drags me into the living room, where he enthusiastically shows the normal masses and services in the churches, these pro- me that it has been made ready for winter and decorated for cessions move out into the city, marking Christian specificity, the forthcoming Christmas celebrations. For Habib, the albeit as a vivid part of a united Syrian nation. The area is Christian motifs of the nativity crib placed next to a plastic encircled and folded into this movement of drums, cornets, Christmas tree signal a specific way of carving out a center people, and pennants, and the territory is endowed with even of peace amidst a city of noisy Ramadan celebrations (fig. 2). greater sound qualities as it reverberates during the celebra- tions. The whole area vibrates as a Christian locality (fig. 1). Ramadan—Territorial Challenges This extraordinary movement through the landscape in- corporates the everyday setting in a specific Christian refrain A person like Habib, who elevates the Christian celebrations while still placing an emphasis on an overall belonging to the without wanting to comment on Muslim holidays, can help Syrian nation, with the Syrian flag at the fore. The territory us understand how a city is lived in the contemporary Middle is not demarcated only by processions, however; the Christian East. It is not merely the Christians who mark celebrations neighborhoods are decorated for Christmas and Easter in a and let them unfold in their quarters and physical surround- sumptuous manner, with everything from posters advertising ings. From the Muslim side, too, various forms of territori- local CD releases for the occasion to Christmas trees festooned alizing practices take place. Ramadan is more than on a par with lights, along with skillfully organized tableaux in homes with the Christian celebrations and can be seen as a refrain and churches with the Baby Jesus in a crib for Christmas or that allows specific motifs to become audible in the landscape. an empty grave for Easter. On these particular occasions, ev- These refrains may not be particularly manifest in the pre- erything seems to converge in one particular Christian refrain: dominantly Christian areas of Bab Touma and Qassaa, but, we belong here. Furthermore, as part of several of the festiv- in Damascus as a whole, the month of Ramadan is marked ities, stickers and badges are distributed among people to wear by a different societal rhythm (see also el Guindi 2008) that on their clothing, whereby they take on the territory and cannot help but influence the everyday life of Christians as become even more directly a constitutive part of it themselves. well. In the old city’s Muslim and mixed neighborhoods, small Christians can be heard praising the beauty of the Christian pennants of different colors with printed verses from the Ko- festivities and celebrations, often in direct contrast and com- ran as well as festoons of lights and other decorations mark parison with the Muslim Ramadan. this particular occasion. When the fasting is broken every evening during Ramadan, it is by the sound of giant cracking 5. Here it is important to point out how processions are a particular fireworks from selected mosques that announce that sunset Christian manifestation that are found in various forms of Orthodoxy is over and eating is allowed. The Muslim population of Da- and Catholicism (Hanganu 2010). The procession allows an area to be mascus can then enjoy the evening meal with a clear con- encircled and incorporated into a Christian moral universe. The city, town, or landscape is rewritten with Christian significance. This may be science. The entire rhythm of society is changed and affected in celebrations of a grand scale, such as, in particular, Easter and, with by Ramadan, manifested by fasting alongside other forms of some variation, Christmas. Often, however, this is related to the cele- activity during the daytime; in addition, the television series bration of saints on their specific feast days. Furthermore, processions produced specifically for this time of year fill the channels can be seen as part of prayers for rainfall or protection, depending on during the evenings (Salamandra 2004:102; see also Abu- pressing concerns. Another critical feature that has received more atten- tion is related to pilgrimage and Christian culture as found in the work Lughod 2005; Armbrust 1996). This large Muslim refrain con- of the Turners (Turner and Turner 1995 [1978]) and discussed in this comitantly draws the landscape in such a way that the Chris- issue by Coleman (2014; see also Dubisch 1995; Eade and Sallnow 1991; tian minority has to respond to it and navigate within it. Coleman and Eade 2004). Furthermore, the Muslim refrain elicits specific Christian 6. Christians in the Levant have often clustered together in particular counterrefrains. That a person like Habib would rather talk areas of cities or towns. In Syria, this is the case in cities like, for example, Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo. However, there are also mixed neigh- about Christian celebrations is just a moderate version of a borhoods. That there are Christian neighborhoods is in stark contrast frequently heard refrain contrasting Christians and Muslims. with Egypt and North Africa (see also Mayeur-Jaouen 2012:156). Many Christians appear quite sceptical of Muslim holidays Figure 1. Processions in Bab Sharqi, Damascus, during Easter 2005. A color version of this figure is available online.

S252 Figure 2. Nativity crib in a private home in Damascus. A color version of this figure is available online.

S253 S254 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 and distinct areas and will frequently frame these in a de- broadly, Mikhail Bakhtin described such material stories as rogatory manner. Muslim markings of the territory intrude chronotopes: and cover it and, at times, seem to threaten it. The area is We will give the name chronotope (literally, “time space”) suddenly seen as challenged and therefore fragile. Deleuze and to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial re- Guattari (2004 [1987, 1980]) make this point very concisely lationships that are artistically expressed in literature. . . . in their discussion about distance as critical in any territory, In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal in- and this can be summarized in one line: “Mark your distance” dicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete (352). By marking your distance, you territorialize yourself. whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes It is precisely these claims to and violations of territory that artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and re- play a major role in Erving Goffman’s text “Territories of the sponsive to the movements of time, plot and history. (Bakh- Self” (1971). Goffman distinguishes between three types of tin 1981:84) territory, namely, fixed, situational, and egocentric (1971:29). In this understanding of literature, space and time are woven Fixed territory is directly related to the geography and places together in particular knots, which Bakhtin describes as hav- that people can make claims on, such as houses. Situational ing both historical and emotional value intensity (2006:161, territory is linked to various forms of fixed territory, but the 164). It makes sense, however, not only to regard the concept claim is limited to a specific period or time, such as a table within a theory of the novel and literature as such. Signifi- at a cafe. Finally, egocentric territory is attached to individuals cantly, Bakhtin himself did so in his exquisite reading of Goe- and their belongings, such as a purse or bag, which can be the’s perception of the landscape. There exists in the very placed and moved again in social space. Goffman himself same landscape a wealth of centers with chronotopic values; admits that there is a certain viscosity associated with this indeed, space as such is marked by multitemporality (Bakhtin distinction, but it enables us to understand the processes sur- 2006:198). In Damascus, it makes obvious sense to under- rounding the maintenance of territories. Precisely because the stand churches and mosques as such chronotopes, or material concept of territory, in this sense, not only revolves around stories, continually marking the landscape. Activities in and soil but also deals with temporary claims on objects or bodies around churches mark and frame high points and everyday in space, it allows us to understand the potential challenges life: baptisms, weddings, and funerals. These as well as or- and violations inherent in place making—even more so in dinary masses and services and other celebrations during the densely populated areas like a city. Whether it is sound, touch, year are marked in relation to churches (cf. Ingold 2000:205– words, or other forms of abrasive elements, they cross the 206). Likewise, church bells also cover the territory with perceived boundaries of the territory, beyond what is seen as sound, incorporating the surroundings into wider refrains appropriate or comfortable, and this tends to imply that the regardless of whether the people inhabiting the particular area territory has to be restored, to be reterritorialized. This is have little or much to do with the churches personally. where Christmas, Easter, and Ramadan mark recurrent re- As Steven Feld has pointed out, it is possible to talk about frains culminating in reterritorializations that are constantly the acoustemology of places, where the sonorous layers enable rewriting the landscape in more mundane activities as well. us to attune to the way in which places are assembled, lived, That said, it is important to note that aggression is not nec- and experienced without making visual or discursive ap- essarily the most important aspect in the rewriting of the proaches dominant (Feld 1996:96–97; Feld and Brenneis 2004: territory. The rewriting of territory recurs in concrete situa- 468; see also Derrida 1973; Erlman 2004; Ong 1977; Stokes tions and in response to particular events, which sometimes 1997). The mosques and the churches are thus at once a part trigger confrontation and conflict and sometimes have the of the mundane experience of being part of the fabric of opposite effect. Damascus and are simultaneously materialized histories that also have the potential to make diverse histories manifest and therefore diverse experiences in the concrete present, which The Refrain of the Minaret—Chronotopes is currently colored in dark tones by the revolution and the of the Landscape increasing conservatism of parts of the Muslim population. The frailty of the territory can be seen particularly well in the For this reason, churches and mosques can be conceived of reactions that Ramadan as well as the calls to prayer from as chronotopes. A struggle for territory is one of the latent the minarets elicit. As previously described, there are mosques possibilities that are accentuated in various ways for a Chris- 7 located in and around Christian neighborhoods like Bab tian minority in a Muslim majority society. This becomes Touma, which, for Christians, are a potentially intrusive pres- apparent in Syrian Christians’ reactions to the call to prayer ence. Both mosques and churches can be seen as parts of refrains, confirming both a Christian and a Muslim presence 7. A more general consideration would be how Christianity in its Catholic and Orthodox forms has materialized in particular architectural in the same city. However, it is also possible to frame these forms. Christianity has never been only a matter of transcendence (see buildings as material stories that are folded into the landscape. Cannell 2006; Keane 2006); it has made people’s imaginings real and In his theoretical work with the novel and literature more tangible in material forms. Bandak Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus S255

Figure 3. New mosque erected just outside the quarters of Damascus. A color version of this figure is available online. from the many minarets: windows slammed shut, people put- smile on his lips—to many Christians like Tariq, this is un- ting their fingers in their ears, or a television channel im- thinkable, impossible even (fig. 3). mediately switched when a recitation from the Koran is Others complain about what they present as the impossi- screened during Ramadan. All these responses to the perceived bility of sleeping due to the noise coming from the minarets. sonoric threats suggest that living together here is not merely All this can be considered as signs forcing themselves on the rebounding on a memory that calmly unfolds; rather, it is perceiver, and these signs point to more than a unison bel forced and provoked by sounds that are perceived as noise canto but allow for noise and different sounds to stand in (Benjamin 1996a:128–129, 1996b:70; Deleuze 2008 [1964]; unresolved tension (see also Attali 1985 [1977]; Hirschkind Seremetakis 1994:9). 2006; Larkin 2008; Oosterbaan 2008; Rowlands 2007; Serres Tariq, a 32-year-old Christian goldsmith, illustrates this well 1995 [1982]; Sterne 2003). The sound and memory force a when he exclaims, “The sound from the minarets is just so particular tone to the foreground that colors the narrator. loud here!” Tariq explains, with both hands over his ears, that This suggests that, from the landscape and the signs in it, it is not just part of the background when the call to prayer various meanings and differences are both interpolated and sounds from the nearby minarets. I ask whether it can also extrapolated, where daily life and history converge in refrains be heard here in the living room of his family. “Of course!” of a more or less porous or stable nature, with a higher or Tariq promptly replies. “There is one right here in the vicinity, lower degree of consistency. down by Hammam Bakri.” I ask whether it is the minaret that one can see right next to the public baths, next to one To Build an Existence—Forcing Signs of the Armenian churches. “Exactly,” he replies. I inquire whether this is a novel phenomenon. “I don’t know, there Mosques in Christian areas can be seen as materialized his- are new mosques being erected all the time, well, yes, every tories that have the potential to conjure up particular refrains, single day there is a new one built.” He pauses for a moment, refrains whereby coexistence is emphasized and refrains then continues, “Where there is a church, there also has to whereby conflict and latent enmity are the dominant timbre. be a mosque. But not the opposite,” he says with a sardonic Mosques and minarets are therefore to be seen as part of the S256 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 refrains, whereby expressions and motifs seems to resound suppression of diversity that seems to arise directly from the from the concrete landscape. This is precisely why the pres- immediate environment all over Syria.8 Bashar, a young Chris- ence of mosques—and, in particular, the construction of new tian journalist with a highly secular leaning, eloquently picked mosques—is met with ambivalent feelings on the part of Syr- this up in a conversation on the construction of churches and ian Christians. During a walk with Nabil, a real estate agent mosques: in his late twenties, on a trip to the Christian town of I don’t want to be biased in favor of Christians, but, in Ma’aloula on the occasion of the celebration of the Feast of reality, when Christians build these things, they want to the Holy Cross, he says as we go past a mosque, “It is strange establish their existence, they are saying, “We are here!” They to have the mosque located here, it doesn’t belong here” (see do not build these things to demarcate higher things. They also Bandak 2012). The mosque is seen as an intrusion into want to strengthen themselves, that’s for sure, they want to the Christian heartland. The experience of the misfit of a benefit from the strength of solidarity, that the Christians mosque in a particular area can be found more or less vo- are together. But they don’t want, and they aren’t able to— calized by many Christians. Often this is staged in terms of when there is a mosque—to build a church. And they don’t a debate as to the purpose of the particular building. This want such a thing. They understand that they are a minority. was concisely expressed in an interview with George and Tony, . . . The problem is that the majority at times harass the both in their late twenties and, respectively, a hairdresser and minority. engineer by occupation: George: I don’t like a picture in just one color. I like a multicolored and diverse picture....Buildings are the cause. The National Refrain—All Are , I may build a mosque or a church so that they are located All Are next to each other. The form may be nice, but as an ex- Another particular kind of repetition that forms another re- planation of things, it is man who gets the idea. We do not frain, however, can be seen in the Syrian landscape. If we reject this form as it is a beautiful picture, diverse, with return to the processions during Christian celebrations, it everything in it: churches, bars, restaurants....Itisavery would be a simplification to understand these only as markers beautiful picture, but what is the purpose? We don’t refuse of the Christian presence in Damascus. When the Syrian flag their religion, it is present and exists, and there is respect is carried at the front of the procession, it flutters and waves for them, but when a Muslim is trying to create bad build- as a motif that belongs to a national refrain; it stands as an ings—that is, “I will build a mosque here. There are Chris- emblematic indication of belonging as Christians in Syria.9 tians here, and soon there will be more Muslims!”—then it Through the movement in the landscape, the social relation- is a limitation for those in the church. There may not be ship with the area as being specifically Christian is anchored much of this, but it may be a sign—it is a mosque with a and restored. At the same time, however, this is also to be high minaret, it is new, everyone is talking about it: “Why seen as Christian in a Syrian national framework. Similarly, is it high? Why a very high mosque?” This is the idea. Why? slogans on Syrian nationalism and unity, which can be heard Am I able to sleep in the morning, when there are prayers, or in the evening? I don’t want to listen to the Koran, but 8. The renovation of mosques abounds all over Syria. It is happening I am forced to: “Allahu akbar!” If it is a beautiful voice, I in famous Christian towns, such as Saydnaya and Maaloula, but also in am happy, but why so loud? Why so very loud? And if the Damascus, al-Nabk, and Aleppo. Fine accounts from Egypt have recently sound is so loud, why is it directed toward Christians? I been published, and these reveal Coptic ways of dealing with some of the same issues (Heo 2013; Mayoer-Jaouen 2012; Shenoda 2012). In a mean, this is not just a mosque, it is a shari’a school, it is Syrian context, Anna Poujeau has examined Greek Orthodox monasteries not just a mosque for prayer, it is also a school....This and sacred spaces (2010, 2012). Poujeau points out how the renovation is the idea. I’m not against any individual but it is basically of monasteries, where it is happening, occurs with the support of the a question of why, I think. regime and that the churches are therefore actively incorporated into the extended circles of the regime. However, as Poujeau also points out, this Tony: Why in a Christian area? does not detract from classic traditions of shared shrines. Such sharing, however, has recently become increasingly difficult in the Middle East George: Why in a Christian area? and beyond (see also Bandak and Bille 2013; Bowman 2012; Dionigi and Couroucli 2012; Kousis, Selwyn, and Clark 2011). Tony: A mosque is located in an area for people to pray 9. A significant point to stress here is how Christianity, nations, and in it. But here there is not only Islam. In a Christian area, nationalisms from diverse traditions corroborate each other. In various this shouldn’t be necessary. forms of Christianity, Christ or the Virgin Mary is seen as the protector of both church and nation, which is also manifest in the title “Our Lady What is expressed here is thus an uncertainty regarding the of . . .” and then a particular location. Villages and towns but also cities purpose of religious buildings, something others comment on and nations give name to the Virgin, and many countries have the Virgin herself as protector, as in, for example, Poland, Spain, Russia, Syria, laconically by proposing to build schools instead. However, , and Egypt (see Christian 1996; Jansen 2009; Keriakos 2012). this again touches on the very uncertainty of belonging to a Furthermore, the Virgin can protect those exiled from the heartland (see minority in a majority society; there is a latent fear of a Orsi 1985; Tweet 1997). Bandak Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus S257 daily from both public and private schools all over Syria, are between Muslims and Christians. There are many confes- to be seen as parts of a refrain that operates in a wider or- sions, but . . . we live together with all confessions. Isn’t it chestration of people’s affective senses in the Syrian national true? You yourself have lived here and seen it. framework. This should not be seen as a contradiction in Andreas: There are many confessions? terms but rather as part of the potential that refrains have for allowing different motifs to become dominant. The Syrian Rami: But I don’t feel ...Idon’t feel there is a difference. regime has designed a variety of measures that are intended I think...forinstance, there isn’t a civil war between to build loyalty among its citizens. The educational system is Muslims and Christians or anything like this. On the con- essential, since the shaping of future individuals, to a large trary, we are happy and live together. We live together like extent, takes place here (George 2003:140–141; see also Fou- brothers and sisters. Certainly, there are only a few people cault 2002 [1975]:182). In the public sphere, in and on buses, who think differently. It is a natural life here! taxis, public offices, buildings, and roads, the Syrian flag is In interview contexts like the ones just presented, many high- seen alongside posters, busts, and statues, all of which depict light the relatively straightforward dimensions of coexistence former president Hafiz al-Asad and his son, Bashar al-Asad, in Damascus. It is stressed, as in the quotations above, that who at the time of writing was still the president. On television one is a citizen or a human being first, and only then does and in the government-controlled newspapers, the president one designate oneself a Christian. It is thus precisely the “nat- gets a great deal of attention. It is thus a standard custom ural” nature of relationships that is stressed—that we are liv- that the state-run newspapers, Tishreen, al-Thawra,andal- ing as brothers and sisters, or that there are no problems Ba’th, print pictures and report on the president’s latest meet- related to either religion or denomination or, if this should ings or audiences. All these different motifs converge in a be the case, that it is so only in some rare instances. However national refrain with a personification of power in the pres- much these statements may appear to promise in relation to ident, and this refrain bundles the experience of belonging positive perceptions of the conditions of coexistence, it is still with specific themes and motifs. In the Syrian narrative there necessary to proceed with a more nuanced reading.10 The is not much room left for religious or regional differences, national refrain bundles the experiences of diversity into an whereas national unity and Syria as the home for all remain encompassing unity, which may make sense in some situa- stressed (Provence 2005:15–16). tions. In other words, particular national affects and moods In other words, it is a secular or civil framework that is seem to be created through exposure to the regime ideology intended from the official side, a framework to which all can— that, in many regards, promises what the minority desire and or more precisely should—refer to. This means that Christians hope for: a solid place in the nation. in public contexts will, as a rule, maintain Syrian unity while downplaying differences stemming from religion. Several of Complicity and Emotions—to Act “As If” my interlocutors before the uprisings starting in 2011 would express this as being human first and only then Christian: The American anthropologist and political theorist Lisa We- Ilyas: The Christian, before all things, before he is a deen made the Syrian state’s politics, rhetoric, and symbols Christian, is a man who was born in an area....BeforeI her main focus of the 1999 monograph Ambiguities of Dom- ination. Wedeen’s central argument is that the Syrian regime am a Christian, I’m a human being, a person who is born has designed a special framework in which people are forced here and has lived here and has been part of this culture. to participate. All are fluent in the politics of “as if” that is . . . Therefore, I’m a citizen first, my identity is as a Syrian, imposed (1999:6, 30); all must act as if they were faithful to and there is no difference between Muslims and Christians. the regime and display veneration of it in public. The idea Here, if I talk about this as a social issue, I’m a citizen of that participating in such a framework serves as an “as if” the first degree, and only then I’m a Christian; therefore, can also be supported by scholars working with other domains I’m in the world, where it isn’t a problem that I’m a Chris- of social life (cf. Anderson 2013; Bandak 2013; Berger 1990 tian. I’m a citizen and, at the same time, a Christian. [1967]:98; Zˇ izˇek 2001). Participation implies different degrees Hani: If you are to be a Christian, you must first be a of commitment. In the Syrian context, everyone knows the human being. . . . You know that someone who wants to relevant slogans, rhetoric, and symbols and may thus at any be a Christian has to be a good person in the world. It is a good cause, we are Christians here with our right and 10. Politics and politicization is a critical feature in many parts of the sovereignty, particularly in this area, and the religious dif- world when we consider Christians and Christianity. One could here make a comparison with China and other highly politicized contexts ferences ...,wedon’t think in terms of whether people where Christian expressions and churches are monitored (see also Huang are Sunnis or...themost important thing is to be human. 2014 in this issue). In other settings, Christianity or the church may be very close to the center of power and, by extension, play a critical role Rami: In Damascus, it is great to be a Christian. There in how society is ordered. And in yet others, politics may be something is a very large number of Christians here in Damascus. I that the Christian community should not get involved in but rather shy am happy. In Damascus you don’t feel there is a difference away from (Bialecki 2009). S258 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 given time be able to display signs of their loyalty. The and Jørgensen 2012; see also Coleman 2012; Engelke 2012). thoughts and feelings that are held by people more widely, For this reason, it is not possible to place persons or groups however, remain a more complex question. In other words, as representative of simple categories such as, for example, it is dangerous to immediately draw conclusions concerning Christians from a minority, since there are actually more op- someone’s internal conviction from their public displays. For portunities to play on various senses of belonging, just as Wedeen’s argument, it is important that Syrians generally there are different histories of coexistence that persist and can merely act as if—that is, they pretend, and they thus do not be drawn on, with both their positive and their less positive really believe in what they are forced to participate in, such aspects. that everyone has the same lack of conviction as a common precondition (1999:25, 90, 130; see also Cooke 2007). Nadi Al-Feyha—Joint Prayers for This is a highly significant analytical observation in that it the Future of Syria shows the need to focus on the reception of symbols and signs rather than merely on an abstract analysis of the purported Let us now look at an occasion on which a particular refrain political intentions. I will argue that the “as if” presented in unfolded in the Syrian context at the end of 2005. In the Wedeen’s analysis may at times hold true, that there is often latter part of that year, the political situation was extremely a collective acting as if from what is to be understood as a tense. Ditlev Mehlis, a German official appointed by the lack of conviction. However, there is more to it than this United Nations, was just about to deliver a report on re- understanding suggests. It is actually rather more difficult to sponsibility for the of Rafiq al-Hariri, Lebanon’s for- determine whether people in specific situations really have mer prime minister, which indicated not merely criticism of such proposed emotional distance to the unfolding events in Syria’s role in this but also possible sanctions to follow. The which they are involved. Emotions, in fact, occur in relation pressure from the outside world was clearly being felt by my to the official symbols and rhetoric, so that participation in interlocutors. As Bashar said at that time, “This is the worst the various refrains assembles different feelings and experi- time in Syria’s modern history!” Several of my interlocutors ences with a certain degree of consistency, and this shows began to exchange the local currency for dollars and to discuss that the analysis cannot be presented as an either-or and, how the external pressure could be diverted. Visible and au- likewise, that it cannot be reduced to a both-and; rather, it dible ways in which the pressure led to a general refrainization deals with intensities, which are assembled as more or less of Damascus could be seen virtually everywhere in the public adequate in concrete situations. domain. Syrian flags were hung up in the streets, not just Participation in a demonstration, for instance, which starts from public buildings but from shops and private homes, out as a kind of complicity, can very likely end up in a given such that the social space was marked by an unprecedented situation as a genuine expression of national sentiment. How- visibility. CDs with nationalistic songs recorded for the oc- ever, these sentiments would be altogether inappropriate in casion by local celebrities were distributed in cafes, alongside other contexts. Because many Christians experience Islam as bracelets bearing the Syrian flag. At Christian concerts badges a potential threat, the guarantee from the regime, which fights were distributed, now not only as usual for the individual this perceived danger by all means, feels like a form of security. denominations but also with the Syrian flag printed on them This security is treasured by the Christian minority even if it along with the words “Syria, God protect her.” On television, comes at a high price. Conviction or a lack thereof is thus the president gave a speech in which he stressed that “the played out in a more complex constellation. Social experiences price of resistance is much less than the price of disaster.” always come with an excess, so that refrains are an assemblage These words could be seen as part of a general understanding, of particular themes that can also be dissolved and disappear. shared also by the Christian minority. As one interlocutor, There is thus a great need for attentiveness and sensitivity Bashar, phrased it, toward the situational and contextual play that frames what The government’s propaganda is sublime. . . . There is no is unfolding and what is stretched and pulled in different one who is able to ignore this speech. What is a disaster? directions by the implicated parties (Bateson 1972; Dilley There are examples very close by: in , in Palestine, in 1999). Lebanon. . . . I know the price of disaster. The price of This is central to an understanding of the way in which disaster is everything in life, the price of disaster is the loss the Syrian Christians’ sense of belonging is experienced. It is of family, of our nature, friends; it is death. The price of concomitantly possible for Syrian Christians to see them- disaster is death, but the price of security is sometimes . . . selves, at different times, as part of the nation, as standing in perhaps there will be a limitation of freedoms, but it is not contrast to Muslims, as family members and as individuals. worse than death. All these different aspects point to the complexity of and dynamicity in social relationships. Different experiences draw Earlier that same day, national television broadcasts the pres- on different histories and experiences, all of which are, in ident’s speech directly across the whole country. People from various ways, available in a particular situation—some come cities like , Aleppo, Homs, and Hama can be heard to the fore while others recede into the background (Bandak expressing their love and affection for the country. At this Bandak Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus S259 moment, most of the contradictions are deafened by the na- rallied around the regime, supporting the idea of national tional refrain, which seems to create a form of unity for all. unity even when it has meant bloodshed and atrocities. The Likewise, Christians are directly helping to maintain the re- fear of what might follow the regime seems greater than what frain by organizing joint prayers in Nadi al-Feyha, a large the sinister regime itself is unleashing at the moment. And, sports gym. Various church leaders are involved, and the in this situation, the tone and timbre of the refrains thereby whole event is also broadcast directly on television. All who also changes. The much-desired coexistence is turning into a are present for the joint prayers are given the Syrian national lackluster hope, or even a nostalgia for what used to be, as flag and placed so that the half-empty gym appears, on tele- the events take on greater speed. If many in the past spoke vision, to be packed. Two men walk around the gym pro- of a longue dure´e of coexistence, this now seems to be chang- moting the refrain “Bir-Ruh, bid-Dam, nafdeek, ya Bashar!” ing, and the refrains are thereby being displaced or the me- (With spirit, with blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, lodic lines disrupted. Damascus and Syria as we know it are Bashar!). A little later on, another sentence is being shouted: changing before our very eyes and ears, and only time will “, Suria, Bashar ubas!” (God, Syria, and Bashar only!). tell which forms of coexistence will be possible. The slogans are in no way invented just for this occasion. In this article, however, I have attempted to present an They have existed for decades, even though Hafiz was replaced analysis of the way the city has been lived in by Christian by Bashar just a few years ago. Many of the outcries appear Syrians under quieter yet sometimes tense circumstances. I to be passionate, and the flags flutter fervently in the air. A have argued that we must attend to the rhythms and repe- choir has been flown in from Egypt. And the grand mufti of titions that make up the texture of the city. These rhythmic Damascus is participating alongside one of the most recog- properties may be endowed with melodic qualities by those nized bishops in Damascus, Isidor Battikha. The choir sings who live in the city or, conversely, may be seen as intrusive several Christian songs, as the assembled group of people and noisy. I have defined these properties as refrains that listen intensely. Suddenly, one of the male singers bursts out people intone and follow in their daily life. The city as a place in an “Allahu akbar,” which he modulates over the singing of dense cohabitation is a territory in which different attempts of the choir. People all get to their feet with seeming enthu- at making it a place of continuous belonging are constantly siasm. The flags flutter even more audaciously. Once the song at play. I argue that the various available refrains instill Chris- is over, the standard slogans resound: “Bir-Ruh, bid-Dam, tian qualities in the place, albeit in constant plays of a ter- nafdeek, ya Bashar!” and “Allah, Suria, Bashar ubas!”Inthis ritorializing, deterritorializing, and reterritorializing charac- moment, it all seems to come together, it all seems to make ter—and, in these plays, Christianity is made to matter. sense to be a Christian in Syria, now there is room for ev- eryone. In this moment, everything else is deafened.

Perspectives—Displaced Rhythms and Refrains Acknowledgments I would like to express my thanks for their critical engagement Since March 2011, Syria has seen a major revolt take place with earlier versions of this article to Jon Bialecki, Mikkel on its very soil. Whereas the beginning was relatively peaceful, Bille, Tom Boylston, and Anja Kublitz as well as the two it has developed into a bloody civil war in which different anonymous reviewers. I am also most grateful to the Wenner- groups are pitted against each other. While the opposition in Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Joel Robbins, the beginning predominantly appealed to the secular masses, and all participants in the symposium “The Anthropology of it has been influenced to an increasing degree by Islamists, Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions” in Sintra, Por- not merely from the larger segments of the Syrian population tugal, for their wonderful intellectual engagement with the with such inclinations but also from militant groups outside work here presented. Syria. These well-trained groups are now spreading fear among the minorities and those supportive of the regime with a clear strategy of targeting minorities. The sound of church References Cited bells and calls to prayer have, in the past two years, been Abdu, Samir. 2003. al-tawa¯’if al-ması¯hiyya fı¯su¯riyya¯ [The Christian confessions replaced by the sound of explosions, automatic artillery, and in Syria]. Damascus: da¯r hasan malas lil-nushir. shattering bricks and concrete. These sounds are followed by Abu-Lughod, Janet. 1987. The Islamic city—historic myth, Islamic essence, and contemporary relevance. International Journal of Middle East Studies wailing and shouts as people learn what toll the various forms 19:155–176. of attack have taken. One slogan that has been heard on the Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2005. Dramas of nationhood: the politics of television in street, allegedly from radical Islamists, goes, “The Alawites in Egypt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Anderson, Paul. 2013. The politics of scorn in Syria and the agency of narrated the coffin, the Christians to Beirut!” Needless to say, such involvement. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, n.s., 19(3):463– words have led many Christians to flee the country or to 481. support the regime in its attempts to crack down on this Apolito, Paolo. 2005. The Internet and the Madonna: religious visionary ex- perience on the web. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. perceived danger. Appadurai, Arjun. 1995. The production of locality. In Counterworks: man- Amid this unfolding tragedy, most Christian Syrians have aging the diversity of knowledge. Richard Fardon, ed. London: Routledge. S260 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

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Sarah’s Sinfulness Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, and Gender in Pentecostal Christianity

by Annelin Eriksen

Early anthropological studies of Pentecostalism and gender, dominated by Latin American and Caribbean ethnog- raphy, focused to a large extent on women’s conversion and how Pentecostal ideology has limited masculine oppressive behavior and provided women with social community, faith healing, domestic counseling, and so forth. These studies of Pentecostalism have thus been dominated by a focus on women on the one hand and on social community and social change on the other. The primary question asked in these studies has been, does Pentecostalism bring about an increased degree of equality? With the development of the anthropology of Christianity, the focus has shifted to a more thoroughgoing understanding of Christianity as a culture. In this paper I argue that this shift can also stimulate a shift in the way we study equality and gender in Pentecostalism. Instead of looking at men and women’s roles, we need to look at the specific idea of egalitarianism that this form of Christianity brings about and how this shapes the way in which gendered difference is articulated. I present a case from Vanuatu, South West Pacific, arguing that we need to look at gendered values, and I suggest a focus on what I call “the charismatic space.”

Linda Woodhead (2007) has argued that the study of gender women’s movement (Brusco 1986, 2010), a feminist effort at in religion always includes the study of relations of power. In “domesticating men” (Stoll 1990:319). As Brusco (1986) anthropological and sociological studies of Pentecostalism pointed out in her study of Colombian Pentecostalism, Pen- and gender, this power perspective has indeed been the dom- tecostal social practice and norms inverted the masculine role, inant one, and the focus has been primarily on men’s and making men more accommodating to domestic ideals as op- women’s negotiations of power and leadership. A specific posed to the traditional “machismo.” Others again pointed focus on equality/inequality has led us to privilege a per- out that the Pentecostal social practice enabled women to spective on power in studies of gender in Pentecostalism. In voice their domestic problems (Burdick 1990), or that Pen- this paper I challenge these traditional perspectives and urge tecostal churches teach women middle-class behavior, making for a move away from the focus on men and women’s “power it easier for them to achieve social mobility (Sjørup 2002), struggle” to an analysis of value and gender. or that the Pentecostal focus on health and healing makes In the 1980s and 1990s analyses of the rise of Pentecostalism these churches more attractive to women because women are in Latin America were dominated by classical sociological the main domestic caretakers (Chestnut 1997). perspectives on gender and power. Two main questions were What characterizes these analyses of gender in Pentecos- asked: why are women so numerically dominant in these talism in Latin America (mainly from the 1990s) is a very churches, and why do men still hold on to leadership positions explicit focus on what men and women do in church—their (Bowen 1996; Brusco 1986, 2010; Burdick 1990; Chestnut roles, positions, and status. Gender relations are often ana- 1997; Hallum 2003; Ramirez 1999; Sjørup 2002; Stoll 1990)? lyzed as power relations defined as access to leadership and Two contrasting viewpoints emerge. First, Pentecostalism re- public roles. The basic enigma has been why women are so produces and reenforces paternalism, although in new and numerically dominant but so absent in representational of- different ways (see Bowen 1996; Flora 1975; Willems 1967). fices. Second, and contrary to the first, Pentecostalism is a strategic In recent years, the focus on women and Pentecostalism has been complemented by an emerging literature on mas- culinities and Pentecostalism (Eves 2010; Gooren 2010; Van Annelin Eriksen is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen (Fosswinckelsgt 6, Klinken 2011, 2012). In many ways these studies follow the 5007 Bergen, Norway [[email protected]]). This paper same analytical paths as the “women and Pentecostalism” was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and electronically studies, looking at access to male leadership, but also changing published 19 XI 14. notions of gender identity. Van Klinken’s (2012) recent anal-

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0011$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678288 Eriksen Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, and Gender in Pentecostal Christianity S263 ysis of Zambian men’s conversion stories, for instance, sup- gender in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s gave us port in many ways Brusco’s (1986) analysis of Colombian important knowledge of the effect of Pentecostalism and its Pentecostalism: in Zambia, born-again men become “respon- theology on the lives of men and women. In the same way sible” men, men who engage in family matters and stop drink- the emerging literature on masculinities and Pentecostalism ing, smoking, and having affairs. gives us important insights into how men renegotiate their Earlier studies from the 1990s concerned with “women’s male identities and new ways of understanding their lead- issues” and more recent studies of masculinities and “men’s ership roles. However, we also need different kinds of ques- issues” have thus primarily been concerned with gender iden- tions, questions that reveal the engendering of cultural orders tities and access to leadership and public roles. In this paper in terms of feminine and masculine values. This paper thus I want to develop another kind of gender and power analysis, contributes to the anthropology of Christianity by analyzing moving the focus away from the gender of the persons who Christian values (Dumont 1986; Robbins 2004a) and specif- convert and their individual agency, roles, and status and ically how these values are gendered (Eriksen 2008a). In this toward the way Christianity, and in this case Pentecostal paper I do this by looking more closely at the significance of Christianity, itself is gendered. I will show how Pentecostalism, gender for one of the defining features of the culture of Pen- in spite of its fundamental egalitarian ethos, is structured on tecostalism: charisma. Before presenting the ethnography in gendered, binary differences. Not only does this difference full, however, I will take a detour through some comparative shape the social practice of men and women, but, as I will African literature on Pentecostalism to open the perspective show, it is fundamental for the moral evaluation of femininity on what I call “the charismatic space.” By “the charismatic and masculinity. In this paper I will emphasize gender as a space” I refer to the space in which the Spirit reveals itself dynamic of binary differentiation that is constitutive of Chris- for the believers. It is the way gendered values structure this tianity as a cultural system in Vanuatu. Others have also ar- charismatic space that interests me. gued that one of the essential features of cultural change in the aftermath of Christian conversion is exactly the focus on Crossing Borders binaries (see Schieffelin 2014; Vilac¸a 2014). In this paper I look in particular at how the specific binaries of gender con- stitute a Christian cultural order in the Melanesian context Pentecostalism has been defined as “the form of Christianity of Vanuatu. in which believers receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and have In my analysis I take comparative literature from Africa ecstatic experiences such as speaking in tongues, healing and and my own region, Melanesia, into consideration as I try to prophesying” (Robbins 2004b:117), sometimes internationally understand ethnography collected in 2010 during fieldwork attuned (Meyer 2004), sometimes more concerned with in Port Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu, in the South West church independence. In this paper I talk about a great variety Pacific. Here I met Sarah,1 a woman in her midtwenties, who of churches, from small Pentecostal-like congregations dis- has been expelled from church for inappropriate sexual be- playing only certain characteristics of Pentecostalism to what havior but who was also a very powerful Pentecostal healer. one might call more “mainstream” Pentecostal churches of Although an outcast, she was also a symbol of the effectiveness the international kind. The most important feature of all of of strong belief and the power of the Holy Spirit in healing. these churches, however, is the strong emphasis on the char- In order to understand this ambivalence, or doubleness, in ismatic: speaking in tongues, the gifts of prophesying, healing, the relationship between her and the congregation, I need to and encountering evil forces. develop perspectives on gender that go beyond what I call What then seems to be the characteristic feature of this the “sociological perspective” and analysis of roles, status, and charisma of healing and prophesying? As Luedke and West power. We need to understand more than what women and (2006) have pointed out, transgression of borders is essential men appropriately can do in church; we need to understand for religious healing generally, both in a literal sense (healers the underlying cultural and gendered grammar. We need to crossing the nation-state borders, borders between the local understand the gender of key Christian values. More precisely, and the urban, the national and the global, etc.) but also in we need to understand why certain activities are more ap- a more symbolic sense of crossing borders between the ma- propriate for women and others for men. What kinds of terial and the invisible world. Much of the literature from gendered values are underlying these social and cultural pat- Africa on Pentecostalism has emphasized the importance of terns? For instance, when we observe that healing is important this latter border, of the openness of Pentecostalism not only for women (e.g., as domestic caretakers) or that women are to the spiritual but also to the occult. Meyer (1999) has shown more loyal converts than men (and therefore outnumber in her analyses of Ewe Christians in Ghana that early mis- them), we need to connect this analytically to gendered values. sionaries drew on the Devil in order to make a boundary The analysis that came from studies of Pentecostalism and between what was Christian and what was “heathen.” The Devil, denoting the ancestral spirits and , was denied by 1. To make her unidentifiable, I have changed her name and describe the missionaries as a real power in the world, thus creating her and the circumstances in general terms. an absolute border. The Pentecostal churches that became S264 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 popular in the 1980s in Ghana challenged this border and ventist mission has also had a certain influence. However, began to take the Devil seriously. The charismatic space in during the last two decades, a new wave of Pentecostal Chris- these Pentecostal churches thus challenged these absolute bor- tianity has spread through the country. Vanuatu has become ders between the material and the invisible forces, between the scene of a rapidly expanding number of Pentecostal the good and the bad, between the old spirits and the new churches. Spirit. This porousness of the border between the occult and During my most recent fieldwork in Port Vila in 2009– Christianity has been described as “ontological ambivalence” 2010, I worked on a survey of new Pentecostal congregations (Smith 2001). On the one hand, there is an outspoken “war” in the urban area on behalf of the Vanuatu Cultural Center.2 against the occult forces in the Pentecostal churches, but on I thus visited all the congregations in Port Vila, talking to the the other hand, these forces are thereby becoming more em- founders and pastors of the churches. The great majority of phasized and more powerfully present. Lindhardt (2009) has these churches are independent, so-called break away con- pointed to what he calls the “ambivalence of power”: the gregations from larger, international Pentecostal churches that spiritual power is essential in healing but can also display dark were established in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Assembly of sides in the more traditional, occult forms of healing. Newell God, Potter’s House, United Pentecostal Church, Revival Fel- (2007) outlines similar perspectives in an analysis of “Pen- lowship, and others. These smaller congregations often have tecostal witchcraft,” showing that in the effort to transcend memberships of only a hundred, some maybe two or three witchcraft, Pentecostals in many cases become encompassed hundred, and they rarely have proper church buildings, often by the witchcraft discourse, taking on the appearance of holding services in a backyard, tent, or temporary building witchcraft itself (see also Rio 2011:69 for Melanesia). with just a roof of corrugated iron and open walls. I always In Papua New Guinea we have ethnographic descriptions asked the pastors to tell me the story of how their church of the way Pentecostal theology has encouraged “war” against was established. Below is an example of one such story given ancestral spirits and burning of ancestral houses in an effort to me by Pastor Torboe, the founder of an independent Pen- toward “breaking with the past” (Jorgensen 2005). But, as tecostal church, the Grace Church.3 Engelke (2010) has pointed out regarding the African context, Pastor Torboe tells me one late afternoon in May 2010 this break with the past is often ambivalent; the break is always about his first encounter with the Holy Spirit, about two also realignment with the past. Furthermore the break has the decades ago. He recounts a vision he has had and how he effect of making the past more visible; the ancestral spirits came to understand this. increase their presence in the very effort to break with them. I heard the voice of God speaking clearly. ...“Myservant, Spiritual warfare against the old spirits inevitably empowers you see the living trees sinking on that island over there; the very same spirits by making them “war enemies” worthy of attack. that represents the people in Vanuatu and elsewhere, are The charismatic space described in the literature on Pen- dying in their sins. They are heading towards hell. And you tecostalism thus seems to be characterized by a fundamental see young pine trees with old ones; they represent the young effort to challenge borders. Furthermore, the opening of these and old people in ...[Vanuatu] . . . and elsewhere. The borders also seems to create a more ambivalent charismatic clouds above are forming to produce rain. This represents space, a paradoxical presence of that which one seeks to over- the imminent mighty outpouring of My Spirit. The flaming come. The charismatic space produces ambivalence toward sword represents My life-changing Word. My Spirit will be the past, toward the occult, and toward gendered order. In poured down upon multitudes of young and old people as this paper I want to open this ambivalence of the charismatic My Word is preached and taught in simplicity and clarity. space to analytical scrutiny. What is the significance of the The impact of the outpouring of My Spirit will see multi- ambivalence and how can a focus on the binary dynamic of tudes of people, in particular, young people, turning to me, gendered values give us insights into how this ambivalence to be saved and filled with My Spirit.” works? I will argue that the tension between masculine and The vision ended, but it left a mind-boggling spiritual feminine values comes to the surface in the charismatic space. impact, and bearing upon my entire life. I shared the vision with those present at that prayer meeting. . . . Filled with

Masculine Encounters and 2. The Vanuatu Research Policy requires researchers to do voluntary Feminine Mediations work for the Cultural Center in return for being given research permission in Vanuatu. Let me now home in on the ethnographic context of this 3. Pastor Torboe is a well-known public figure in Port Vila and one paper in order to specifically focus on gendered values in the of the best-known charismatic pastors. I had several talks with him during South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. Christianity was gradually my fieldwork in 2010, and he was well aware of my research. His tes- introduced in the Vanuatu archipelago during the 1800s, but timony (see n. 4) has also been widely distributed. The content of the ethnography revealed here is thus not of a kind that requires anonymous in some areas mission stations were established as late as in status of the pastor. I have not changed the names of any of the pastors the early 1900s. Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic forms mentioned in this article, as they are well known, and the stories they of Christianity have dominated, and the Seventh Day Ad- told are also known. Eriksen Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, and Gender in Pentecostal Christianity S265

an unbelievable burden in my heart for the lost souls, I was dividual is given primary status. What I observed in my eth- undoubtedly determined to do everything possible to reach nography, however, is that this Christian individualism is, in the lost with God’s Word, and His healing power.4 an interesting way that I will explain below, male. As the conversion story of Pastor Torboe reveals, there is a certain Pastor Torboe heard God speak directly to him, addressing idea that an encounter with God implies an elevation of the him on an urgent issue, giving him a life-saving mission—to individual; a person has been chosen, selected by God, for a save the people in Vanuatu. This was the typical kind of story specific mission. When comparing the way these “founding that the founding pastors of Pentecostal (independent) con- fathers” of the many new churches in Port Vila talked about gregations gave me: they had either heard the voice of God their encounter with God and their visions to the way many speaking directly to them or encountered the Holy Spirit in of the female healers and prophetesses talked about their vi- a dream or in the form of a burning bush. Some of them sions, I realized that the charismatic space, the space in which had encountered an angel who had been a messenger from the presence of the Holy is sensed and understood, is indeed God (see also Eriksen 2012). They had all encountered the gendered. There seems to be a feminine and a masculine way Godly in a direct way. They had been chosen, selected to bring of relating to the godly. the message forward. Although I mainly interviewed male pastors and church Pastor Torboe was very eloquent in his descriptions of his founders, I talked informally to more Pentecostal women than encounters and experiences with the Holy Spirit. When I men during my time in the field, and women very rarely asked him to tell me the story of his conversion, he gave me presented themselves as having been chosen by God.7 I have a written, 10-page narrative about what he called “his walk elsewhere (Eriksen 2012) outlined how the prophetesses and with God.” Pastor Torboe describes his first conversion ex- healers in a specific church called the Bible Church in Port perience when he as a young boy and attended what he called Vila let the Spirit work through them, as if they were me- a boring Presbyterian church service that seemed to go on diators for the Spirit. They, to a much lesser degree than the much longer than expected: “I then decided to open my eyes pastors and founding fathers, encounter the Spirit as much and see what that Pastor Bangtor was on [about]. In total as they are filled and penetrated by the Spirit. They channel amazement, I saw the Cross right in front. Jesus the Spirit. Christ was hanging on that Cross. I saw His blood running In an interchurch prayer group for women who are spe- down His sides. . . . God audibly called me and pointed me cifically receptive to the Holy Spirit, I observed that the to the Lord Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross and said, ‘Phil, women always hold hands, shouting encouraging words and this is for you.’”5 phrases to each other, in order to be filled with the Spirit. Again, he is being directly addressed; it is a personal vision This group meets on a weekly basis in the city center of Port for him only. Similarly, Pastor Jude Neru, founder of the Vila and consists of women from most of the Pentecostal- Living Water Ministry, established in early 2000, told me that like churches in the area. They come together in order to heal he had encountered the Holy Spirit in a miraculous way when, not only sickness and misfortune on an individual basis but after a full day of fasting, he had heard the voice of God to heal the nation as a whole (see also Eriksen 2008b). When telling him to build a new church that would be the biggest the Spirit is sensed in the room, some of the women will and greatest Vanuatu had ever seen.6 These stories all reveal enter into an almost unconscious state, shouting and crying. the importance of the individual encounter with God. They explained to me that the Spirit works through them; The importance of the individual in Christianity generally they are vehicles for the Spirit. Sometimes they will lay hands (Dumont 1986) and in Pentecostalism in particular (Robbins on a map of Vanuatu in order for the Spirit to heal, through 2004a) has been underlined both in anthropology and be- them, the whole nation. yond. It is in particular through the concept of belief as an When looking at healing practices and stories of encounters inner state and in the concept of salvation that the individual with the Holy Spirit in Vanuatu, it becomes obvious that there becomes the key figure. As one of Robbins’s (2002) interloc- are distinctly gendered ways in which this is done. There are utors phrased it, “My wife cannot break off part of her belief on the one hand male encounters with the Spirit and on the and give it to me.” Belief is a private and inner state. The other hand female mediations of the Spirit. This feminine and relationship with God, the foundation of belief and salvation, masculine way of relating to the Holy Spirit, in which the is also based on a one-to-one relationship in which the in- former elevates the individual and the latter does almost the

4. This report was not prepared for me. Pastor Torboe was already opposite, downplaying the role of the individual, is to some working on the story of his life and encounters with God as a testimony extent paralleled in descriptions of gender and Pentecostalism to the power of God, as he phrased it. He called his report “A Striking Story of the Conversion of Philip Lepiko Torboe and His Walk with 7. I know of one exception to this general observation. A well-known God.” woman, outspoken in media and holding high offices, has founded a 5. See n. 4. church. As I argue elsewhere, among women belonging to what one might 6. The church report form 2010 reveals a number of similar stories call the emerging urban elite, we can observe a changing notion of fem- told by “founding fathers.” ininity (A. Eriksen, unpublished manuscript). S266 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 from elsewhere. Van Klinken’s (2012) analysis of Zambian viticus 12 and shows how these rules create the female as born-again masculinities, for instance, underline that Zam- something outside of the Holy (Kristeva 1982:99). The sep- bian men become more conscious of their “self” and the aration of the sexes is fundamental to Christianity, according necessity to show “self-control” and “self-discipline” as a re- to Kristeva (1982). sult of becoming born again. This is not dissimilar to mas- At any rate, that evocation of defiled maternality, in Leviticus culine encounters with the Spirit in Vanuatu. Furthermore, 12, inscribes the logic of dietary abominations within that Gooren (2010:107) has analyzed women’s conversion nar- of a limit, a boundary, a border between the sexes, a sep- ratives from Latin America, arguing that women are more aration between feminine and masculine as foundation for likely to describe their conversion as a matter of letting go the organization that is “clean and proper,” “individual,” of control. and, one thing leading to another, signifiable, legislatable, These gendered experiences of conversion are in many ways subject to law and morality. (100) echoed in the Vanuatu ethnography, but they take a specific and local form. Women are described as having “soft hearts” In other words, separating the feminine and the masculine and are thus more “open.” Women become “possessed” by and creating a hierarchically organized division between them the Spirit, and without necessarily searching consciously or is fundamental for Christian morality as it is outlined in the willfully. To some extent one might say that they more easily Old Testament. This hierarchy between the feminine and the let go of their individuality, opening their hearts to the Spirit. masculine was produced by the connection between mascu- The value of “letting go,” of “opening up” on the one hand linity and Christian . The feminine, on the other and the value of the one-to-one encounter on the other are hand, was associated with the “archaic Mother who fundamental to the Pentecostal Christian value system in Va- actually haunted the imagination of a nation at war with the nuatu, but they are differently gendered and have different surrounding ” (Kristeva 1982:100). All taboos, significance. The one-to-one encounter creates the charis- from the boils signaling leprosy (Leviticus 13, 14), the pre- matic church leaders. These leaders become trustworthy and scribed rules of avoidance of the newborn girl (Leviticus 12), interesting because they reflect the ability and the value of the circumcision of the boy (Leviticus 12), and the taboos on the individual relationship with God. The more feminine val- blood and female substance in the Temple, reveal the way the ues of letting go, of “opening up” and creating relational religious order was based on a gendered order in which the connections, are also central but less significant in terms of feminine is outside of the holy. For a woman to be holy, creating leadership. The ability to represent and handle the femininity (especially female sexuality) needed to be neu- significance of the individual encounter is the ultimate value tralized. Mary’s immaculate conception of Jesus is perhaps in the creation of institutional leadership in these churches the best-known biblical example. According to Kristeva, in (see Eriksen 2012). However, the charismatic space, in which the New Testament, this explicit, gendered order wherein the these encounters with the Spirit take place, might open the “abjection” figures centrally has become a matter of subjective door for articulations of ambivalence and challenges to this interiorization. The “abject” is that which one cannot tolerate gendered Christian ethos. In other words, the masculinity of within oneself; the feminine is a threat from within the self the individuality/self-assertion and the femininity of letting and within the body. In other words, where the Old Testament go/lack of individuality are challenged. In arguing this I claim described an external landscape of taboos and prohibitions, that when studying gendered Christian values, one needs to which is fundamentally organized on the binary female-male not only outline how gendered values create a certain cultural axis, the New Testament turns this into a subjective order, order but also how these values are confronted in different inside the body. social contexts. In other words, if Christianity itself entails Similarly, Walker Bynum (1992) has described how the the possibility of a binary gendered order, this order might Christian moral order has been imagined by medieval scholars be the subject of challenges in different social contexts where and artists as a matter of bodily transformation. In medieval these values are taken up. Before moving to the ethnography Europe the body of Christ was portrayed as both female and that will allow for this argument, I will try to outline more male, which, according to Walker Bynum, was a general me- clearly what I mean by a gendered Christian order. dieval perspective of the body. It was androgynous. Gendered order was of no less significance, of course, but the ambiv- The Gender of Christianity alence of the gendered body was more outspoken. Femininity revealed liminality and inferiority, as when Francis of Assisi As theologians and literary scholars, specifically the feminist took on female qualities to signify poverty and weakness, version, have pointed out (Keller 2003; Økland 2008), biblical becoming a “mother” and being addressed as “Lady Poverty” narratives in their most basic sense are gendered. Kristeva (Walker Bynum 1992:35). The gendered order revealed itself (1982), for example, in her essay on abjection, outlines what through the aesthetics of self-transformation: from male to she calls biblical abomination, referring to the system of ta- female (to signify weakness and humbleness) or from female boos and prohibitions as explained in the Old Testament. She to male (to signify holiness). The process of conversion was analyzes the prohibitions of certain foods as outlined in Le- also portrayed in medieval Europe as a transformation from Eriksen Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, and Gender in Pentecostal Christianity S267 a female status to a male one. As Walker Bynum (1992) writes asked whether they could invite her to some of the meetings. about Francis of Assisi, “From the liminality of weakness, Gradually the women told me that Sarah rarely came to , and womanliness comes the leader and model who church anymore, that she was not allowed. I was also told changed the religious life of the thirteenth century” (35). In that she stayed mostly in her home. One of the women told death he is described as a leader and a father of his friars me that Sarah was in a “prison” in her own home; she was (1992:35). The transformation from mother to father, from being punished for immoral behavior. The women were vague being weak to leader, is a gendered transformation that reveals about the cause of Sarah’s fall from grace but mentioned that the gendered order of medieval Christianity. she had disobeyed the rules of marriage. She had been in- Feminist scholars of Christianity have given us insights into volved in sexual relations with a married man. Finally, how- how gender functions as a language for expressing the holy ever, I managed to visit Sarah in her home on the outskirts in different forms of Christianity. The biblical texts, as well of the Port Vila city center. When I talked to Sarah, she had as interpretations of the texts (e.g., in medieval art), reveal a small son of about two years and was living with the child’s how the language of femininity and masculinity becomes a father. language for transformations from profane to sacred, or from Sarah had moved to the capital as a young woman of about mundane and weak to exceptional and holy. Often, if these 18–19 years. It is a common pattern for families in town to portraits are based on the New Testament and images of Jesus, call for a girl from the village to come and help out in the they take the form of a bodily transformation revealing an urban household. She looked after the children and did laun- “inner” transformation. dry and cooking for relatives living on the outskirts of the Although it is difficult to make the general claim that Chris- urban center. When Sarah arrived in town, she joined an tianity in all its traditions and interpretations is fundamentally independent Pentecostal charismatic church because this was based on gendered binaries, it is fair to say that there is a the congregation the family she lived with belonged to. After potential for such an understanding and that it has been some time in town, she had discovered that she was pregnant. clearly pointed out in both theological and literary writings. Sarah did not go into much detail about what had happened. The important point to make for this argument, however, is She just stated that the husband in the household where she that the gendered binaries outlined above are echoed in the worked was the father. The wife had subsequently left the version of Christianity that is taking form in local churches household, leaving the husband, the pregnant house girl in Vanuatu. There is a clear tendency to make the difference (Sarah), and four children. At this point the church had de- between the feminine and the masculine a fundamental dif- cided to expel Sarah along with the father of her unborn child ference. In Port Vila, the difference between the capacity to for immoral behavior. I was told that most people in the become the “individual,” or the chosen leader (Eriksen 2012), church knew that Sarah had not wanted to live with the child’s on the one hand, and the lack of this ability to “individualize” father and that the pregnancy most certainly had been the is based on a fundamental binary and hierarchical contrast result of a forced sexual relation. between the feminine and the masculine. Although expelled from church and marked as an immoral So far I have argued that there is a potential in Christianity person, there was a sense of uneasiness about Sarah’s situa- for making fundamental distinctions based on gender and for tion. Before meeting Sarah, for instance, I had heard nu- revealing moral transformations (from good to bad, from holy merous stories about her and what people talked about as to unholy, or vice versa) as a gendered transformation. I have “the miracles.” Sarah herself did not elaborate on these mir- also argued that, in Vanuatu, Christian individualism more acles, but one of the other healers, Sarah’s aunt, told me about easily takes a male form than a female form. With this as a a specific event that took place not long after the child was background, I will present Sarah’s story, a story of bodily born. transformation revealing her efforts to achieve holiness. This Sarah arrived early one morning to have tea with us. We effort, however, challenged the established gendered order. As sat around the table, but Sarah acted strangely. She showed my outline will show, it is specifically in the charismatic space us her palms, revealing sores and blood. Her forehead had of the Pentecostal congregations that the established images similar sores. She had woken up this way that morning, she of Christian order are challenged. had explained, blood in the palms of her hands and on her forehead. Sarah’s Miracles Her aunt said, “She had the same marks as Jesus.” I first heard about Sarah from the prophetesses in one of the Later on, when the child might have been some months Pentecostal churches in Port Vila. I was following the work old, she visited the same relatives and put the baby to sleep of healers from different churches during my fieldwork in in the back yard of the house while she herself joined the 2009–2010. Many of the healers mentioned Sarah, a truly others for tea. After a while a female relative picked up the gifted healer who was no longer part of this specific Pente- baby, unfolding the blanket in which he was wrapped, re- costal church. For a long period I only heard stories about vealing money (a 5,000 VT note [about US$50]) on the baby’s this woman. Meeting her seemed to be difficult, although I chest. A parallel incident had taken place a couple of weeks S268 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 later, when Sarah was breast-feeding the child and once again der ambivalence produced in the charismatic space. The saints found money on the child’s chest. Mayblin describes as being of clearly undetermined gender Sarah’s story is very different from most of the other stories might also be seen as an expression of the ambivalence ar- I heard and observations I made while taking part in the ticulated through the charismatic. Sarah needed the charis- activities in different Pentecostal churches and visiting mem- matic space to articulate a desired transformation from out- bers in their homes. Sarah’s story reveals how the charismatic cast to holy. In doing this she challenged the strong emphasis space can open for ambivalence and challenge the established, on gender binaries in what I have here called the Christian gendered order. If the transformation from immoral to moral, cultural order taking form in Vanuatu, where men have taken from weak to strong, from unworthy to worthy, easily can on individuating capacities. take a gendered form (following Kristeva 1982), and if the In the charismatic space, the space wherein the spiritual established gendered order in the Bible Church allows men reveals itself to the believer—in this case in the form of stig- to achieve this transformation to a greater extent than women mata on Sarah’s body and money on her child’s chest—am- (moving from non-individualized to “the chosen one”), then bivalence is articulated (through the imagery of Jesus and the Sarah’s miracles present challenges on several levels. First, Virgin Mary). Where does this ambivalence actually come Sarah reveals herself as Jesus. Her stigmata signal her iden- from? What is this ambivalence an expression of? tification with Jesus and his suffering. Just as Jesus suffered and was denied by his own, so Sarah has also suffered and Denied Difference in Pentecostalism become an outcast from the church. Taking this form, taking on the personality of Jesus, so to speak, turns Sarah into On the one hand, Pentecostalism is perhaps the most elab- something other than the prophetess and healer she had been orate form of an individualist and egalitarian religion; the known as before. Sarah as Jesus is not (only) a “mediation” focus is on the personal relationship with God (Robbins but an “individualization”; she becomes a chosen one. She 2004a), on personal returns in the prosperity gospel (Co- takes on male qualities. The bodily transformation is also one maroff and Comaroff 2003), and on individual gifts more that challenges the Christian gendered order. She is trans- than hierarchical structures of positions and status (Cox formed not from a mother to a father (like Francis of Assisi) 1995). On the other hand, as I have outlined, there is a dif- but from a suffering mother to a suffering man. On the one ference in the way the feminine and the masculine are ex- hand, she becomes a man—Jesus—underlining the way gen- pressed in the charismatic space in the context of Vanuatu. der structures a moral transformation from unmoral to moral, Although it is the individual (whether man or woman) who from female to male. On the other hand she reveals the female is the core value of the Pentecostal theology, the relevance of qualities of Jesus. Jesus suffers for humanity just as mothers gender is always there too. In the case of the Bible Church suffer for their children. There is a doubleness to Sarah’s for instance, although the congregational members also un- miracle; on the one hand she becomes a man, taking on an derline the importance of the personal relationship with God individualized, masculine form. On the other hand, she trans- and belief as a matter of individual effort and trust, there is poses female qualities onto the image of Jesus, revealing Jesus always something that escapes this logic; there is an underlying as also feminine. The doubleness is also underlined by the difference between male encounters and female mediations blood. Blood, as outlined by Kristeva (1982), is a taboo, but that seems to make men more prone to have personal rela- it is the ultimate sacrifice as well. Sarah’s blood signals both tionships with God, and men seem to make the most of this her suffering and her fall from grace, but also her sacrifice. relationship. Sarah’s second and third miracles (the money on her child’s There is an explicit focus on individual egalitarianism: ev- chest) reveal something else: Sarah is not only like Jesus; she eryone is equal in the presence of God, and everyone can might also be similar to the Virgin Mary. Just like the Virgin have a personal relationship with God. Yet there seems to be Mary, her pregnancy was not her own decision, and just like a gendered hierarchy in the way this is achieved and per- the Virgin Mary, she has given birth to a blessed child. formed, not only in the context of Vanuatu, but, as the lit- The miracles show us Sarah’s effort at transforming herself erature I referred to in the introduction reveals, all over the from immoral to moral, from outcast to holy, in line with world where Pentecostalism gains a foothold. This ambiva- the gendered principles of moral transformation in the local lence between outspoken egalitarianism and submerged gen- Pentecostal ethos. However, these miracles also show us that der hierarchy is expressed, I will claim, in the charismatic she has problems achieving this, because, as a woman and as space. The charismatic space seems to enable an articulation a mother, she cannot easily take on the individualized form of the ambivalence toward gendered difference, which is on of the “holy man.” By not only becoming Jesus but also the the one hand a defining feature of Christianity but on the Virgin Mary, she shows us how the transformation from other submerged or denied in Pentecostalism. There is in mother to man is ambivalent; she is the Virgin Mary and every church session, in every healing session, an obvious Jesus at one and the same time. Mayblin (2014) has also difference between the way men and women experience and pointed to the importance of “gender bending” in Christian- express charisma. In the charismatic space ambivalence be- ity. Her analysis confirms my own conclusions about the gen- tween egalitarianism and difference can be articulated. In Eriksen Egalitarianism, Denied Difference, and Gender in Pentecostal Christianity S269 other words, in spite of the dominant focus on egalitarianism ative, childlike, and “mad.” There is thus a danger for women in Pentecostal theology, the charismatic space opens for an in opening themselves to the Holy Spirit. They might be articulation of the ambivalence between gender difference and deceived. While these women seek the Holy Sprit’s help in equality. This returns me again to Mayblin (2014) and an order to heal sickness (especially HIV and AIDS caused by alternative comparison between the two ethnographies: May- immoral sexual behaviors) and counter the forces that blin’s ethnography shows that the articulations of gender am- threaten society, they are prone to becoming the performers bivalence seem to be also an everyday matter (and not solely of these immoral acts themselves if they are deceived by the a matter for “the charismatic space”). I suggest that this might lying spirits. be understood as a result of the difference between Cathol- icism and Pentecostalism. If Pentecostalism is structured on Conclusions: Egalitarianism, Denied a denied difference (including gender difference), Catholicism Difference, and Gender is not equally so. Catholicism, with its clearly established and outspoken hierarchy, does not deny difference in the same As this ethnography shows, gender is fundamental for the way. When difference is articulated, it can also be contested articulation of difference in Christianity generally and in Pen- (and articulated as “gender bending” in everyday contexts), tecostalism in particular. This difference is, however, in the and not only within the charismatic space. It is interesting, case of Pentecostalism, problematic. It is not a difference that however, that both in Pentecostalism and in Catholicism, al- can easily be identified or articulated. The ethnography shows, though to clearly different degrees, contestations of gender however, that in the charismatic space, the ambivalence be- difference through gender ambivalence are essential. tween the outspoken egalitarian ethos and an underlying gen- In Pentecostalism, however, it is the charismatic space that dered difference is opened up. In the charismatic space the opens for these contestations. The anthropology of Pente- paradoxes of the egalitarian structure of Pentecostalism are costal Christianity is rich in ethnographic descriptions of the displayed and even contested. It is here that the denied dif- gendered qualities of religious imaginaries that show these ference can be articulated. As I have shown for the case of kinds of contestations. These have, however, not always been Vanuatu, an understanding of the logic of this denied differ- unpacked in these terms. Badstuebner’s (2003) vivid descrip- ence requires an understanding of gendered values. Returning tions of witchcraft confessions in a Pentecostal South African to Sarah, I think her story shows us the need to look beyond church, for instance, thoroughly reveal the way in which the modified masculinities and women’s access to leadership po- feminine is played out in South African Christianity. Here, a sitions. An analysis that looks at the way men reform their group of women traveling with a pastor on a revival tour masculinities in the conversion process might reveal processes admit to having been witches, drinking blood, transforming in which drinking habits and aggressive sexual behavior are themselves into bloodsucking snakes, and attracting men by modified and negotiated in church, but it might not reveal taking on the appearance of beautiful white women. In the the fundamental structures preventing women from becom- rich ethnography provided by Badstuebner, the contrast be- ing not only socially but also morally equal to men within tween dangerous female sexuality, blood references and occult an egalitarian religious ethos (as Pentecostalism in Port Vila). forces, and the need to transform oneself into a new person The case outlined here shows how feminine values are en- ridding oneself of these female and dark sides—becoming compassed by masculine values. In the charismatic space this “born again”—is evident. On the one hand, these women becomes apparent. However, I think it is vital to point out portray femininity as dangerous, but on the other hand, as that Sarah did not succeed in transforming herself from im- Badstuebner points out, these women also reveal the power moral to moral, from outcast to “holy.” Although the char- of the feminine, reversing the logic of a perpetrating sexuality. ismatic space gave her a language for the articulation of a Instead of the statistically common phenomena of men raping fundamental sexual difference, it did not bring about any women, these occult scenarios display women raping and change. Sarah could not be accepted back into the congre- assaulting men. Again, it is within the space of the charismatic gation. that the Christian gendered order is expressed and challenged. Similarly, the gendered logic of Gogodala women’s pos- session by the Holy Spirit in Papua New Guinea, described Acknowledgments by Dundon (2007), reveals an interestingly similar ambiva- lence. The female prophets or warrior women, who seem to This paper is based on research done for the project “Gender work collectively in healing and praying activities (like the and Pentecostalism: A Comparison between Africa and Mel- prophetesses in the Bible Church in Port Vila), are able to anesia” at the University of Bergen and funded by the Nor- channel the Holy Spirit and heal sickness, but they are also wegian Research Council. I want to thank Joel Robbins for open to “lying spirits” that, instead of turning them into inviting me to take part in the symposium “The Anthropology efficient healers, make them “turn their attention toward of Christianity: Unity, Diversity, New Directions” in 2013 and themselves” (Dundon 2007:38). The lying spirits turn women the Wenner-Gren Foundation for organizing a wonderful into socially irresponsible persons who are sexually provoc- week of intellectual discussion. I also want to thank Naomi S270 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

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People Like Us Intimacy, Distance, and the Gender of Saints

by Maya Mayblin

In Catholicism, the work of attributing gender to God, saints, and even humans who carry out sacred forms of labor is complex and unstable. The more intensely divine a sacred being is, the harder it is to gender them in any fixed, dyadic sense. Gendering the divine is part of a deeply held Catholic proclivity to familiarize the Godhead. Attributing gender to God or saints is inherently possible and indeed necessary, but it is also always open to contestation. In this paper I explore how gender ambiguity both indexes and resolves a double imperative in Catholic practice: to identify with and promote a sense of contiguity between human and divine forms and to maintain a sense of distance and unknowability between worldly and otherworldly forms.

One of the things I find intriguing about Christianity is the divine is so accepted among Christians and even anthropol- idea that God, in the form of anthropos, touched base in the ogists that it barely seems to merit comment, the gender of world at a specific point and place in time. The curiosity that the divine provokes frequent debate. is the Incarnation, and the subsequent anthropocentricity of It is interesting to note that the “anthropology of Chris- Christianity, has remained largely unremarked on within the tianity” itself has unwittingly reflected something of the mat- new anthropology of Christianity (Robbins 2003). The Old ter in its own range of responses to the question of gender. Testament assertion that the first humans were made in God’s In recent studies that have been emerging on this issue, two image and the New Testament assertion that God chose to distinct approaches to gender can be noted that for the sake incarnate Himself as a man named Jesus are widely accepted, of argument I here gloss as “sociological” and “symbolic.” In indeed central tenets across a wide variety of Christian de- studies of Protestant contexts, gender has received attention nominations. Even while other religious traditions display primarily as a sociological phenomenon; that is, gender has varying degrees of anthropocentricity, it could be said that been shown to structure styles of worship and the relation- Christianity is somewhat peculiar in the extent to which it ships that exist among and within congregants and leaders of champions human form, human-divine likeness, and thus— churches, but it has been less relevant for understanding the to stretch the analogy—how likeable (agreeable) divine figures nature of the divine realm itself (Brusco 2010; Eriksen 2008, are to humans.1 While the emphasis on the Incarnation and 2012; Mariz and Machado 2004; Maxwell 1998; Van Kinken its ultimate significance for Christians doubtless varies ac- 2012). cording to tradition, it is nevertheless true that for a large Although the sociology of gender in Catholic communities number of people who would call themselves Christians, hu- has also been described (Christian 1972; Drogus 1997; Flinn man corporeality in a generic arms, legs, and torso sense is 2010; Martin 2009; Mayblin 2010), scholars of Catholicism not incommensurable with a concept of God. Or at the very have been more ready to examine the gendered nature of least it is not beyond the bounds of conception that if one divinity itself (Børreson 2010, 2001; Bynum 1982; Daly 1973; could visualize It, Him, or Her, God would look like you or Hammington 1995; Hebblethwaite 1993; Ruether 1993). I me.2 suggest this has something to do with the fact that for Cath- What has been more problematic is defining God’s hu- olics, gender constitutes a more self-consciously elaborated manity in terms of gender. The gender of the Godhead has modality for thinking about sanctity. Within Catholicism, been theologically and anthropologically far more uncertain sanctity is not the exclusive property of an intangible God or and at times controversial. Herein lies a peculiar inconsis- tency: while the generic anthropocentricity of the Christian 1. The question of a “likeable” God receives interesting treatment in Luhrmann’s (2012) monograph on North American Vineyard Protes- tants. In Catholicism, God’s character changed a good deal with post- Maya Mayblin is Lecturer in Social Anthropology in the School conciliar theology. Whereas previously God was more likely to be imag- of Social and Political Science of the University of Edinburgh ined as a distant and punishing figure, today he is likely to be defined (15a George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD, United Kingdom as infinite agape—a forgiving, loving father/mother type (Mayblin 2012). [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, 2. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He accepted 17 VII 14, and electronically published 13 XI 14. created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0012$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678265 S272 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 formless Holy Spirit; it is a constituent part of an entire ma- A Catholic Imperative for Likeness terial panoply that includes relics, priestly , ritual paraphernalia, the architecture of an ecclesiastical system, and The appeal of the ordinary but saintly person is deeply em- by no means least, the gendered bodies of clergy and saints. bedded in the rural Catholic culture of the Brazilian Northeast Unlike Protestant traditions that have tended to approach (Mayblin 2012, 2013a, 2013b).3 In priestly sermons and dur- such issues in terms of mutually exclusive categories, Catholic ing conversations about saints, the emphasis is invariably on theology has tended to focus on continua and continuities. the quotidian aspects of saintly lives. For example, it is com- As David Tracy (1998) argues, whereas “the Protestant Imag- monly emphasized that St. Joseph worked as a carpenter, or ination” is “dialectic,” the “Catholic Imagination,” in viewing that Mary and Joseph were “simple people” (povo simples) God’s body as coextensive with the natural world, can be seen akin to any rural fieldworker. When asked about particular as “analogical.” This difference perhaps goes some way to saints, devotees tend to draw attention to the ways in which explaining why gender difference has less symbolic potential they suffered (Mayblin 2010). A saint’s skin will have burnt within the Protestant tradition, where its meanings remain under the same hot sun; their feet will have blistered walking relatively fixed. the same rough ground; the saint will have bled when speared, What follows is an exploration of how gender intersects felt hunger, endured . While it is implicitly understood that the saint is deserving of respect precisely because they with understandings of divinity and sacredness in Catholic are not like us—that is, they lived and died to an impossibly thought and practice on multiple levels encompassing both higher standard—overtly, what prevails is a powerful hu- “popular” and “orthodox” traditions. By drawing intention- manistic logic grounded in a principle of shared corporeality ally from a kaleidoscope of sources (some ethnographic, some open to suffering. Good people suffer, saints suffer, therefore theological, others historical), I aim to show how across the saints are “people like us.”4 Speaking to Lourdinha about Saint particularities of what we might call different “registers” of Rita of Cassia, for example, known locally as “the married Catholicism, a particular problematic recurs: overidentifica- saint,” she said, tion with the divine through intimate identification with the She was a woman, just an ordinary woman like any other bodies of saints. Understanding this enigma of intimacy— before she became a saint. I like to keep her here next to why intimacy with sacred figures is productive, but not in Our Lady of Sorrows. She was married and had two sons, excess—sheds useful light on why gender is sometimes in- so she was a mother and a wife, but her husband was a trinsic to divine categories and at other times not or, as I drunkard and a gambler. And so were her sons. I think this argue here, why gender is so gymnastic in Catholic constel- is why she understands the suffering of women so well. On lations of practice and thought. I use the term “gymnastic” her feast day there are always lots and lots of women! (M. deliberately to invoke the image of a gymnast swinging sud- Mayblin, field notes, October 2001) denly into movement from stillness, involuting themselves on the parallel bars. The image seems to capture well the process Among the Catholics I knew, Santa Rita seemed more than most to embody the saint-as-ordinary-person complex for by which sacred bodies can suddenly invert their meanings the fact that she had been married before becoming a nun by vacillating dramatically along a continuum from gendered and eventually a saint.5 As Lourdinha confirmed, popular in the male/female dyadic sense at one end and vaguely an- drogynous somewhere in between to genderless at the other 3. Fieldwork was carried out in the rural hinterlands of Pernambuco, extreme. I see the potential for gymnastics here as a type of Northeast Brazil. affordance that responds to a wider problematic within Ca- 4. The ethnographic record is filled with the idiosyncratic stories that tholicism: human overidentification with the divine. connect communities and individuals to specific patron saints. In some accounts the saint is so human that it is celebrated not only for miracles The article will proceed in three main parts. The first of and protections but also for worldly misdemeanors. In Stephen Gude- these will describe processes that foster intimacy with saints, man’s account of saints’ day feasts in rural Panama, Saint John is said using the example of kinship. The second will address the to be a “drinking saint,” which justifies, to some extent, the intensity of the celebrations held on June 24. June 25 is also sacred, but it is primarily perceived dangers of excessive intimacy as expressed, in par- kept for sobering up: “it is suggested that Saint John woke up on the ticular, through themes of common corporeality. In the final 25th, after his drinking bout, unable to remember what happened” (Gu- section I show how gender, when refracted through Catholic deman 1976:717). Another interesting example is found in the Sicilian values of sexual and reproductive abstinence, constitutes a legend La Sciarra de San Giuseppe cu lu Patreternu (The quarrel of St. Joseph with God), in which Saint Joseph becomes angry with God because particular modality for manipulating this wider problematic. he refuses to allow one of his devotees into paradise. In the story, Joseph What I summarily call “gender gymnastics” is relevant not demands that God pay the Virgin Mary’s “dowry” and threatens to leave only for a finer understanding of the dynamics that permeate paradise with her and his son, Jesus (Amitrano-Savarese 1995). Catholic forms of worship but also for comprehending cur- 5. According to hagiographic accounts, the Italian St. Rita of Cassia (1381–1457, canonized 1900), was married aged 12. After her husband rents of controversy over mandatory priestly celibacy and was killed in a barroom brawl, she applied to join the Augustinians at women’s . the convent of St. Maria Magdalena in Cascia but was refused twice for Mayblin People Like Us S273 identification with Santa Rita has tended to lean heavily on Indeed, why should it matter so much? It matters, I argue the gendered aspects of her person (as a wife and a mother). here, because corporeal identification with the divine matters. Curious about the extent to which such gendered identifi- While images of saints being physically tortured need to cations could occur, on my last field trip in 2012 I asked be understood as culturally and historically particular kinds several women whether or not they thought the Virgin Mary of objects, one might note that they are also inherently af- had menstruated. At first bemused, respondents had to stop fective kinds of objects. Affect in the viewer is produced by and think about this one. Remarkably, it was generally sup- an intrinsically human capacity to empathize with another posed that, yes, she probably would have, because even though person’s pain. Imagining is heightened all the more by the she was a saint, she was also a woman like any other. As one cognitive deduction that similar-looking bodies will experi- middle-aged mother replied: “for me she would have, cer- ence pain in similar ways. Empathy is fundamental for Cath- tainly! And she would have felt pain in childbirth also because olic forms of visual piety that work through principles of in the Bible it says that she called for a midwife. Well, how mimesis and analogy. Such principles reached new heights would she have known the baby was about to come without particularly during the Counter-Reformation, when religious labor pains?” artists took pious hyperrealism to new extremes, producing It is worth noting that among the laity, detailed historical spectacular polychrome wooden sculptures featuring real hu- knowledge about a saint’s life and particular spiritual achieve- man hair, glassy eyes, and ivory teeth (Bray 2009). The logic ments is not necessary for “connecting with” him/her and behind this extraordinary craftsmanship was to provoke pow- requesting intercession. Even knowing next to nothing about erful constellations of emotions in onlookers, emotions of a saint, one can safely assume that he or she once shared your sorrow and awe but also of empathy based on a sense of corporeal experience of the world. To be sure, common cor- shared humanity with divine figures. Such emotions would poreality may not be the only reason for Catholics to connect become the engine of a renewed faith. with saints, but for many, the possibilities for identification It is notable that in many contemporary Catholic traditions, are exponentially enriched working outward from the intui- theological and devotional praxis remains largely (though not tion that such divine figures menstruated, bled, wept, drank, exclusively) cataphatic in nature: faith is personalized, and devotions are driven by passionate identification with or fas- ate, and felt pain. In short, if saints’ corporeal experiences in cination for divine figures.6 Devotees engage intimately with the world receive so much emphasis in Catholic religious the divine because they are able to assimilate attributes of discourse, it may well be because corporeality is all they have sacred bodies. This process of passionate assimilation makes in common with the rest of humanity—in every other sense intimacy with the divine possible. Intimacy is experienced saints belong to the supramundane, so they are exceptional when devotees begin to enjoy regular “conversations” with to the rest of humanity. particular saints and to strike prayerful pacts (promessas) with The anthropocentricity of Christianity is, of course, hardly them in return for supernatural intercession. Here I focus on news. The Catholic universe has always been peopled with certain kinship practices that facilitate such intimate rela- anthropomorphically recognizable figures, with creatures tionships. shaped very much “like us.” The flesh-and-blood body has In Brazil, godparents (padrinhos) play an important role in long been a central motif in hagiographic depictions of torture kinship relations. Given that there are various different types and martyrdom and in religious art centered on the Passion. of godparent a person can have, people may collect quite a A full exploration of this poetics of identity via what David number over the course of a lifetime. Some godparents are Morgan (1998) calls “the visual formation and practice of acquired through formal rites of baptism, confirmation, and religious belief” (1) is beyond the scope of this paper; suffice marriage, while others are produced more informally—either it here to highlight the fact that throughout Catholicism’s during St. John celebrations in June or via exchanges of history, human-divine corporeal likeness has been largely re- friendship or relations of patronage. In less formal contexts, inforced through graphic representations of the bodies of Je- godparent status can be improvised simply by repeatedly ad- sus and the saints. Disputes over the accuracy of physical dressing someone as “my godfather” (meu padrinho). A sim- details in such representations points back to the need for ilar thing occurs in the case of devotion to saints, where sacred identity. Take, for example, debates about race and exceptional feelings of closeness to particular saints are skin color provoked by the proliferation of statues of “black “Christened” by choices in terms of address or language. For Madonnas” in the Americas (Burdick 1998; Moss and Cap- example, it is generally known throughout Northeast Brazil pannari 1982). Were such images black from age and decay that the folk saint, Padre Cicero, is every devoted pilgrim’s or black because the saint in question actually had black skin? 6. E.g., see Fenella Cannell’s (1999) discussion of the cult of the dead not being a virgin. She was eventually admitted in 1413 and became Christ in the Christian Philippines, which she argues is constructed as known for her austere devotions and for a suppurating wound on her and emotionally identified with a Bicolano wake and funeral. Also, see forehead. Her body is reported to have remained uncorrupted to the John Ingham’s (1986) discussion of kinship and folk identification with present day (Delaney 1980). Catholic saints in central Mexico. S274 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

“godfather.” Significantly, Padre Cicero is neither “the god- made perfect mediators and intercessors because, as Seu Jose´, father” nor “a godfather”; he is always “my godfather” (meu a local mill owner, once put it to me in the course of ex- padrinho) to each and every person who venerates him. plaining why he rarely attended mass but maintained an active Whereas ordinary Catholic priests are always addressed as devotion to various saints, “The saint is closer to us, he un- padre, and fathers (in the social/biological context) are ad- derstands us!” (O Santo esta´ mais perto da gente, ele nos dressed by the more common term pai, Padre Cicero is dis- entende! M. Mayblin, field notes, September 2002).8 Issues tinguished from both these categories in this significant, in- arise, however, when people become overly familiar with sa- timate way. By always using the personal and possessive cred mediators. Such is the paradox of divine intimacy. It is pronoun “my,” devotees claim intimacy with a saint who is this paradox writ large that explains why gender must some- venerated by millions and is ostensibly a padre to everyone. times disappear from view. Before discussing some of the In some cases parents may choose dead canonized saints mechanics by which this “disappearing” might occur, how- to act in a more formal capacity as godparents for their chil- ever, I explore the paradox of divine intimacy itself using a dren. Santa Rita was godmother to Lourdinha’s youngest combination of ethnographic examples from my own research brother, born in the early 1960s. Lourdinha’s mother, the late and theological debates on the Virgin Birth. Maria de Alves, had been an extremely religious woman, a In the small interior city of Juazeiro do Norte in the state composer of hymns and poetry, and a great devotee of Santa of Ceara´, there is a gigantic statue of the popular folk saint Rita. According to Lourdinha, the day of her brother’s bap- Padre Cicero. Pilgrims flock to it all year round, but during tism, the woman meant to become his godmother failed, for the commemorative week in November, the city throngs with some reason, to turn up at the church. Lourdinha’s mother, devotees from all over the country, and people line up for determined that the baptism go ahead all the same, named hours to ascend the steps that lead to the statue. Having Santa Rita de Cassia as the infant’s godmother, and this was ascended these steps, one can walk around the base of the the name that was put on the baptismal certificate. Another statue and, most importantly, touch it or write a personal case involved an elderly woman called Conceica˜o.Likemany request to the saint onto it in pen. Elderly and infirm people Catholic women, Conceica˜o had a certain devotion to the can find it difficult to endure the heat and jostling crowds as saint she was named after (Our Lady of Conception), but her they wait to ascend the stairs. In such cases it is possible to affinity with this saint also derived from the fact that she was avoid the wait by writing your petition onto the large concrete a certified baptismal godmother. It was recounted that in the plinth that the statue stands on. But people say that doing middle of a difficult labor, Conceica˜o’s mother had made a this is not as effective as writing it farther up. One’s request promise to the Virgin that in exchange for a safe delivery, she is more likely to be answered by the saint the higher on the would make her the baby’s godmother. At the official cere- statue it gets inscribed. Ideally, then, one would ascend to the mony of baptism Conceica˜o acquired three godparents: one very top to write out the request on Padre Cicero’s gigantic male and two female, including Our Lady of Conception.7 stone head. But as the teenage boy behind me in the queue Taking a saint for a godparent and, by implication, turning pointed out, this is impossible, and even were it possible it a saint into your compadre (co-godparent) creates intimacy would be disrespectful. Padre Cicero would hardly be likely and indexicality between this world and the next world, be- to grant any request made in this fashion, mused the boy. A tween human beings and godlike beings. In the cases I have hierarchy of efficacy is therefore restrained to the lower, more presented here, gender facilitates intimacy. When saints be- accessible parts of the statue. This manoeuvring oneself up- come kin, they become either godfathers or godmothers.In ward or downward into an optimal position for communing short, it is gender that allows a saint to be slotted into net- with the divine provides a graphic instantiation of a gener- works of kinship that in turn link him or her to living in- alized problem: how does one ascertain the optimum balance dividuals in powerful ways. between intimate proximity and productive distance? In Brazil one often hears the phrase Santo de casa na˜o faz milagre (saints of the house don’t work miracles). “Saints of Saints of the House Do Not Work Miracles the house” are simply saints with a particular relationship to a household or family. Sometimes the family keeps a shrine Among the Catholics I knew, God was the most important at home to that saint, or a statuette of it stands proudly on figure, but He was also somewhat difficult to access. Saints the shelf in a prominent place, such as in the living room or 7. In Northeast Brazil godparenthood is a sacred institution that serves at the front . The proverb itself, however, is somewhat many purposes (Lanna 2004). Officially, a godparent is someone who ambiguous. Depending on the context in which it is used, it can actively and materially guide a child in the ways of the faith as well can imply either that a certain level of social distance or as someone capable of taking over the care of a child in the event it formality is required for something to become effective, or becomes orphaned. It therefore makes sense that those chosen for the alternatively that the qualities of someone or something are task are, initially, alive. Nevertheless, it is significant that when exceptional circumstances prevail, dead saints can theoretically be accommodated in such a role. Moreover, there is nothing in the code of canon law that 8. For interesting discussions of Catholic saints as mediators, see would explicitly rule it out. Calavia-Saez (2009) and Turner and Turner (1978). Mayblin People Like Us S275 underappreciated by those closest to them. Thus a person eat it because he did not need to. He lived off the host. And might complain that it is impossible to offer advice to a spouse he would hide that food he was offered, and if he was found because, after so many years of intimacy, couples simply do out, he would swear people not to reveal this secret of his. not listen to one another in the same attentive way. Explaining (M. Mayblin, field notes, October, 2002) this fact, the person might add, “you know how it is, saints Whatever the actual facts of Frei Damia˜o’s eating habits of the house don’t perform miracles.” The nearest equivalents might have been, it was clear that Tatu’s words had some in English would be “familiarity breeds contempt” or the purpose. What he sought to describe was the very opposite biblical phrase “a prophet hath no honor in his own country.”9 of an ethic of kinship through commensality. In the rural It is interesting that in Catholic Brazil it is the house saint Brazilian context, refusing to consume the food provided for that most embodies this enigma. Why, we might ask, have you is antisocial in the extreme, but in this instance the motif house saints at all if everyone knows that they cannot perform served to distance the saint from the ordinary rules of sociality. miracles? The question could be rephrased in another way: Frei Damia˜o, I was being reminded, although he snored, why cultivate intimacy with particular saints if by doing so laughed, and was present at the table, was not “like us” after you stop them from working for you? all, for he had no need of the actual calories or the many This problem of overfamiliarity is manifest in relation to reciprocal relations that stemmed from commensality and the a popular “folk saint” called Frei Damia˜o. Frei Damia˜o (1898– sharing of food. It was as though Tatu sought to counter 1997) was born in Bozzano, Italy, but lived most of his life Dada’s overly familiar talk by reintroducing some distance in Northeast Brazil as a Capuchin missionary, where he is and mystery into the narrative. His comments defamiliarized widely believed to have performed healings and divinations. Frei Damia˜o’s body and drew attention to the ultimate un- During his lifetime he traversed the hinterlands and won large knowability of the divine. numbers of devotees in the region where I worked. Many among the older generation had touched him, seen him, or at one time been blessed or confessed by him. Frei Damia˜o The Hymen and the Sepulchre was frequently fed and sheltered by the laity such that talk of the miracles he had performed were often mixed with rec- I want to stress that the problem of overfamiliarity is not ollections about the ordinary aspects of his character, like the simply an issue for “folk Catholicism”; it permeates the re- fact that he snored loudly or was fond of stewed pumpkin. ligion at the highest institutional levels. An interesting ex- Not everyone classified him as a saint, however. Some of the ample concerns the theology of the Virgin Mary’s hymen. By more progressive religious remembered him as sexist and dis- the fourth century, the concept of the female body having a agreeable—one ex-nun referred to him simply as “that an- natural seal or hymen had become central to Christian beliefs noying old man” (aquele chato)—but among the laity Frei about the birth of Jesus and the status of Mary. Physical Damia˜o was popularly venerated as a holy man. virginity was intrinsic to the Marian cult from its official On one occasion I discussed Frei Damia˜o with Dada and beginnings in Byzantium, but its precise details —in partic- Tatu, an elderly couple of fieldworkers. Dada, like others I ular, whether physical intactness could have been maintained had spoken to about Frei Damia˜o, remembered him as es- even in partu—produced confusion and debate. pecially “ugly” (feio). Short, contorted, and hunchbacked, Frei The confusion over virginity in motherhood arises from Damia˜o is often described by devotees as feio, but not in an the fact that Mary, although sacred and a virgin, is nevertheless offensive way. Uttered in a spirit of admiration his ugliness anatomically “normal” and supposedly gave birth in the nor- comes to stand as a divine mark, an index of his holiness that mal, vaginal way. This suggests her birth canal would have places him apart. Dada recalled a meal Frei Damia˜o had taken stretched in labor to allow the baby Jesus passage, and that at her patron’s house. She remembered him sitting hunched in this moment her intact hymen would have ripped in order at the table, laughing and cracking jokes. The young Dada to let the baby out. Perhaps God seals it immediately after- had served him a plate of rice and beans. Clearing up after- ward, but even so, it still means that for one essential moment ward she remembered her patroness (patroa) eating up Frei in time Mary is not virgin. In a story from the Apocryphal Damia˜o’s leftovers, hoping to ingest some of his grace. Tatu Gospels, for example, the midwife Salome, who does not be- had been quietly listening, and when Dada left the veranda lieve in Mary’s virginity, examines her manually to ascertain for a few moments, he said to me, whether the hymen is intact. For this incredulity, God pun- One thing I must tell you is that not all you hear about ishes Salome with a withered hand. The spectre of this possible him eating this and that is true. Not everyone knows it, but sequence of events must have bothered the early church fa- one of the strange things about that man was that he did thers, because debates about virginitas in partu recur in the not eat. I have heard it said that mostly he only pretended period in which the division between heresy and orthodoxy to eat the food that was given him. In truth he wouldn’t was first defined (Plumpe 1948). Tertullian, in opposing the arguments of the Docetists (who 9. Luke 4:24: “I tell you the truth” he continued, “no prophet is believed in a fantastic divine phantom Christ), stated of Mary, accepted in his home town.” Virgo quantum a viro; non virgo quantum a partu (virgin in S276 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 respect to the man, nonvirgin in respect to delivery).10 By this by magic: “as the rays of the sun penetrate the substance of forceful statement Tertullian meant to quell, once and for all, glass without breaking or injuring in the least: so, but in a the Docetists’ heretical claims that Jesus was not a man.11 In more comprehensible manner, did Jesus Christ come forth doing so, notes Plumpe (1948), “an exaggerated realism [is] from his mother’s womb without injury to her maternal vir- put forth on behalf of the real Christ” (569), and Mary’s ginity” (10). virginity is sacrificed. The problem here, as St. Augustine Such seemingly small and indecorous details, as Calkins (1947) clearly saw it, was that if virginity was destroyed in implies, have to be dealt with because their epistemological the process of birth, then Jesus could not have been born of implications are profound. In the case of the virgin hymen, a virgin: “And if only in His birth her virginity had been the possibility of even a momentary rupture in childbirth is destroyed, from that moment He would not have been born enough to upset the delicate balance between warmly iden- of a virgin, and the whole Church would proclaim falsely, tifying with Mary because she is “like us” and venerating her which God forbid, that He was born of the Virgin Mary” (42). from a respectful position of ultimate unknowability because, In fact the issue of the hymen continues to attract debate, despite her deceptively human form, she is not ontologically even among contemporary Mariologists, and it does so despite the same sort of (gendered) being “like us” after all. the Catholic aesthetic and moral imperative that “One should A comparable controversy is reported to have arisen over be reverently silent on the subject of the Virgin Birth . . . and depictions of Jesus’s genitalia in Renaissance art. According never venture into physiological territory. . . . Attempts to to Leo Steinberg (1996), Christ’s sexuality was an essential explain it end by explaining it away” (Angelo Geiger, cited in component of orthodox incarnational theology. Imagery of Calkins 2004:10). his genitalia grew out of the dominant impulse of the period The debate was most recently revisited in print following to render the “utter carnality” and humanation of God. But a controversial article by Catherine Tkacz (2002) titled “Re- censors of the Counter-Reformation, wishing to reduce the productive Science and the Incarnation,” in which she dis- humanist conception of the Incarnation, decried such depic- cusses a number of correlations between the discoveries of tions on the basis that they might stoke latent types of ho- reproductive science and the Church’s belief in the mystery moeroticism in devotional practices (Mills 2002). of the Incarnation. The controversy stems from Tkacz’s in- Thus, as Peter Brown (1982) has argued, the ambiguity of sinuation that rupture to the hymen must have happened, the Christian message could never be entirely eliminated. The even though “rupture or absence [of the hymen] is not evi- point is well taken among historians of Christianity. In a study dence of loss of virginity” (n. 78). It also stems from her of in Late Antiquity, Jas´ Elsner argues choice of words in the following paragraph: “He [Christ] chose to traverse the birth canal. . . . He passed through her that Christian sainthood functioned as a means not only of cervix. Its strength had kept him securely in the uterus airing the uncertainties of hegemonic culture issues but also throughout gestation and now it widened to deliver him to of negotiating with existing literary and communicative struc- wider life. He passed through her vagina, the organ with which tures how best to play out and deny those uncertainties. For every wife knows her husband. Jesus emerged through the Elsner (2009), Christian apologetics is a field that reveals the labia, the vulva” (Tkacz 2002:21). “underbelly of its uncertainties about the absolute exclusivity Tkacz never actually denies the doctrine of virginitas in of its Truth and its lingering fascination with that Other partu, but the imagistic language she deploys is too real, too against which it was once constructed” (682). One might trace intimate, and perhaps too gendering. It transgresses the limits Catholicism’s uncertain underbelly back to the Council of of “ultimate unknowability” where divinity is concerned. Chalcedon in 451, wherein the dual nature of Christ was Tkacz’s article causes other (male) Mariologists to intervene, decided and declared irrefutable. With this event, the “both all the while professing reluctance, embarrassment, and a God and man” option took root and allowed for an ambig- sense of religious duty: “While a certain sense of delicacy, uous imperative for familiarity and unknowability to come inspired by the 1960 Monitum of the Holy Office of 1960, into play. makes me hesitate a moment before taking issue with this In Catholicism, then, we see that saints constitute (almost statement [on the intactness of the hymen], it needs to be everywhere and in every period) mediators but also weak dealt with” (Calkins 2004:9). nodes in networks of divine presence. Their weakness (in Calkins (2004) goes on to marshal various ancient texts in defending the mystery of the virginitas in partu. He concludes, other ways their strength) stems in large part from their an- paraphrasing from the Catechism of the Council of Trent, atomical similarity to us. The differences, likenesses, and odd- that Jesus must have passed through the hymen as though ities of sacred bodies allow for the endless return of “the other possible visions of Christianity that have always existed in relationship to the dominant paradigm” (Cannell 2006:42). 10. De carne Christi, 23 (II, 461 Oehler), cited in Plumpe (1948). 11. The Docetists taught that Christ was a divine phantom and had As with Mary’s hymen or Jesus’s penis, so with Frei Damia˜o’s no human body. appetite: common anatomy can be almost too intimate. Mayblin People Like Us S277

Sexual Abstinence and Gender Ambiguity identity, it works to differentiate it from gender as lived and performed by the laity. For example, although a nun is female, The controversy surrounding Mary’s hymen (and Jesus’s pe- she will never be classed as feminine in the same way as a nis) suggest that gender and its attendant erotic/sexual as- heterosexual laywoman. Similarly although a priest is male, sociations constitute a powerful instrument for knowing the he is not considered to be the same intensity of male as a divine. Gender in the fixed dyadic sense is both what grounds married, heterosexual layman.13 In rural Northeast Brazil, as the saint to the world one knows and that which allows one elsewhere, a layman who never marries can perhaps never to know them. But the divisive, sticky associations of gender perform his masculinity to quite the same degree as one who do not always sit easily with Catholic constructions of the does. divine as pure, undifferentiated wholeness. In what follows I And yet in Catholicism, a whiff of asexuality often accom- want to explore how distance in the sense of unknowability panies any movement toward sanctity. Ethnographically it has and thus unfamiliarity is maintained not through an event or been shown that in many traditionally Catholic cultures, cel- ritual but through the dissolution of gender in combination ibacy of a sort (or a social distancing from the possibility of with sexual procreation.12 physical procreation) applies to an important stratum of lay Although in common Brazilian parlance, God is linguis- devotional and theological virtuosi or mediators: devout older tically referred to in the masculine form, often as “Father” churchgoing women (sometimes men), faith healers, and (Pai), certain clerics and lay people are wont to describe God spirit mediums. In rural Northeast Brazil, powerful faith heal- as a loving mother (Mae; Mayblin 2012). It is not at all clear, ers and the most spiritually elevated members of the com- however, that when the terms “Father” and “Mother” are used munity who undertake most of the day-to-day spiritual labor in this context that the primary purpose is to assign to God are almost always childless or older married individuals whose qualities of an intrinsically gendered nature. Whenever I asked childbearing years are well behind them. The devotional work Santa Lucians directly, In your opinion is God a man or a of attending mass regularly, holding novenas, leading the woman? (Deus e´homen ou mulher?), the response tended to prayers at wakes, performing the cult of the dead souls in be a look of perplexed consternation. Rephrasing the question purgatory, praying the rosary, tending to shrines and graves, in various ways did not help very much. “God is neither of and so forth, rests for each household in the hands of an those” or “God is both of/more than that” would often be individual virtuoso who in local terms is recognized with the the eventual reply. It is interesting to note, therefore, that title sofredor (great sufferer; Mayblin 2010). The virtuoso is although people were happy to speak about the gender of frequently—although by no means always—a postmenopau- various saints, when asked directly about God, no Catholic I sal female. The role may pass on to older men when their spoke to was willing to assign a particular gender to God. wives die, and when it does it often happens that the man If, as Judith Butler (1990) has argued, sexuality is one of has started to distance himself from the more definitively the primary means through which gender is performed, we masculinized world of barrooms and business deals (so in a can read the emphasis on asexuality, as one climbs the sacred sense he is postmenopausal too). In a practical sense increased hierarchy, as a dilution of gendered identities. The Roman Church activity tends to coincide with a phase in the life Catholic Church mandates that clergy sacrifice their repro- course where people simply have more time to devote to ductive capacities through vows of celibacy. The Catholic rule religious activities, but this does not mean that a certain sym- of celibacy serves various practical as well as theological ends. bolic value does not attach itself to the distance from the It serves to remove the religious from the economic drag business of procreation that comes with greater age. Again, caused by the unity and divisiveness of procreative kinship it is not so much that older people in these contexts lack relations, but in other ways it works to maintain a certain gender; rather, they stress their erotic neutrality through sym- separation between bodies that are sacred and bodies that are bolic action, body language, and speech (Pardo 1996:100). profane. While celibacy is not in itself a denial of gendered The ethnographic record on Catholicism in the Mediter- ranean suggests that similar patterns are to be found else- 12. Questions of mediation, distance, and proximity have been present where. In Pitt-Rivers’s People of the Sierra (1954), the in anthropological debates about religion and central to theories of sac- two most spiritually prominent lay people, or sabias (wise rifice for a long time. For Hubert and Mauss (1964 [1898]), sacrifice, via ones), of the pueblo are Juana de la Pileta and Redencion, the death of a substitute or intermediary, is quintessentially a method both married and with children but past the age of meno- for approximating the divine while maintaining a safe distance from it. Evans-Pritchard (1954) and Beattie (1980) further developed the idea by pause. The only actual challenge to their authority arrives in distinguishing between sacrifices that establish closeness with the divine the community one day in the form of “a young man of (“conjunctive”) and those that aim at separation from it (“disjunctive”). markedly effeminate manner and dress named Rafael” who, More recently, Rane Willerslev (2013) and Joel Robbins (“Keeping God’s according to Pitt-Rivers, turns out to be more of a “confidence Distance: Sacrifice, Possession and the Problem of Religious Mediation,” unpublished manuscript) have explored the manner in which sacrifice and mediation allow for “penetration and separation” or “connection 13. From an ecclesiastical point of view, a different interpretation without fusion” between gods and humans and among humans them- might hold. A community of celibate male clerics may be considered to selves. embody an accentuated type of maleness. S278 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 trickster” and does not stay in the pueblo for very long (Pitt- 1976). Craun (2005), for example, tells us of early Syrian male Rivers 1954:192).14 In William Christian’s classic study of ascetics who were rendered as the receptive and passionate Spanish Catholicism (Christian 1972), the life course plays a bridal lovers of God, while Riches (2002) describes the man- structured and guiding role in the way religious labor is carved ner in which St. George was gendered female through hagio- up. Once again, the older female “devotional virtuosi” are graphic and pictorial representations of him as a virgin. discernible predominantly by age and by their distance from We might observe, then, that while anatomically ordinary childbearing: “When her children grow older, and especially “men” and “women” structure the sacred hierarchy in certain when her husband dies . . . it is then that she may become ways, the anatomical differences of sex that connect divine one of the elderly ladies in black that are seen haunting the bodies to the mundane world (that enable sacred identity) church in every European village” (Christian 1972:160). are potentially undone in the movement toward sacred dif- For Christian, the wearing of black, although initially for ference. Rather than God being strictly male or strictly female mourning, is significant in other ways. “I see it also as a or human holiness being an intrinsically masculine or fem- statement of utter humility before God,” he writes, “a kind inine trait, Catholic conceptions of the divine emerge out of of uniform of abasement not unlike the cassock of the priest” a tension between three points: maleness, femaleness, and (Christian 1972:161). Such women, notes Christian, are rid- ungendered humanity/divinity. The ungendered here works iculed, especially by men. The asexuality of Catholic lay lead- as the negative founding gesture of the male/female opposi- ers makes them a target for jokes much as the asexuality of tion. In Levi-Straussian terms it represents the quintessential priests feeds anticlericalism in many Catholic parts of the “zero institution”—the exception that grounds the rule.15 world. The other side of sacred identity (of passion, likeness, and Asexuality and gender ambiguity tends to become accen- intimacy) is therefore ambiguity. Like the lens of a camera tuated the higher up the Catholic sacred hierarchy one pro- moving out of focus, definitions of masculinity, femininity, gresses. An interesting body of work on hagiographic litera- and their attendant erotic associations become blurred the ture and medieval religious history attests to the fact that in holier a body becomes. Nevertheless, from the ordinary hu- Christianity, the pursuit of holiness often destabilized binary man perspective, this temporary loss of focus is never irrev- conceptions of gender. As holiness cut across gender divisions, ocable. That is, a fixed sense of gender may come back into ascetics were freer than the rest of society to break from the focus again if that is what the moment calls for. It is worth norms of gendered behavior (Bynum 1982; Campbell 2008; noting some of the political consequences that accompany Riches and Salih 2002). Examples proliferate of transvestite this sliding focus. For example, emphatic foregrounding of saints, gender-bending ascetics, eunuchs, and virgins as well the fact that Jesus was male supports Catholic arguments as men who challenged conventional gender hierarchies by against female ordination to the priesthood. For those who submitting to the spiritual powers of holy women. Following support women’s ordination, on the other hand, the fact that Deleuze (2006 [1993]) on “the fold,” it might even be noted— Jesus was male is deemed to be no more significant than the at least from the modern perspective—that traditional ico- possibility that he sported a beard or was circumcised (Butler nography that renders saints in biblical robes replete with 2007). What counts was the fact that Jesus was, in the most curves and folds seems almost to intensify the ambiguous encompassing sense, a human being—masculinity and fem- nature of sacred bodies. The aesthetic produced—“neither ininity as differentiating states are herein de-emphasized. For high nor low, neither right nor left, neither regression nor those who support an exclusively male ministry, however, progression”—corresponds to what Leibniz called an “am- Jesus’s sex as a differentiating feature is strongly in focus. biguous sign” (Deleuze 2006 [1993]:15). The depth and tenacity of the ordination debate in the It would be possible to argue that the notion of gender contemporary Catholic world and its resistance to any defin- ambiguity is misleading; rather, what we see, historically, is itive resolution to date indexes the inherently unstable value that in order to gain spiritual authority, women have always of gender at the core of Catholic discourse.16 It is the capacity had to become more masculine (Eriksen 2014). However, for for Catholicism to cradle within itself this restless move- Catholicism in particular, the inverse argument is equally pos- sible if one focuses on the aesthetic femininity of Christ as 15. Following Levi-Strauss’s (1963) notion of the “zero-institution” as nurturer (Bynum 1982) or Christ as sufferer (Gudeman the hidden constant to think through the splitting into two of relative perceptions (in the case of the Winnebago, “from above” and “from below”). Levi-Strauss’s basic point is that because the two subgroups 14. Further examples of this pattern are present in the rich ethno- nonetheless form one and the same tribe (in the analogous case of gender, graphic account of life in a Catholic quarter of by Italo Pardo that tribe would be “humanity”), a third signifier must exist—one whose (1996). Among the religious virtuosi of this quarter are various cases of function is the purely negative one of signaling the presence and actuality childlessness, prostitution, and . In one instance, Maria, a of the social institution (the above/below binary). Zˇ izˇek applies the same “middle-aged” assiduous performer of the cult of souls in purgatory and logic to the postmodern view of sexual difference as “a multitude of sexes a “mystical person” has “an undeveloped uterus.” Her physical inability and sexual identities,” suggesting that it effectively alludes to the exact to procreate is seen as evidence of God’s wish to preserve her purity from opposite: an underlying all-pervasive sameness (Zˇ izˇek 2002:72). the pollution of giving birth. Thus she is treated “almost like a saint” 16. For information on this debate, see http:// (Pardo 1996:70). romancatholicwomenpriests.org/resources_links.htm. Mayblin People Like Us S279 ment—to gender or degender its models of humanity and ambiguity may suddenly be eclipsed by the foregrounding of divinity—that accounts for its resilience in the face of pressure a fixed male or female gender. For political reasons—such as for reform. According to Phyllis Zagano (2011), “there is no the Church’s need to foment the faith of the laity or men’s document that insinuates or states an ontological distinction desire to subjugate or placate women—Catholicism must al- among humans except among documents that address the low for the gendering of pious people (suffering mothers), question of ordination” (130). One of the most sophistic offices (the priesthood), or saints (the Virgin Mary) to occur. examples of this restless gymnastics is to be found in the Here my aim has been to show how Catholicism’s predi- pages of Vatican documents and theological treatises dealing lection for divine-human contiguity is complicated by the with the ordination of women to the deaconate. Here argu- enigma of sacred identity. The enigma is illustrated by the ments interweave along two convergent lines: the “iconic ar- complex relationship Catholic saints have with gender. Saints gument” (Jesus must be represented by a male because he are “people like us” but also “not like us.” Like us they die, was a male) on the one hand and the “argument from au- but unlike us their bodies do not decompose. Like us saints thority” (Jesus chose only male apostles) on the other (Zagano can be anatomically male or female, but unlike the average 2011:130). Although it is only the former argument (i.e., be- person, they remain sexually neutral and incapable of pro- cause divinity is significantly gendered) that serves definitively creation. They do not marry, do not give birth, lactate, men- to exclude females from ministry, the argument from au- struate, or ejaculate—or if they do, doubly so! Neither strictly thority has lately received the greater emphasis. Ambiguity masculine nor strictly feminine, neither too close nor too arises because the argument from authority does not contra- distant from us—this is why saints endure. dict the argument that Jesus’s own gender was superfluous to his divine power and therefore that the generic humanity of Christ may overcome the limitations of gender divisions Acknowledgments in the world. The Vatican’s collective attempts to justify the exclusion of women from ministry therefore appear restless I would like to thank all members of the Wenner-Gren sym- and unstable—or from a polemical viewpoint, logically posium on Christianity for comments on the early version of flawed. this paper. Special thanks to Magnus Course, Diego Malara, Valentina Napoletano, Kristin Norget, Minna Opus, and the Current Anthropology anonymous reviewers. 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Pilgrimage as Trope for an Anthropology of Christianity

by Simon Coleman

While studies of Pentecostalism have played an important role in forming the emergent anthropology of Christianity, research on pilgrimage has had far less of an effect on this subfield. I explore some of the reasons why by looking at the “semiotics of theory” and asking what constitutes resonant anthropological model making at a particular moment in the construction of anthropology. Having provided a critical account of past theoretical and ethnographic work on Christian pilgrimage, I suggest an alternative approach, drawing in part on fieldwork carried out at the pilgrimage shrines of Walsingham, in Norfolk, England. I suggest that my approach can provide useful perspectives not only on the anthropology of Christianity but also on aspects of our understanding of ritual and religious experience more generally.

Juxtapositions change and cultural discontinuity (Robbins 2007), a religion apparently “made to travel” (Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen 1999) in the modern world through nimble institutional and/ When thinking of my fieldwork on the English pilgrimage or ritual expressions as well as one frequently driven by site of Walsingham, in Norfolk, England, an image that often chronic attempts to purify religious practice from material comes into my mind is that of Protestant pitched—literally, entanglements (Keane 2007). Roman Catholicism, by con- ritually—against Catholic. A regular feature of the annual trast, is often placed in a narrative where its spiritual mo- National Pilgrimage of Our Lady of Walsingham is not only nopoly or hybridity is presented as promoting religious stasis a solemn procession of Anglo-Catholics through the village (Scheper Hughes 2012:7), a kind of immanence combined high street but also the presence of evangelical Protestants with immobility, forming part of a “local” context being dis- from such organizations as Ian Paisley’s Belfast-based Euro- rupted by more dynamic forces. pean Institute of Protestant Studies (Coleman 2004). Evan- These apparent differences in the treatment of two branches gelicals visit Walsingham not to praise Mary but to pour verbal of Christianity point to wider theoretical issues. The forma- scorn over what they regard as a deeply idolatrous scene and tion of a self-conscious anthropology of Christianity has one that requires purification through protest. So they form proved immensely productive but has also led anthropologists a vital part of what I describe (without pejorative intent) as into methodological and theoretical quandaries. How are we a “parasitic” ritual, involving the close articulation of two to interpret different forms of theology and their connections seemingly opposed semiotic systems where one “preys” on with wider social structures? Does our (re)discovery of Chris- the other, strategically redeploying and resignifying the latter’s tianity give it a facticity and coherence that it simply does ritualization of material forms. not possess? As scholars, we may not be parasitic on Chris- I want to juxtapose this recurrent scene at Walsingham with tianity exactly, but do we nonetheless remake the religion in a different cultural form, that of the burgeoning anthropology our own image? For instance, have we made it reflect our of Christianity. Debates among anthropologists have lacked disciplinary obsession with understanding trajectories of “mo- the accusatory qualities evident among visitors to Wal- dernity” (Bialecki, Haynes, and Robbins 2008; Cannell 2006)? singham, but Protestantism and Catholicism have nonetheless Furthermore, what are we leaving out? John Barker (2014) so far occupied very different analytical spaces in the making talks of the tendency of anthropologists to focus on person- of this new subfield. Protestantism, especially in Pentecostal hood, language, the nexus between local and global Chris- guise, has been much more readily presented as an agent of tianity, and ideologies rather more than the institutional side of Christianity. Maya Mayblin (2014), meanwhile, refers to Simon Coleman is Professor in the Department for the Study of the ways in which gender has been highlighted in analyses of Religion at the University of Toronto (Jackman Humanities Building, Catholicism and less so in relation to Protestantism. Then 170 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2M8, Canada there are the dangers of neglecting certain forms of Chris- [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, tianity such as Orthodoxy as well as the need to engage in accepted 12 VI 14, and electronically published 6 XI 14. comparisons with other religions (e.g., Hann 2007). In ad-

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0013$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677766 S282 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 dition, some of the debates over what an anthropology of Christianity should contain. However, I want to argue that a Christianity should or should not be may reflect older dis- reconsideration and reformulation of older models of pil- tinctions between American cultural and British social an- grimage might point the actually existing anthropology of thropological approaches. For instance, Chris Hann’s (2007, Christianity in some new directions. How, in other words, 2012) recommendations that we study “problems” and not might a focus on pilgrimage as practice but also as trope help religious systems involves a turn away from religious ideology us to remake some of our ethnographic and theoretical ob- as such and toward social, political, and economic bases of jects? context making while adding the recommendation that we look at the long dure´e and not just microethnography. In such debates we are juxtaposing two parallel if entangled On Pilgrimage and Pentecostalism, Part 1 sets of questions: one queries whether Christianity should be assumed to exist per se in Hann’s (2007) terms; the other It is not surprising that I should wish to juxtapose these two refers more inductively to how anthropologists are discussing subfields. They have formed the main basis of my own re- Christianity, whether we like it or not, creating certain quoting search into Christianity (e.g., Coleman 2000, 2004). Even so, circles, networks, and workshops and forming a subfield that I am struck by the fact that the dialogue between the two exists in and for itself. My concern here is with an issue that that has existed in my own mind has hardly been evident in touches on both questions in that it focuses on the consti- the anthropological literature at large. Intriguingly, they are tution—almost the semiotics—of Christianity as an object of briefly brought together in a text published on the cusp of study, moving through and in anthropology. So my focus is the era that would lead to the development of the anthro- on the remaking of Christianity in the image of a certain pology of Christianity. In the introduction to the paperback moment in anthropology but also on some of the ways in edition of her and Victor Turner’s Image and Pilgrimage in which it has not so far been remade. In other words, what Christian Culture (2011 [1978]), Edith Turner notes, “I now constitutes resonant anthropological theory and model mak- find myself interested in tracing how the revival of the Cath- ing? What forms and orientations help to determine a theory’s olic pilgrimage system paralleled the revivalist movements in passage within a given subfield? Protestantism” (xix). For her, both were moral reform move- More concretely, I refer briefly to the factors that have made ments emerging out of secularizing contexts. Both attracted Protestantism and especially Pentecostalism such a fertile the- much verbal ire, as “intelligentsia . . . began to pour scorn— oretical topic—a religion made to travel but also one that is with the intention of bringing the light of truth—on the newly good to think with and one that has been able to candle-lighting and peregrinating Catholics and on the born- traverse so many textual as well as ethnographic terrains. agains” (Turner and Turner 2011 [1978]:xix). Thus, we might consider how, in an age of multisited eth- It seems that the Turners were contending with what Susan nography, Pentecostalism has often been understood to con- Harding (1991) referred to as the problem of representing stitute a different kind of “scape” from that supposedly im- “the repugnant cultural other” with the difference that they plied by Catholic expressions of religion,1 including a were advocates for as well as analysts of the religion under translation of self-confident southern diasporas into northern study. However, such anthropological distaste has since given urban centers. We might look at how Weberian theory, born way to a greater appetite for understanding. Globalizing Pen- at a time of nation building and contestation between faiths, tecostalism has become a catalyst for a more general anthro- displays affinities with contemporary debates over crises of pology of Christianity. During the same period, pilgrimage religious and state authority. But I am more interested in has hardly retreated into obscurity and has been a striking moving away from such debates and toward an exploration success story if measured in terms of numbers and cultural 2 of another subfield that arguably might have helped to pro- profile. mote an explicit anthropology of Christianity even before the Pilgrimage—including that of Christianity—has also be- current efflorescence but never really did: the study of Chris- come more of an object of study in recent decades. As with tian (and, as it turned out, especially Catholic) pilgrimage. In Pentecostalism, interest has not only reflected the increasing other words, what happens when we compare the shape and mobility of populations in many parts of the world but has constitution of pilgrimage and Pentecostalism not only as also brought popular expressions of religion to the fore in activities but also as analytical tropes when we look at their ways generally beloved by anthropologists. And yet these two diverse pathways through ethnographic and theoretical land- burgeoning topics occupy very different analytical and phys- scapes? I ask this question not in an attempt to plug the gaps left by our recent focus on Pentecostalism. I do not claim 2. Pilgrimage centers associated with many religious traditions have that it is possible or desirable to create an all-encompassing, been booming. Older, well-established shrines in the Catholic world such substantive characterization of what the anthropology of as Lourdes in France and Santiago de Compostela in Spain have expe- rienced especially significant growth in visitors since the 1990s, and even a recently formed site such as Medjugorje in Boznia-Herzegovina, which 1. Although the phenomenon of charismatic Catholicism has been initially rose to prominence after visions of the Virgin Mary were claimed covered by, e.g., Csordas (2009) and Siekierski (2012). in 1981, now attracts over a million people a year. Coleman Pilgrimage as Trope S283 ical landscapes. Pentecostalism has made its mark as a dy- contours of such theory before suggesting an alternative path- namic urban religion, a religion of the migrant to the world way through and around it and toward a perspective on a— city or of the well-to-do inhabitant of the suburban mega- rather than the—anthropology of Christianity.5 church. Pilgrimage, on the other hand, has often been pre- Intriguingly, pilgrimage was present very early on in the sented as an escape to rural and remote landscapes or as a development of social scientific scholarship, with Robert nostalgic retreat from modernity into heritage. Certainly the Hertz’s (1983 [1913]) study of a small pilgrimage in the Italian growing anthropology of Christian pilgrimage has had little Alps to St. Besse (see also Boissevain 1999). The fieldwork effect so far on the anthropology of Christianity per se. One was minimal, and further progress was prevented by Hertz’s obvious explanation is that Pentecostalism refers specifically death in the First World War. Almost a half century later, Eric to Christianity, whereas the focus of pilgrimage is broader. Wolf’s “The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Sym- Yet as Hann (2007:406) points out, its status as a transreligious bol” (1958) examined the central part the Virgin played in category could facilitate the deployment of pilgrimage as a the lives of many Mexicans as religious affiliation and cultural means of comparing Christianity with other religious. In ad- nationalism combined in ways realized both at and beyond dition, pilgrimage possesses one evident advantage for those the shrine. But then Wolf moved on to studies of trade, power, worried about the over-Pentecostalization of the anthropol- and political economy on a global scale. ogy of Christianity; namely, that studies have focussed less on Hertz and Wolf located their studies in very different Cath- Protestants and more on Catholics, and even Orthodox be- olic contexts: the remote Alps and the big city; the old world lievers have been given some attention.3 So what is it about and the new. One thing that united them was an interest in the shape and orientation of pilgrimage studies that has ex- how the same symbol—the saint and the Virgin, respec- cluded such work from much of the debate? And more im- tively—brought together people from very different stations 4 portantly, does this exclusion matter much anyway? in life into the same space and sometimes the same time. I think that this neglect does matter, because pilgrimage as Similar questions were key to the book that became the land- both activity and analytical trope can point us in some fresh mark study in the field, the Turners’ Image and Pilgrimage in directions, toward anthropological problems that invoke re- Christian Culture (2011 [1978]). The Turners also drew the- flections on but are not encompassed by Christianity per se. oretical inspiration from early twentieth-century Franco- Pilgrimage represents only one potential part of any Christian phone theory in their adaptation of Van Gennep’s notion of life, but it may have wider resonances than we expect. I am liminality even as they consolidated their personal and in- not the first person to argue for the value of pilgrimage as tellectual move away from secular Marxism and toward so- concept. James Clifford’s Routes (1997) reflects on how cul- cially engaged Catholicism. For the Turners, as liminality was ture increasingly makes its “home” in motion in a world translated from tribal society into Western contexts, the “lim- characterized by movement through airports, markets, and inoid” implied the attainment of a voluntarily adopted, emo- migrations. Under such circumstances, pilgrimage may be of tionally charged state on occasions when structures of every- use as a comparative term because it includes a broad range day life had temporarily loosened their grip, including of Western and non-Western experiences and is less class- and carnivals, sports events, theater, music festivals, and, para- gender-based than the notion of “travel.” Zygmunt Bauman digmatically, pilgrimages. At the center of such events was an (1996) argues that new forms of nomadism are replacing old experience whose name pointed in sociological and ritual di- forms of sedentarism. For him, the modern world has given rections at the same time: “communitas,” with its hints of the metaphorical figure of the pilgrim new prominence as it community, commune, and communion. In presenting com- comes to signify a restless seeker for identity (19ff.). munitas as a form of popular charisma under threat from the For these authors the image of the pilgrim expresses a bureaucratization of the church, the Turners located it in the search for identity that defines contemporary life. Both de- same antistructural position in relation to other expressions sacralize the term in order to generalize its significance. Ar- of Catholic faith as Pentecostalism occupied in relation to guably, both also overemphasize the cross-cultural ubiquity, established forms of Protestantism. In both, the Spirit “blow- ease, and desirability of mobility while raising the possibility eth where it listeth” (see also Turner and Turner 2011 [1978]: of pilgrimage as trope without ever following up their own 32). suggestions. At the same time, I want to argue that some of The Turners put the study of pilgrimage back on the schol- the more influential models of pilgrimage as sacred journey are themselves problematic and must be heavily adapted if arly map. They created a theoretical vocabulary that could we are to realize the full potential of pilgrimage to point us readily be deployed in studying contexts away from Cathol- in different theoretical and ethnographic directions. In the icism or even religion (see Turner 2012). Theirs certainly following, then, I provide a short, critical survey of the broad became a theory fit to travel across many textual landscapes.

5. I am not claiming to cover all of the theoretical resonances raised 3. See, e.g., Bax (1995) and Kormina (2004). by recent work in pilgrimage; rather, I am exploring work that most 4. Although see Harris (2006) in Cannell’s The Anthropology of Chris- clearly helped to form debates and quoting clusters within broadly tianity. English-speaking (and to some extent French-speaking) scholarship. S284 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

What also interests me, however, are the directions that it did age is more responsive to social change and popular moods not open up or travel down and in particular how it moved than liturgical ritual, fixed by rubric” (231). Indeed, this fact away from an analysis that might have provided further useful is one reason why they chose to focus on pilgrimage. There perspectives on what we now call the anthropology of Chris- is—almost—a distant prefiguration here of the salience of tianity. We need to remember that the book is not simply continuity and discontinuity in analyses of Christian culture called Image and Pilgrimage; it locates these within what it (e.g., Robbins 2007). terms Christian Culture and therefore makes the claim to In spatial terms, the Turners are asking what kind of field characterize such culture, albeit through predominantly Cath- Christian pilgrimage actually constitutes. They note, “The ‘ex- olic ethnographic lenses. tended case-method’ has been temporarily set aside, the ‘social One of the most frequent criticisms leveled against the drama’ abandoned, in order to expound the interrelations of Turners’ book is its idealization of communitas and presen- symbols and meanings framing and motivating pilgrim be- tation of shrines as centers “out there” (Turner 1973) divorced havior in a major world religion” (Turner and Turner 2011 from mundane concerns. Erik Cohen (1992:35) has argued [1978]:xxiv). They accept that such framing may involve ac- that the idea of pilgrimage activity set apart from politics has knowledgment of complex associations between theology and a Christian tone that does not translate easily into other re- concrete behavior, the articulation or disarticulation of “dis- ligious contexts.6 The direction of Cohen’s and others’ crit- crepant norms” (Turner and Turner 2011 [1978]:xxiv), and icism reflects the very success of the concept of communitas relations among very different institutions and ideologies. in influencing so many scholars. And yet, ironically, this same Thus, “We insist, as anthropologists, that we must regard the concept has also drawn attention away from important sub- pilgrimage system . . . as comprising all the interactions and tleties of the book. For in characterizing Christian culture, transactions, formal and informal, institutionalized or im- the Turners are not merely presenting a translation of ritu- provised, sacred or profane, orthodox or eccentric, which owe alized antistructure from tribal to industrial societies, they are their existence to the pilgrimage itself” (Turner and Turner also challenging the very temporal and spatial scales of much previous ritual analysis. In a parallel to Hertz’s diachronic 2011 [1978]:22). This system includes an environment of both approach at St. Besse, they are suggesting the need for his- servicing mechanisms and antagonistic agencies. The sense of torically inflected ethnography in tracing the trajectories, con- a wider pilgrimage landscape is picked up again when the tinuities, and reversals of semiotic resources available at pil- Turners use the geographer Surinder Bhardwaj’s (1973:238– grimage sites.7 This approach meshes well with their 239) well-known analysis of Hindu shrines to consider the classification of pilgrimages in relation to significant historical catchment areas of Christian shrines as existing at scales rang- 8 periods (prototypical, medieval, and post-Tridentine) as well ing from intervillage to international levels. as their tracing of how certain sites, such as Canterbury and To some degree, the Turners explore Christian culture not Walsingham, have come in and out of favor over time (Turner only through oppositions between communitas and structure, and Turner 2011 [1978]:17). Pilgrimage becomes a frame for laity and priesthood, but also through a dialogue between several time dimensions but also a phenomenon that needs iconoclasm and iconophily, Protestantism and Catholicism. to be understood in relation to much larger histories (Turner This approach points to semiotic interests that occasionally and Turner 2011 [1978]:23). For instance, they accept that a surface, expressed clearly in the analyses of material and ideo- Protestant ethic has often been linked to capitalism, but they logical oppositions between Our Lady of the Remedies and also argue that a “‘pilgrimage ethic’, with its emphasis on Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City (Turner and Turner ‘holy travel’ and the benefits flowing from such travel, may 2011 [1978], chap. 2), but also in a wider concern with un- have helped to create the communications networks and con- derstanding what happens as the pilgrim is gradually circum- tractual relations that later made mercantile and industrial scribed by the increasingly dense material culture of a given capitalism a viable national and international system” (Turner shrine. Here, we see resonances with Victor Turner’s (1967) and Turner 2011 [1978]:234). A distinction is also made earlier explorations of “dominant symbols” that unite both within Catholicism in relation to temporality and cultural pure ideological and gross physical referents in the same ma- reproduction. The Turners (2011 [1978]) conclude, “Pilgrim- terial form but also with the religio-political context of the writing of the book, produced soon after attempts by Vatican 6. Such criticisms are perhaps easily prompted by the style of Image and Pilgrimage, which is prone to making such theologically tinged state- ments as “In the pilgrimages of the historical religions the moral unit is the individual, and his goal is salvation or release from the sins and evils of the structural world” (Turner and Turner 2011 [1978]:8). 7. Thus, Turner and Turner (2011 [1978]) state, “One advantage of 8. It is notable, on the other hand, that the sites covered in the book studying a long-term sociocultural process such as pilgrimage is that one’s are all at least national in scope, thus already framing the analysis in a attention is directed toward the dynamics of ideological change and per- certain way, while the book actually contains relatively little detailed and sistence, rather than committed to analysis of static ideological patterns systematic comparison between the shrines focussed on in individual and cognitive structures” (25). chapters (Lourdes, Walsingham, Guadaloupe, and Lough Derg). Coleman Pilgrimage as Trope S285

II to modernize and dematerialize the ritual system of the a universal feature of human experience no matter what the entire Church.9 surrounding cultural context might be. We can see how the Problems and gaps aside, the Turners present an image of seeming blankness and generic character of the concept eases pilgrimage but also of Christianity that contains many more its passage across ethnographic fields.10 It is as if we have a dimensions than are contained in communitas. We see affin- theory of ritual that offers its own form of entextualization. ities as well as tensions between forms of the faith (albeit In the process, communitas strips away the very features of confined largely to Catholicism and Protestantism); a concern the Christian culture that the Turners also describe in their to understand the relations among theology, institutions, and text, features that may provide more resonant links with con- ritual forms; and intimations (if I am not being anachronistic) temporary discussions over the anthropology of Christianity. of a multisited appreciation of Christianity as field, mediated If theirs is a theory made to travel, it has only gone in certain through pilgrimage and played out in sites oriented around directions. The image of the “center out there,” reinforced by different forms of locality, history, and historicity. This pil- the communitas paradigm, precludes as many theoretical pos- grimage landscape directs us toward consideration of a Chris- sibilities as it creates. tian culture that is constituted by materialities that maintain The power of the shape and orientation of a simplified complex relationships with modernity, embodiment, and “pu- communitas paradigm is indicated, furthermore, in the ap- rifying” forms of worship. Many of these points anticipate proach that has appeared to oppose it most strongly. A little current debates in the anthropology of Christianity, yet for over a decade after the publication of Image and Pilgrimage, the most part they have not contributed in a direct way to an edited volume emerged whose subtitle referred to an emer- such conversations. Rather, we can see communitas as the gent field of “The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage” basis for the book’s success but also as the culprit for its (Eade and Sallnow 1991).11 Both Marx and Foucault were limited interpretation. brought back into the theoretical picture as the central image And so we come back to the semiotics of theory. In contrast of communitas was replaced by one of chronic conflict to the heterogeneous, internally contradictory landscape of through the central trope of “contesting the sacred” (see also Christian culture evident in the book, communitas presents Sallnow 1981).12 The very image of universalism pointed to a flattened out temporality, sociality, and spatiality, a ritual by the Turners as the component of great pilgrimage sites was “passage” defined and confined through its intensity and ev- seen as “constituted not by a unification of discourses but anescence. Admittedly, the Turners present a much more mul- rather by the capacity of a cult to entertain and respond to tilayered analysis than is usually acknowledged. Distinctions a plurality” (Eade and Sallnow 1991:15). Pilgrimage became are made among spontaneous, normative, and ideological “an arena for competing religious and secular discourses, for forms of communitas to take account of the fact that it is both the official co-optation and non-official recovery of re- liable to become bureaucratized through ethical precepts and ligious meanings, for conflict between orthodoxies, sects, and ideology. However, these distinctions have not been deployed confessional groups, for drives towards consensus and com- by others nearly as much as the central idea of a stripping munitas, and for counter-movements towards separateness away of everyday structures—a creation of blankness that and division” (Eade and Sallnow 1991:2). Eade and Sallnow operates at two semiotic levels. Within the landscape of a (Eade and Sallnow 1991) argued that “The sacred centre . . . given pilgrimage, communitas contrasts not only with the in this perspective, appears as a vessel into which pilgrims details of everyday life but also with the stultified character devoutly pour their hopes, prayers, and aspirations” (15).13 of ecclesiastical authority. Thus, the Turners’ invocation of Elsewhere (Coleman 2002), I have pointed to parallels be- Buber’s “I-Thou” relationship suggests the possibility of per- tween the communitas and contestation paradigms. Both in- fect absence of mediation between persons (though one whose voke an imagery of blankness—indeed a stripping away of relationship with the material surroundings of the shrine is material and ideological mediation—in discussing how reli- not quite clear). Within the intellectual landscape of the an- gious and ideological pluralities are to be dealt with. While thropological study of pilgrimage, meanwhile, communitas the Turners refer to ways in which I-Thou relations strip away has tended to imply the possibility of describing and accessing worldly impediments to the making of communitas, Eade and Sallnow’s empty vessel suggests the possibility of a site offering 9. Another Roman Catholic anthropologist active at this time, Mary Douglas (1970), was exploring ways in which to examine Christianity in 10. See Bowman’s (1985) comment, also cited by Eade (2000), that the context of debates over secularization as well as Vatican II. Douglas the Turnerian model separates interpretation “from the constraints of placed debates over “empty ritual” (1970:22)—another image of blank- history and society” (3). ness—in comparative as well as historical context, using the language of 11. If the Turners had found Catholicism a partial refuge from secular “Low” and “High” Church to describe varied ethnographic cases. Her Marxism, one of the editors of the new volume, John Eade, had worked use of Basil Bernstein’s notions of “restricted” and “elaborated” code, for many years as a volunteer at Lourdes. while somewhat deterministic, points to some of the contrasts I make 12. For Glenn Bowman (1985), the new volume provided a kind of between the relative ritual conformity of parish pilgrims at Walsingham “Oedipal rectification” (21) of the Turnerian paradigm. and the much more flexible, exploratory approach of people such as 13. Through such imagery, a Turnerian dominant symbol was Donna (described below). morphed into the ultimate example of divinely clothed affordance. S286 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 no effective resistance to the numerous ideological positions “local enchanted cosmologies only to attack them, thus pro- articulated within its boundaries. In the former view, agency foundly altering the way they are understood” (126–127). Jose´ is granted to the ritual frame provided by the site; in the latter, Casanova’s (2001) discussion of religion and globalization also it is assumed to exist almost entirely among the varied con- prompts him into a consideration of the particular character stituencies gathered there. Both theories focus most of their of Pentecostalism not only as “truly the first global religion” attention on events at the shrine itself, the ritual and material but also one that is deterritorialized and local at the same center of the pilgrimage, even though both suggest possibil- time, “an uprooted local culture engaged in spiritual warfare ities inherent in looking farther afield:14 the Turnerian in- with its own roots” (437). vocation of a wider landscape has a counterpart in Eade and In such views, Pentecostalism’s “parasitism” is world trans- Sallnow’s implication that constituents are bringing their ide- forming in potential effect even as it allows anthropologists ologies from elsewhere. Most importantly, the paradigm of to reflect on reconstructions of locality. These scholars no contestation is articulated in clear opposition to that of com- longer bracket it off into an ethnographically liminal space munitas even though in practice such contesting tends to where it can safely be ignored. Pentecostalism has come to assume homogeneity of ideology within a given interest group represent hypermobility and cultural change even as it trans- even as it presents juxtaposed oppositions in the fetishized, ports seemingly the same style of ritual performance into ritual space of a given shrine. In my terms, contestation can many different contexts. Pilgrimage, in contrast, has often be seen as parasitic on the communitas paradigm, reinter- come to represent a lack of articulation with significant forms preting its analytical and ethnographic significance while also, of transformation even as it celebrates the apparent unique- ironically, keeping the shape and salience of its approach. And, ness of sacred context. Pentecostalism becomes a “part cul- like communitas, it is a theoretical stance that has been ap- ture” presenting worldviews meant for export but often in plied in certain other ethnographic contexts with great ease tension (and therefore in strategic, parasitic articulation) with even though (or possibly because) the immense range of pos- the values of any given host society (Coleman 2006:2); in sibilities contained within the notion of contestation are contrast, pilgrimage’s most influential characterization in the hardly explored by Eade and Sallnow (Eade and Sallnow 1991) social sciences has often turned it into an “apart” culture, in their introduction. In practice, the image of contestation placing it within a theoretical and ethnographic ghetto. between ideological interests does little more than suggest that Fortunately, there are signs that pilgrimage is being taken it is amplified by juxtaposition without supplying a detailed in new directions, where Christian examples are playing a analysis of entangled semiotic ideologies of the kind that is predominant role. Some now see it as one means through evident in other work on border spaces involving Christianity which to examine wider theoretical issues, such as gender (e.g., Keane 2007). (e.g., Dubisch 1995; Jansen and Notermans 2012) or the com- Contestation, then, reverses the magnetic charge of the plex expression of religion in the foreground and background communitas paradigm without challenging it in other re- of social life (Bandak 2012). As a form of mobility, it is shown spects. One dimension that is largely missing from both ap- to articulate not only with tourism but also with migration proaches is a close focus on the semiotically and politically (Boissevain 1992; Eade and Garbin 2007).15 Important work charged articulations among all components of a given pil- has emerged from European contexts, including Orthodox grimage field, which might include individual pilgrimage sites ones, where connections between pilgrimage and nationalism and links between sites but also connections with numerous are being reexplored (Bax 1995), and such work relates to other institutions, actions, spaces, and histories, secular as wider questions over both the crisis and the reassertion of well as sacred. The “discontinuity” invoked through the sub- the nation state in post-Soviet as well as transnational con- junctive existence proposed by communitas is contained and texts. Other research downplays the focus on one-off visits tamed within its liminoid frame, while the contestation par- to sites and sees pilgrimage more as a constant trope or con- adigm proposes the existence of shrines that are so accom- cern in the everyday lives of certain constituencies (Basu 2004; modating as to allow for a perfect continuity between ide- see Reader’s 2005 discussion of Frey 1998). In the following, ologies brought to the shrine and those taken away. I want briefly to follow a direction that has emerged strongly Contrast both of these approaches and their implications from my fieldwork but that also critically addresses previous with the approach evident in prominent aspects of the Pen- dominant analyses of Christian pilgrimage. In particular, I tecostal paradigm, which has done so much to form the cur- want to complicate approaches that construct the significance rent anthropology of Christianity. On the one hand Pente- of pilgrimage through tropes of blankness that, in practice, costal-charismatic Christianity (as Robbins 2004 terms it) seems to replicate “its doctrines, organizational features, and 15. Mention must also be made of Thomas Tweed’s (2006) important rituals in canonical, Western form wherever it is introduced” attempt to provide a general definition of religion through considering (118), while on the other hand it seems skilled at accepting theory itself as a kind of itinerary. Drawing from his own fieldwork among Cuban migrants who are also pilgrims to a shrine in Florida, he notes, “I was looking for a theory of religion that made sense of the religious 14. Reader (2005:250) provides a useful critique of analyses of pil- life of transnational migrants and addressed three themes—movement, grimage that focus on transient activities at shrines. relation,andposition” (5). Coleman Pilgrimage as Trope S287 indicate little about complex and unpredictable interactions Thirty years after such experiences, Donna did not think between sites and visitors. In doing so, I ask whether the of herself as a practicing Anglican, but she did maintain re- study of pilgrimage might also point us toward areas of Chris- lations with Walsingham. She was married to Paul, who had tianity that, as with Pentecostalism in the past, have remained been brought up a Roman Catholic but who like her was relatively unexplored. lapsed. Paul had also gone to Walsingham as a child, and they still occasionally went back together because Paul had devout relatives who organized regular pilgrimages for the entire ex- “I Wouldn’t Say Religion” tended family. Both felt uncomfortable with the devotional aspects of these events. Still, such visiting invoked a journey Some years ago in the 1990s, I interviewed a middle-class, to her own past, to the social relations of the present, to middle-aged woman living with her husband and children in conversations with her husband about religion.16 The pilgrim- the east of England about her experiences of visiting the Chris- age had other resonances as well, even though their traces tian pilgrimage site of Walsingham. I was at the beginning of were ambiguous, sometimes tenuous or thinly stretched, and a project that is still ongoing and that has involved fieldwork mediated through new layers of sociality and alternative forms in a rural, Norfolk village that houses two pilgrimage shrines, of materiality. Thus, she still treasured a miniature rosary— one High Anglican and one Roman Catholic. The woman, “terribly Catholic”—something that she had loved as a child whom I shall call Donna, had been brought up in an Anglican even though she never used to say the rosary except when household that was interested in what she called “the more she had a Roman Catholic friend staying with her. In seeking Catholic” side of ritual. Donna’s descriptions of her first ex- analogies for her present trips to Walsingham, she referred to periences of Walsingham were presented through the eyes of “the convent in Ham where we [husband and children] went a child of between 9 and 13. Her memories were tied in “with for a treat”;17 and she reflected on how she did not carry out seasons and all these sort of ritual things” but also with kin- Anglican ritual as such but “I don’t know, fruit picking in ship and broader forms of sociality: “So a lot of it was social July is always a sort of ritual I don’t necessarily enjoy, but I activity. . . . A lot of the religion I found very boring I suppose, feel . . . bereft of something if I don’t actually do it at least but the vicar was a good friend and he was my sister’s God- once. . . . I find it quite an important way of marking different father.” One visit she remembers particularly as a “special kinds of the year, you know?” kind of holiday” because “I certainly went with my mother There is nothing very exceptional about Donna’s recollec- without any of my brothers and sisters, which was important tions of her relations with Walsingham as both place and idea. to me, and my best friend with her mum without any of her Indeed, I have often been guilty of not looking closely enough brothers and sisters.” For a child from London, “part of the at her responses and those of others like her, focussing instead magic was being in the country, and I have had summer on more visceral or intense responses to ritual. Yet I now holidays, but they were always at the seaside; I didn’t go sort think that the subtlety of her account, its low-key character, of into the country very much.” The Anglican shrine also the lack of a self-consciously coherent stance to ritual or held some magic, even as “it seemed to be all the sort of religion, the semiarticulation of ritual action with forms of Catholic things that we perhaps thought were a bit over the sociality that seemingly have little to do with the Church top, like lighting endless candles.” She remembers processing alongside the metonymic connections between pilgrimage and toward the shrine and singing “Ave, Ave, Ave Maria, Ave, Ave, her wider biography, deserve careful attention. Note Donna’s Ave Maria, with about 55,000 verses.” The excesses of candles linkage of ritual performance with parental as much as li- and Marian verses evoked a feeling of transgression, but one turgical boundaries of expectation: her juxtaposition of Wal- mediated and indexed through parental attitudes: “I think as singham not only with a convent but also with fruit picking, a child you grow up thinking, well, being Catholic isn’t quite an activity that engages with nature and the circularity of acceptable, I’m not quite sure why, but there definitely are time. To perceive what is going on here through the sharply boundaries, and I’m not quite sure what the boundaries are, focussed lenses of communitas or contestation is precisely to but if I stick to what my parents do I shall be all right, and miss out articulations with life in and beyond Walsingham— this seemed to be getting as near to the boundary as you a Walsingham that is reconstructed away from the shrine as could possibly get.” Indeed, her chief associations with pil- much as through direct interaction with its buildings and grimage ritual involved an ill-understood sense of expectation rituals. Admittedly, Donna talks of once having had a “special from adults: “And so there was a real mixture of excitement time” at Walsingham, but note how what she is referring to and boredom and anxiety about not doing the wrong thing” and “a mixture of sort of ecstasy and agony, you know, a 16. For a fascinating discussion of Protestant pilgrimage seen through beautiful place, it was all lovely and peaceful, but you had to the frame of kinship, see Neville (1987), though my argument blurs her actually be silent for what seemed like about 15 hours.” Donna depiction of Protestant pilgrimage as the obverse of Catholic forms. 17. St. Michael’s Convent, housing Anglican sisters in the south of concluded: “I think it was quite a heady mixture of country- London near Richmond Park and the Thames. As John Eade has pointed side and holiday and ritual, I wouldn’t say religion, but it was out to me (personal communication), there may even be an association ritual, very much” with “strong social connotations.” here between “treat” and “retreat.” S288 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 is not a spontaneous, unmediated experience of communitas- preface to the new edition of Image and Pilgrimage, Danie`le like connection with unknown others but a time when a social Hervieu-Le´ger (1999:29–36) describes contemporary patterns nimbus is placed around a powerful configuration of people of faith in Europe by deploying contrasting notions of “pil- who are already deeply familiar with each other: the dyads of grim” and “convert.” For Hervieu-Le´ger, the pilgrim pursues kinship and friendship invoked when she and her friend visit an individualized spiritual path whereas the convert follows along with their respective mothers. Admittedly, she talks of more obligatory religious tradition. There are echoes here of the place seeming too Catholic, but this is hardly a statement the Turnerian distinction between the liminoid and the lim- of contestation in any well-defined sense: the language of inal and of Clifford and Bauman’s use of the trope of the excess in her account refers both to hours of silence and to pilgrim as emblem of mobility, but what interests me more repetitions of the Ave Maria, perhaps partly reflecting the is the articulation of these terms with Hervieu-Le´ger’s (2000) viewpoint of a bored or self-conscious child but also mitigated wider arguments about links between religion and “chains of by taking a liturgical lead from her parents. memory” whose persistence is challenged as secularization Donna’s account does not simply take our focus away from appears to advance. I do not want to engage in a debate about the shrine. It and others like it require us to trace semiotically the secular. Rather, I want to state that examples such as that charged, socially mediated articulations between activity provided by Donna or the Roman Catholic nurses illustrate overtly involving pilgrimage and other parts of people’s lives how such chains can be articulated through some very un- (see also Coleman 2009). Ignorance of the official narratives predictable sources that should nonetheless not be discounted of the site do not necessary lead to blankness of response but as trivial or random. We are being directed to look at places to ways of framing and translating experience that confound and moments where ritual and aesthetic registers blend with easy distinctions between religion and nonreligion.18 In the each other and oscillate in and out of focus in people’s lives process, “Walsingham” becomes a site of ritual activity or (Bandak 2012; Coleman 2012) as pilgrims engage with nu- recall that can be staged away from the shrine itself and not merous sites of potential inscription in but also away from merely through traditional relics. Let me give another brief the shrine, in parish churches but also in the homes and example of what I mean (see also Coleman 2013a). Part of memories of families, avowedly religious and nonreligious, who have visited Walsingham at some time in the past and my fieldwork strategy has been to trace parishes of Christians may or may not intend to visit again. Such forms of ritual who pay regular visits to Walsingham and to explore how the semiengagement are evocative of what Turner’s former col- pilgrimage fits into their congregational and wider lives. Thus, league Richard Schechner (1985; see Coleman 2013a) calls when I interviewed members of a group of Roman Catholic “restored behavior”—performance that invokes some social nurses based in the North of England, they drew explicit or individual activity and memory from the past (or, we might parallels between the forms of touch that they experienced at add, the imagination) rather than simply mimicking a scripted Walsingham (of statues, friends, and fellow pilgrims) and the role. For a relatively disengaged, agnostic “Christian” such as comforting touch of a nurse in a hospital. The translation in Donna, processes of creative restoration may be prompted this case explicitly involved themselves as part of a mediating particularly powerfully at sites such as Walsingham, where chain providing a bodily link between their place of pilgrimage secular intent and religious aesthetics blend in potentially in the south of England and places of home and work in powerful ways.19 The latent potential of past religious expe- another part of the country. We see here elements of a bri- rience, however ambiguously understood, retains salience in colage-like sacramental practice extending from bodies into the present. different forms of sociality and varied landscapes and spaces. In these ways, pilgrimage sites belong to the same part of The pilgrimage—and Christian—field is expanded temporally the contemporary British Christian landscape as cathedrals, and spatially but also in relation to very varied forms of action, where appeals to the senses rather than to theology are often allowing for a permanent, chronic sense of material and in- likely to have the most effect (Davie 2012:486). We might terpretative exchange between significant sites and activities also say that British sociologist Steve Bruce’s (1996) charac- in a person’s life. Exchange in this sense does not mean rec- terization of “religion in the modern world” as moving “from onciliation, however, as we have to resist the temptation to cathedrals to cults” focuses our attention in precisely the overlay such connections with functional coherence. wrong direction if we want to understand the majority of In thinking about what is going on here, I want initially Christian-inflected practice in contexts such as the contem- to refer to another example of French sociological thinking porary United Kingdom (Coleman 2013b). Bruce’s thesis re- and another example of using the notion of the pilgrim as flects the tendency of social scientists to focus on sites of trope. As Deborah Ross (2011:xiii) also points out in her semiotic density in relation to religious practice (Coleman 2013a) but surely misses much that is vital in our under- 18. Donna, like many other visitors to the site, remained happily un- standing of religious expression among many visitors to places aware of the distant or recent disputed history of the site, including the details of its refoundation as a place through which competing Anglo- and Roman Catholic liturgies and theologies had been expressed (e.g., 19. There are parallels here with Engelke’s (2012) discussion of the Coleman 2009). creation of aesthetic bridges between ritual and secular practice. Coleman Pilgrimage as Trope S289 like Walsingham. Here are activities that many people engage for its emphasis on the ways in which Christian activity must in but that ethnographers tend to ignore because they seem be explored through forms (stories, images, actions, as much so evanescent. as specific statements) that are not only contained in different This question of lack of recognition granted to such activ- media but may also exist in partial isolation from each other, ities by anthropologists raises further theoretical parallels linked to disparate past events and being at times mutually alongside intriguing methodological problems. The parallels contradictory. The “situational” aspect of Stringer’s approach are with recent broadly sociological debates over the notion links religious expression to the context in which it is in- of “lived religion” as a way of understanding the eclectic, often voked—ritual, conversational, formal or informal, etc.—in a inconsistent, ways in which much religious experience con- way that describes Donna’s orientation to Walsingham quite founds official attempts to formalize religious practice and well not so much for the discussion of belief in itself but for separate “sacred” from “profane” (McGuire 2008). As Orsi the depiction of an orientation to Christianity that is ad hoc, (2003) expresses the approach, “A particular practice . . . may often bricolage-like, and creative in the sense that it may be caught in the tension between conscious and unconscious involve making links (such as those between shrines and or- motivations and desire, or between now and then, here and chards) that could not easily be predicted by an observer. there, hopes and memories. Religion is always religion-in- Such an approach, ironically perhaps, takes us closer to an action, religion-in-relationships between people” (172). We important aspect of the Turnerian approach to ritual (albeit see here the methodological challenge of working on “reli- one often de-emphasized in invocations of communitas): the gious” expressions that may resist the recognition of infor- sense that no one enactment of ritualized activity is exactly 20 mant, let alone ethnographer. Not all “lived” religion is like any other, so that each ritual has its own teleology (En- equally inchoate, however, while it will take much of its flavor gelke 2004:19). from its immediate cultural frames. A Christian shrine is not I am using Donna here as my example, but she is meant a kitchen or a town square. We might see pilgrimage as in- to point us toward the experiences of many other people. habiting a shifting space between more institutionalized and Consider the figures typically given by the Anglican shrine 21 more invisible forms of expression, in part because it may concerning visitors to Walsingham. Some 10,000 people a year encompass both at different times. I do not mean here to are said to stay in the shrine’s residences. On the whole, these reinstitute a simple notion of the liminoid: such a category might be classified as conventional parish pilgrims, repeat is too static a means of describing how Walsingham is invoked visitors who value the shrine as a bastion of Anglo-Catholi- by its numerous constituencies. Rather, I note how for people cism. Yet the total number of people who typically gravitate such as Donna, Walsingham as material shrine and narrativ- to and through the shrine annually is estimated to be closer ized memory has clearly taken on different forms in relation to 300,000. We still know far too little about the 300,000 to her changing religious and social identity over the past few except that we can hazard a good guess that they are not likely decades. In the present, much of her orientation to what goes to form a significant part of the high-profile processions that on at the shrine seems less antistructural as adjacent to its are regularly “purified” by the insults of Protestant funda- ecclesiastical structures. I see the shrine for her not as place mentalists. If, as Garriott and O’Neill (2008) suggest, we need of communitas or contestation but rather as catalyst for cer- to develop more dialogic approaches to the anthropological tain kinds of reflections and making of connections between study of Christianity, thus shifting concerns “from the prob- her present and past selves, herself and her family, and so lems posed by Christianity to anthropology, to the problems on.22 In this sense, I find useful some aspects of Martin Stringer’s (1996) notion of “situational belief”23—particularly posed by Christianity to Christians themselves” (381), we might also add to the mix such “situational” questions as 20. How can the fieldworker avoid constructing religious categories when and where is a Christian in order to take into account out of ways in which particular fields are both constructed and inter- the ambiguous spatializing and temporalizing frameworks preted? Day (2011) explores one approach where “belief” is explored in that emerge through the accounts of many of my informants interviews that nonetheless do not ask questions directly pertaining to at Walsingham (e.g., Coleman 2009). We might also recon- marked religion. 21. An issue usefully raised by Aparecida Vilac¸a during the workshop sider here the very meaning and etymology of the word “triv- that has formed this special issue of Current Anthropology. ial,” for it refers to the everyday as well as to the seemingly 22. My use of “catalyst” here is meant to invoke a relationship to unimportant. It has etymological roots in the Latin word religion that is rather different from Julia Cassaniti and Tanya Lurhmann’s trivium, formed from tri (three) and via (road). The “trivial” discussion (2014) of the supernatural, but it shares with the “social kin- dling” idea an interest in the specific contexts in which religious expe- in that early sense meant the meeting of roads, a place known rience comes to the person’s awareness. The theme of recognition/aware- if sometimes despised and/or ignored through its very com- ness is also evident in Matthew Engelke’s analysis of “lived humanism” monplaceness. Walsingham thus provides and provokes trivial and the difference between humanists who explicitly (attempt to) separate ritual. In doing so it suggests liturgical pathways and artic- themselves off from Christian behavior and those who just decide to live ulations that lead far from the shrine itself and that invite their lives as nonbelievers. 23. Or also “situational unbelief,” as one reviewer of this paper re- embodied on as much as mediations of the sup- marks. posedly nonreligious as well as the overtly religious life. S290 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Articulations; or, Pilgrimage and ruling out of court apparently heterodox Christianities when Pentecostalism, Part 2 they seemingly fail to offer a radical separation between body and spirit. Arguably, what Mormons have in common not I am presenting pilgrimage and Pentecostalism as religious only with the neo-Pentecostals that I have studied (e.g., practices but also as theoretical tropes with significant roles Coleman 2000, 2004) but also with many of the pilgrims to to play in the construction of an anthropology of Chris- Walsingham is the conviction that certain forms of materiality 24 tianity. As tropes that maintain links with very different and mediation are to be valorized in the making and remaking religious practices and semiotic ideologies, pilgrimage and of the self as a social as well as religious agent. However Pentecostalism might seem to adopt divergent theoretical po- implicitly, Donna shares with her neo-Pentecostalist coun- sitions. They often seem as far apart as the Protestant fun- terparts a powerful sense of being formed through such in- damentalist protestors and Catholic pilgrims with which I teractions, of connecting with what Eitan Wilf (2011) has began this piece. Pentecostalism is well known for deploying recently characterized as a materiality of semiotic forms that ritual that has a “hard shell,” enabling it to be powerfully is “fully incorporated into the architecture of the self and is parasitic in varied contexts. Such influence appears to contrast seen as a condition of possibility for the self’s articulation” dramatically with the softest of ritual shells provided by much (462). The trope of pilgrimage helps to point our gaze toward (not all) of what is on offer at Walsingham, at least as it is such articulations, and in doing so it surely extends our ap- translated through the casual ingenuity of people like Donna. preciation of the potential horizons of an anthropology of Pentecostalism initially appears to possess all the advantages Christianity. in this juxtaposition. Its activities shift readily into discussions of the causes and not merely the effects of social and cultural change; its transportable character prompts cross-cultural comparisons; and many of its informants pitch themselves Acknowledgments explicitly against local culture in ways that are readily nar- Leslie Aiello and Laurie Obbink of the Wenner-Gren Foun- rativized. Nonetheless, there is significant potential for pil- dation provided a wonderful forum in which to debate these grimage and Pentecostalism to articulate with each other in issues with generous colleagues. Joel Robbins and Naomi developing a more nuanced anthropology of Christianity. If Haynes have provided important editorial advice. John Eade the trope of pilgrimage, as described above, suggests that it kindly read this paper and contributed stimulating comments. is often useful to focus our ethnographic gaze away from the Given space restrictions, I have scarcely done justice to the most obvious centers of religious action, to look for the seem- immensely thoughtful and constructive comments of two ingly incoherent in religious behavior and attitudes, to move anonymous reviewers. away from core, “hard” ritual practices and toward apparent ritual and aesthetic peripheries, there is much here that can reorientate an understanding of apparently hard-edged Pen- References Cited tecostalism as it plays out in the biographies of actual infor- Bandak, Andreas. 2012. Problems of belief: tonalities of immediacy among 25 Christians of Damascus. Ethnos 77(4):535–555. mants. Barker, John. 2014. 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Christianity and the Anthropology of Secular Humanism

by Matthew Engelke

Secular humanists in the United Kingdom regularly think about, talk about, and act in relation to religion, especially Christianity. In this article, I address the relationships between secular humanism and Christianity by drawing on fieldwork with a local humanist group affiliated with the British Humanist Association. In line with many moderns, as indeed with many kinds of Christians, these secular humanists often want to sever ties with the past—in this case, with what they understand to be Christianity’s religious elements. At the same time, they want to preserve those aspects of Christianity they understand to be human, not religious. These engagements with and articulations of Christianity can be helpful not only for understanding contemporary secular-humanist formations but also some of the debates that have framed the anthropology of Christianity over the past decade.

What can we learn about Christianity from people who are religious lifestance involving a naturalistic view of the uni- not Christians? When is Christianity relevant in other social verse.” Prominent members of the BHA include the celebrity framings, and how? The development of an anthropology of scientist , journalist and commentator Polly Christianity “for itself,” as “a self-conscious, comparative Toynbee, and comedian and actor Stephen Fry. The BHA does project” (Robbins 2003:191) has been extremely productive a lot of public-facing campaigns, often around the member- over the past decade. What I want to emphasize here, however, ship’s secularist commitments. The BHA wants to remove the is the fact that any such anthropology should also exist beyond right of Church of England bishops to sit in the House of itself—after itself, even—as an impetus for other kinds of Lords, for instance; members also campaign to stop faith- conceptual and comparative projects. One of these concerns based schools from receiving state funding (and setting their the problem of culture, long central to understandings of own admissions criteria). Another major component of the religion vis-a`-vis modernity and causing well-known predic- BHA’s work is the provision of ceremonies: nonreligious fu- aments for anthropologists. This paper, then, is not intended nerals, weddings, and namings. In 2011 the BHA’s network as a contribution to the anthropology of Christianity but of celebrants conducted nearly 9,000 ceremonies, primarily rather what we might call “not the anthropology of Chris- funerals, across England and Wales.1 The BHA does without tianity.” What I am addressing here is in fact the anthropology God—and pretty much wants everyone else to as well, as we of secular humanism. might now observe. That is close to Christianity, though—at least in many cases. In January 2011 there was a “Risk Management Meeting” An anthropology of secular humanism is often going to have for the BHA held at the association’s office in central London. family resemblances with an anthropology of Christianity. As with many organizations, the BHA keeps a risk register as That is certainly the case in my focus on secular humanists part of its audit activities. It was a productive meeting for the in England, many of whom come from Christian and Jewish CEO and trustees on the committee, but it was also marked backgrounds and for whom Christianity in particular is an important point of reference. This closeness can make the by frustration about the Kafkaesque demands of bureaucracy stakes of difference especially meaningful. and audit culture. One way this came out was in relation to I spent 2011 conducting fieldwork on the British Humanist a playful yet serious exchange about operational risk no. 19, Association (BHA), the United Kingdom’s preeminent “non- “premises needing major repairs.” The chair of the meeting, religious” organization (over 12,000 members). The BHA a trustee, noted that this risk was primarily about “acts of supports people who seek “an ethical and fulfilling non- nature”: floods, for example, or earthquakes (not likely in London). “Notice he didn’t say ‘acts of God’!” one of the

Matthew Engelke is Professor in the Department of Anthropology 1. There is a separate humanist society in Scotland, where many more of the London School of Economics (Houghton Street, London weddings are conducted because they are legally recognized. At the time WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom [[email protected]]). This paper was of my research, humanist weddings in England and Wales were not legal, submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 3 VI 14, and electronically published so they were usually complemented by a trip to the local council registry 29 X 14. office.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0014$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677738 Engelke The Anthropology of Secular Humanism S293 other trustees interjected quickly, with a smile on her face. “I Guardian—and an atheist, too—has regularly made such sug- change this on contracts all the time,” the chair replied; he gestions. In relation to a campaign by the National Secular had a lot of experience in the world of business. “And the Society, another prominent secular-humanist group, Brown lawyers change it back!” he continued. “They say ‘act of God’ got massively annoyed. “The wonderful thing about the athe- has a legal definition. But it has nothing to do with God!” ist movement in this country is that it shows how all the vices How is it, in this day and age, the trustees wondered, that that made religion repulsive can flourish in the complete ab- professionals can countenance such language? Indeed, for law- sence of supernatural belief.”3 As far as he was concerned, yers, legislators, insurers, and other important people in mod- the “atheist movement” showed signs not of reason and ra- ern Britain, “act of God” is a legitimate, legally recognizable tionality but vindictiveness and spite (characteristics that expression even though it means “the operation of uncon- some humanists decry as religious). trollable natural forces” (Oxford English Dictionary). God has Committed humanists also often reflect on and sometimes nothing to do with it. even worry about what religion is. Humanists wonder about This small exchange tells us something important about whether what they do is really humanistic. For them, the point humanists. Humanists want to break with the past. They want of comparison is almost always Christianity—especially An- to break with religion, to expunge the signs of religion from glicanism and Roman Catholicism, because these are the faiths society and its workings, especially where those signs have they know best, either from personal experience or simply as political and legal weight. So this hybridized term, “act of part of the British milieu. Judaism is also relevant, and some- God,” blurring the boundaries of semantic precision in a times Islam, but these other traditions often get subsumed secular age, using the supernatural to signify the natural, is by Christianity. When humanists think of religion they think precisely the kind of thing that bothers them. If humanists about Christianity. And indeed they think—and talk—about have their way, acts of God will become acts of nature. And religion quite a lot. It is here that we get to the relevance of in the BHA’s own risk register, at least, they are. Three weeks doing what is not the anthropology of Christianity. after the assessment, the full board of trustees was presented with an updated register at its quarterly meeting. On the basis Continuity Thinking, Again of the deliberations in January, changes had been made, and Operational Risk no. 19 had become Operational Risk no. 9 Two prominent discussions within the anthropology of Chris- (O-9): “acts of nature.” Looking over the register, one of the tianity are particularly relevant to how we should understand trustees, who was not on the risk management committee, the anthropology of secular humanism—that is to say, what paused at O-9. “I approve of acts of nature,” he said, em- is not the anthropology of Christianity. The first has to do phasizing the phrase. He knew all about this frustrating sur- with the discourse of discontinuity: the extent to which hold- vival in legalese, too. Everyone smiled and laughed. ing a certain worldview or wanting to be a particular kind of Within the United Kingdom, evangelicals and humanists person demands a break with the past.4 Humanists, as self- often serve as others to each other: opponents or at least styled enlighteners, are, as I have indicated, deeply committed opposites in public debates on everything from reform of the to a break with religious thinking, and it is worth acknowl- House of Lords to legislation over assisted dying. The Chris- edging that discontinuity is central not only to Christian mas- tian in these debates is made to represent the “religious” ter narratives but those of secular modernity, too. Disconti- position, while the humanist offers the “nonreligious” or “sec- nuity, or breaking with the past, has in fact often been ular” position. In the course of such debates, or in chattering highlighted as one of the core “consequences of modernity” class commentaries, it is not uncommon to hear evangelical (Giddens 1990). Christians, or others critical of humanist causes, claim that The second discussion has to do with continuity thinking— what humanists want is not so much a break with the past the argument that anthropologists are not very good at doc- but a repackaging of it. Humanism is regularly cast as another umenting social change, that their models of analysis tend to kind of faith: religion in all but name. Particularly staunch stress the ways in which cultures endure over time. What and strident humanists, such as Richard Dawkins, are even interests me in particular about this argument, as I will go regularly referred to as “atheist fundamentalists,” no different from the Christians and Muslims they mock. This perception of organized humanism and the secular- 3. The National Secular Society’s campaign was to stop state funding for hospital chaplains. See Andrew Brown, “The Last Consolation: For humanist movement in Britain is not confined to religious Heaven’s Sake, Let the Dying Have Their Hospital Chaplains,” Guardian, 2 critics. Andrew Brown, a journalist and blogger for the April 8, 2009 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr /08/religion-atheism, accessed July 12, 2013). 2. So far I have been using the terms “humanism,” “atheism,” and 4. Birgit Meyer’s (1998, 1999) work has been particularly important “secularism” as though they are interchangeable. This is not to suggest in the discussions of Christianity’s “break with the past.” Two recent full- there are no differences among them, and while most members of the length monographs that address the question of discontinuity are Liana BHA prefer one over the other, as I discuss in more detail later, in the Chua (2012) and David Mosse (2012). See also Matthew Engelke (2004, main they see themselves as being all three—or, if not atheist, than 2010), Naomi Haynes (2012), Olivia Harris (2006), Martin Lindhardt agnostic. (2009), and Joel Robbins (2007). There are many others. S294 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 on to elaborate, is its lopsided development to date. Only to be “real Christians” that they spark such concern. What certain forms of continuity thinking seem to get critiqued stands behind the charge of repugnance is that these Chris- within the anthropology of Christianity, something that be- tians have not become secular; they have not become rea- comes especially obvious when one turns from the study of sonable and modern. These Christians have not broken with Christianity to the study of secular humanism. the past. The first of these discussions, then, concerns ethnographic The situation I have faced studying humanists is the ob- observation: how the natives think (and act). The second verse. When I tell academic colleagues about my research, concerns conceptual framing: how we think the natives. These some—and not a few—have sounded like evangelicals and emphases—emic and etic, respectively—both pertain to a Guardian journalists; they have wondered whether humanists subset of the problem of culture, namely, “the problem of are really humanists, whether humanism is rightfully under- Christian culture” (Robbins 2007). stood as not religious. Usually they conclude that humanists The problem of Christian culture in the emic sense has to sound like Protestants in all but name. This is the kind of do with the willingness or ability of anthropologists to rec- continuity thinking I want to question. ognize that the people they study are meaningfully Christian. We should expect humanism in Britain to be articulated This has been more of a problem in some contexts than in relation to Western Judeo-Christian traditions. In many others. And it is also more relevant to certain traditions of ways humanists embrace these continuities, especially when Christianity than others. Pentecostals, evangelicals, and char- it comes to the social, historical, and personal legacies of ismatics have often been particularly insistent on breaking Anglicanism. There are members of the BHA, for instance, with the past, as a result of which certain aspects of “tradi- such as the well-known author Philip Pullman, who define tional culture” get coded as demonic, devilish, or otherwise themselves as “Church of England atheists.” Pullman (2011) un-Christian. Strong forms of rupture have not necessarily sees “no sign of God,” but he recalls fondly learning prayers been central to mainline traditions, such as Roman Cathol- from his grandfather and feels the established church “belongs icism, Anglicanism, or Lutheranism.5 And discontinuity seems to all of us” (56, 57). Another member of the BHA (and I to be a complete nonstarter among the Eastern churches; these doubt he is alone) has arranged to be buried in the graveyard of his parish church. Although an atheist and humanist, this churches are often the “traditional culture” to begin with, and man has participated in the life of his village, and that has that creates different dynamics in relation to large-scale proj- meant participating in the life of the village church. At the ects of modernity, such as colonialism and socialism (with same time, as we see in relation to the concern over “acts of which they have also had distinct social and political rela- God,” there are important ways in which organized human- tionships). So in the past decade, when we have heard that ism wants to shift the terms of reference. That means severing Christianity matters—that it needs to be taken “seriously”— ties. And the desired break with religion can get more emotive it has often been in relation to certain kinds of Christianity than it did in the audit committee. Another humanist told in certain kinds of places: basically, charismatics and evan- me of how, as a child, she used to go to the girl’s washroom gelicals in postcolonial places. The argument is that Chris- at her school, lock herself in a stall, and swear at God, as if tianity in these contexts is not some appendage to political to defame him away. I have regularly seen members of the and economic forces, and it can shape, sometimes radically, BHA and other committed humanists washed over with dis- the ways in which people think and act in relation to them- comfort and even disdain when someone else has identified selves, their families, other people, and the workings of the as a Christian, especially as an evangelical or born-again Chris- world. Colonialism and neoliberalism do not exhaust our tian. It provokes a visceral reaction. powers of explanation or comprehension. As I have turned my attention to the study of lived hu- What of the West? We know that Christianity is not an manism—not the anthropology of Christianity—it has struck appendage in the West even though the classic story of sec- me just how much work needs to be done on the conceptual ularization, based on religion’s decline with the rise of mo- front when it comes to understanding “the difference Chris- dernity, is still influential (despite its academic battering). tianity makes” (see Cannell 2006). Part of this means thinking Anthropologists working on Christians in Western contexts about the difference Christianity does not make—or is made have often had to contend with chidings from colleagues not to make. Anthropologists of Christianity have been good about why they choose to study this “repugnant cultural at recognizing ruptures and documenting change in their em- other” (Harding 1991). But this is rarely in a way that ques- pirical research. When it comes to the study-based project tions whether these repugnant others are meaningfully Chris- that parallels this, however—a metatheoretical project tracing tian. In fact it is often precisely because they are understood the “Christianity of anthropology” (Cannell 2005)—conti- nuity thinking often, well, continues. 5. Chua (2012) has given particularly sustained attention to these dif- It is not only in casual conversations about humanists with ferences in her study of a village in Malaysian Borneo, where the Catholic and Anglican households stand in sharp contrast to the small number colleagues that this particular problem of Christian culture of evangelical Christian households who diabolize several keys aspects of crops up. While not in any self-conscious way, there is a “traditional culture” (adat). tradition of sorts here—a certain kind of intellectual critique, Engelke The Anthropology of Secular Humanism S295 not unique to anthropology, based on debunking or chal- Wales at the time of my research, a few of which predate the lenging our supposed secularity and difference. It is in fact BHA or were formed independently. There are, moreover, extremely common. Consider these arguments, for instance, some humanist and atheist groups not affiliated with the BHA which have to do with the relation between the social sciences and a few that seem to hold it in very poor regard; it can be and theology. (a) “‘Scientific’ social theories are themselves very difficult, even for humanists who appreciate voluntary theologies or anti-theologies in disguise” (Milbank 1990:3). associations, to voluntarily associate. There is, in any case, no (b) “[Geertz] appears, inadvertently, to be taking up the stand- requirement for people who attend a local group to join the point of theology” (Asad 1993:43). And (c) “Anthropology is BHA, and many local group members do not. All the same, a discipline that is not always so ‘secular’ as it likes to think. for several years a staff member at the BHA has serviced local Were it to become less ascetic in its understanding of religious groups, while the CEO and others regularly give talks at group experience, it might more often remember its own theological meetings. The BHA also lists group meetings and events on prehistory” (Cannell 2005:352). its website and in e-mail circulars. Attendance at local groups Or consider these arguments, which deal with related ar- can range from a handful to 50 or 60 people. Meetings are guments about politics, the first of which alone has generated usually once monthly, on a weekday evening, and held in a a huge secondary literature. (a) “All significant concepts of pub or a community center; a few groups meet in Quaker the modern theory of the state are secularized theological meeting houses. Many groups charge a nominal fee for mem- concepts” (Schmitt 2006 [1934]:36). (b) “Modern revolu- bership, although in my experience this was not strictly en- tionary movements are a continuation of religion by other forced and a cause of slight embarrassment for group sec- means” (Gray 2007:2). And (c) “Intellectual complacency, retaries and treasurers. nursed by implicit faith in the inevitability of secularization, I spent a year attending a group I will call the “Thames has blinded us to the persistence of political theology” (Lilla Path Humanists,” a local group in London. Thames Path was 2007:2). very active in terms of meetings and community involvement. I am taking these quotes out of anything like proper con- There were also several key members of the group who had texts. There are several projects, intentions, and agendas rep- strong relationships with the BHA; one committee member, resented in these statements. For most of these writers, the for instance, whom I will discuss in some detail, is a celebrant; point is not apologetic (although it is for Milbank and another sometime committee member worked for a time as Schmitt). For the anthropologists quoted, Talal Asad and Fe- the BHA’s education officer. In addition to the monthly meet- nella Cannell, the point has in fact been to challenge the idea ing in the pub, the Thames Path group also had a monthly that, as Asad puts it in later work, “secularized concepts retain coffee morning at a theater cafe´and, on and off, a monthly a religious essence” (Asad 2003:189).6 Nevertheless, in every Sunday roast dinner (at a different pub). Thames Path also case one of the larger arguments (or assumptions) is, wittingly had an annual summer garden party and a Christmas party or unwittingly, that the transformation promised by a certain and participated in local community fairs. The “Christmas” reading of the Enlightenment never fully materialized. party raised eyebrows, but the chairman of the group thought Yet what do humanists do in spite of Christianity? What it would be overreacting to call it anything else. (He was not is the difference between an act of God and an act of nature? the type of humanist to mind phrases like “act of God” all How does the difference—and its attendant indifferences— that much.) Toward the end of 2011 the group began to help get produced and legitimized? When does taking Christianity run a local soup kitchen in rotation with members of a nearby “seriously” mean doing something that is not the anthro- Unitarian church. pology of Christianity? The first meeting of the Thames Path Humanists took place in January 2007. That preceding fall, the membership officer at the BHA noticed a significant swathe of London did not The Thames Path (Lived Humanism) have a local group and sent out an e-mail to BHA members Another important aspect of the BHA’s work is to foster and in a certain set of postcodes asking whether anyone wanted serve local humanist groups. These groups both face up to to start one. Two of the people who replied to the call were 7 and raise the problem of Christian culture, and it is on one humanists I got to know well, Brian and Sage. Both had of them that I want to focus here. joined the BHA because of the ceremonies work. Brian got There were over 60 local humanist groups in England and married in 2001. Neither he nor his wife are religious, and they wanted the wedding to reflect that. He had heard about 6. Some self-identified atheists and other critics take issue with Asad’s the BHA and knew they provided nonreligious weddings. “It claim. Bruce Robbins (2013) suggests that in the work of Asad (and a was fantastic,” he told me, with a warm glow. All their friends few others) “Christianity always remains purely itself” (255). Such ar- said it was the best wedding they had ever been to, which guments are part of a larger project about the value and valences of Brian put down to the personal touches and focus. Sage “secular critique,” which I cannot address, yet I do not think Robbins gets Asad right here (see Asad 2003:181–204). I do, however, share Rob- turned to the BHA for her mother’s funeral. She did not really bins’s general dissatisfaction with the extent to which any significant transformation by “secularization” is really addressed. 7. I use pseudonyms here and throughout. S296 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 know, at first, that she was turning to the BHA. She just knew or unknown, especially when that commitment contradicts that neither she nor her mother wanted a church funeral, and empirical evidence to the contrary). To be sure, this particular a colleague of hers from work, at a small, independent pub- framing is not the only one in play. There were, moreover, lishing house, put her in touch with a woman from Clapham several members of the BHA and Thames Path group who who conducted funerals; that woman happened to be a hu- did not primarily self-identify as humanist; some preferred manist celebrant. The celebrant let Sage and her family decide terms such as “atheist,” “agnostic,” or “materialist.” Some did all the details of the service. “And it was amazing,” Sage told not like labels at all. Two full-time members of the BHA staff me. “It was very empowering, and felt very personal.” (and there were only 10) refused to refer to themselves as Neither Brian nor Sage knew much about humanism per humanists. One, taking a classically liberal perspective, said se when they used the BHA’s ceremonial services.8 After the it was a private matter and frankly no one’s business—perhaps ceremonies, they each looked into what the BHA was about. especially mine. (I had asked.) In a survey I conducted of the They each went to the website. “And I thought, I ought to BHA membership, one respondent referred to herself as a put my money where my mouth is,” Brian recalled. “This is “Catholic Buddhist.” what I think, and this is what these people are doing, so why For people like Brian and Sage, though, what humanism don’t I support them?” “I liked what I saw. I identified with provides is a positive label for their beliefs—or nonbeliefs, as it,” Sage said. She joined, and she enjoyed the newsletters. they might prefer to say. For them, as for many others, it is Then she read some books about humanism. Sage was par- important to self-identify as a humanist because people need ticularly taken by the work of two philosophers, both prom- to know what humanism is even if they then go on to refuse inent supporters of the BHA: A. C. Grayling and Richard that label. The label has a mix of practical, political, and Norman. “And I did feel happy, then, to call myself a hu- philosophical valences that, at least for the time being, BHA manist.” members tend to feel cannot be discarded. Brian calls himself This process of realization is extremely common among an atheist, too, but he subordinates this to his humanism in BHA members. Humanists recognize humanism as something that effort to be “positive”—calling yourself an atheist, after that does not need to be articulated as such. Many people all, as many humanists point out, is defining yourself in neg- only recognize themselves as humanists after reading about ative terms. Sage also emphasized the need to be positive. it or talking to someone else who is. I even met BHA members “It’s nice to have found a label,” she told me. “But a lot of who said they started calling themselves humanists at the my friends are nonbelievers, and they’re not interested in suggestion of a friend or colleague. Audrey, for instance, the doing what I do, or coming along. They just live their lives Thames Path member who had worked for the BHA as the as nonbelievers.” education officer, was dubbed a humanist by a colleague: Brian’s mother was raised in the Church of England. She I was a teacher for 20-odd years, and I used to have inter- converted to a liberal Judaism when she married his father. esting discussions with my colleagues, many of whom were It was “Judaism light” in their household, Brian explained, Christians, including the head of RE, who used to say, “oh, but important to his family. Growing up, Brian attended syn- maybe you’re a Buddhist,” and give me something about agogue in south London; he also got heavy doses of Angli- Buddhism. I’d say, “no, not quite right, you know.” . . . canism via his school, an established private school in Surrey. “Well maybe you’re a Quaker,” she’d say. I don’t believe in “I was very steeped in mainstream, Church of England Chris- God—but that doesn’t matter, apparently. But eventually tianity,” he said. Brian’s mother and sister still attend syna- she decided that I was a humanist, so, you know, she put gogue. Brian, though, “never really bought it,” and he does a label on my set of beliefs. not recognize himself as Jewish at all. He would not even call himself culturally Jewish or a secular Jew. “And it’s partly Even the BHA’s last CEO told me she never self-identified as because as I child I didn’t want to be different. It was all a humanist until she applied for her job. downside and no upside. The synagogue services are unut- Exactly what “realization” involves may differ. In general terably tedious. They just go round and round and round in it relies on a strong version of reason as the key to thinking apparently no direction, and there’s no decent tunes in them. about the world, one that is precultural and available to ev- I was forced to be a member of a club I didn’t want to join.” eryone. Realization humanists see themselves as enlightened As for the Christianity he got at school, “I always knew in moderns (even if they do not put it in those terms) who have terms of underlying belief that, well, you know, it seemed harnessed the power of their innate rationality and thrown pretty silly to me.” Christian theology is “so illogical,” he said. off the shackles of superstition (thinking, that is to say, which All the same, Brian went on, without skipping a beat, he did is guided by a belief in or commitment to the supernatural appreciate the Christianity he got at school. He liked singing Church of England hymns, for example. “I actually appreciate 8. And of course not all members of local groups and/or the BHA having that very much, that essentially soft Christian back- find out about humanism via the ceremonies work, although a significant proportion of BHA members have attended some kind of humanist cer- ground—because that’s part of my cultural identity being emony at one time or another: 49.5% (N p 1,124) according to a survey British. It’s important to know all those stories, and about I conducted of the BHA’s membership. the architecture, and, you know, all of that stuff.” Engelke The Anthropology of Secular Humanism S297

Sage, who grew up in Africa, and whose parents did not Brian termed the ethos of the local group in the following want her to attend state schools, ended up for some period way: “we’re antireligious privilege, and antistupid ideas, but in a Catholic boarding school run by nuns. (Her father was we’re not antireligious.” “very C of E”; her mother “Quaker Unitarian.”) The boarding school did not endear her to Catholicism. However, she was confirmed Anglican and “felt quite religious for a little patch” Stupidity and Religiosity as a teenager, “but I think it was just to belong.” Sage’s family The question this begs is, what is the difference between stu- eventually moved to Australia; she then moved to Britain, her pidity and religiosity? For Brian and Sage, as indeed, I would parents following. Sage has two children, and when they were argue, the organized humanist movement more generally, this born she had them christened because it was important to is the difference Christianity makes. What is stupid is “belief.” her to mark the births in some way (perhaps especially her And “belief” here means accepting the truth or value of some- second child, as we will soon hear). The christening was “the thing without good evidence. Good evidence, in turn, means only thing you could do,” she said. In between the births of scientific evidence, evidence that is not subjective. Brian’s list her children, Sage had two quite traumatic miscarriages. “I of stupid ideas would include all the “illogical” stuff he heard used to go and sit in the church a bit,” she told me. “Just— about at school: one God (yet a Trinity?), resurrection, turning I think—to be on my own and think. I wasn’t praying or water into wine, and so on. What is stupid is not listening anything, but church does provide things at times—or it has to reason or common sense, both of which, for realization done. It’s been the default to provide, at times.” What turned humanists, have clear parameters. her away from the church was the arrival in her parish of a very conservative vicar. “He tried to make it very ; Yet it would be a mistake to characterize the humanist ethos ridiculous. With incense and things. He was awful.” The last by relying too much on what humanists say explicitly, neg- straw was an article he wrote in the parish newsletter opposing atively, about religion. If we listen to Brian and Sage’s the ordination of women priests. Sage was studying at the prompted recollections of coming to humanism, much of time for a BA in women’s studies, as a mature student. “It what we do hear about religion and/or the religious is that opens your eyes to . I don’t think you can they are “silly,” “horrible,” “ridiculous,” “unutterably tedi- do much academic study and still be religious, really,” she ous.” Yet within Brian and Sage’s accounts, we also find hints told me. of what they recognize as good about religion, or, as I will Brian and Sage held their first planning meeting along with further explore now, what is good about it in spite of it— three others in Brian’s living room. Among them, they told what is not Christian about Christianity. For both, obviously, me, it was very important to stress the positive side of hu- as we have heard, it hinges on claiming ritual—recognizing manism. In preparation for the Thames Path launch, Brian that rites of passage are an important part of being human, and Sage met with other local humanist groups. They were not being “religious.” Sage has embraced this commitment not always impressed. One group in particular struck them in a particularly significant way; she is the Thames Path mem- as “very antireligious.” They did not like that, and indeed in ber I referred to earlier who has gone on to become a BHA my own experience of getting to know Brian and Sage, they celebrant. She conducts funerals, weddings, and naming cer- did not embody the more popularly public image of human- emonies more or less full time. The goodness in religion also ists defined by the pugnacious “” of Dawkins, hinges for Brian and Sage on a sense of belonging and, as Grayling, and . At the Thames Path Sage’s life story in particular highlights, the sense of comfort meetings, it was not unusual for one or another of the mem- and space for reflection that religious institutions have his- bers or attendees to say something particularly disparaging torically provided. about religion, though, especially Christianity. This is quite Brian, Sage, and other realization humanists like them common. While not all humanists endorse a new-atheist cri- would also want to qualify the emphasis on reason. Audrey, tique of religion—not by any means—all the humanists I got for example, who participated in a “secular choir,” and who to know had something critical to say about religion. (It hap- championed the virtues of poetry and art (which some hu- pened most frequently in relation to Catholicism and evan- manists see as unhumanistic pursuits, driven by passion and gelicalism.) Throughout the whole of my research on the emotion instead of reason), wanted to make clear to me that Thames Path group, the only time I did not hear at least one reason is not the sole province of nonbelievers—even if her disparaging remark about religion was at the summer garden defence of the religious came out as a backhanded compli- party. Whenever things got overly critical in the group, how- ment: ever, especially in the Monday evening sessions, Brian, who usually chaired, tried to redirect the conversation. As I have Sometimes the humanist way of putting things implies that mentioned, however, Grayling’s writings had been important we are the only people who are reasonable, and that religious to Sage in terms of coming to humanism—and Grayling people aren’t reasonable. And I think that’s completely un- (2006) does not pull his punches on the faithful. And I do true. They may have this irrational faith, but in the rest of remember being struck when, in an interview we conducted, their lives they accept science, they buy medicine, they drive S298 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

cars and travel in aeroplanes. They believe in gravity and critiques of stupidity or irrationality. It can often appear as all those things; they’re not totally irrational.9 if humanism is all talk. Wherever I went in the humanist networks, those who participated in local groups almost invariably said they did Talk, Talk, Talk so in order to interact with “like-minded people.” This phrase, The main monthly meeting of the Thames Path Humanists “like-minded people,” is ironic because humanists are often drew anywhere between 30 and 50 people, depending on the emphatic about their independence, individuality, and au- time of year and the prominence of the topic or speaker. Most tonomy. Recall again how for both Brian and Sage, what made of the people are middle aged and older. At Thames Path, as the ceremonies they arranged so meaningful was that they indeed in most local humanist groups (not all), members tend arranged them: they were the responsible parties, they were to be in their 50s and 60s and 70s, often retired or semire- the ones setting the terms of reference, and the terms of tired.10 This was regularly put down to the fact that older reference were indexed to the human, not the numinous or people have more free time, especially in the evenings; the divine. Yet within the irony is a paradox. On the one hand, one young set of parents active in the group did have the it is true that humanists often recoil from religion because as benefit of family nearby who could look after their daughter. “freethinkers” they see one of religion’s downsides (as Brian These humanists gathered in the upper-floor function room might put it) as conformity to a norm. Religion is group- of their adopted pub. If there were more than 30 people, it think—or even not thinking at all. Religion is a club, and could make following a speaker difficult, especially for the they do not want to join. On the other hand, as I have stressed, very elderly, some of whom were hard of hearing. Most mem- there is within this tradition of humanism a conviction that bers tolerated this meeting place, though, not least given the reason lies within and that its dictates are not subject to welcome of the landlord, who let them have it free and did not even seem to mind that while most people got a pint of cultural contingencies or controls. During an informational beer or a glass of white wine, it was not a hard-drinking, late- session on humanism for nurses training in palliative care, night bunch. Meetings began at 8 p.m. and ended promptly the CEO of the BHA once made a remark that captures this at 10 p.m. A handful of people came at 7 p.m. to socialize; point well: “There was never a ‘Mr. Human’ who founded the meetings themselves did not allow much of this. humanism,” he said. Religion, in the realization tradition, has Whether or not space mattered was a point of contention to be seen first and foremost as a cultural construct: something within the Thames Path group. In a survey of the membership people make up. So the paradox is that the humanist con- that Brian conducted in early 2012, one member commented ception of freethinking is dependent on the submission to that reason. What resolves the paradox is the character of the after 2000 years, the Christian churches have at least one submission. For within humanism, it is never the submission valuable asset—they have their very own premises in the to a cultural fabrication. Submission to reason is no submis- form of church buildings, church halls, meeting houses, etc., sion at all; it is a natural outpouring of common sense. “To as well as others with synagogues, mosques, and so on. thine own self be true,” the famous line from Shakespeare’s Wouldn’t it be useful of [sic] humanists, atheists, sceptics, Hamlet, inscribed above the stage in Conway Hall—one of and others had more than just the Conway Hall in London! the birthplaces of the modern humanist and secular move- ments in Britain—sums up what I am talking about here. It Not everyone felt this way, and not everyone who did want suggests an inward-looking, independent self, and this goes premises wanted the same kind: some wanted inspiring build- some way toward helping us understand the significance of ings, some wanted purely functional spaces. During a group looking for like-minded people. interview I conducted with several members, the issues of space and place led to a heated debate. Notably, this debate One important thing about local groups, though, is that about space was tied up with a debate about whether or not they bring these selves together into community and, for humanists should ever do more than talk—whether they some, at least, a kind of communion. Humanism is embodied; might get together to sing, for instance, or express themselves humanism is incorporated. These aspects are often glossed in other corporate ways. “All I want is conversation,” declared over in public perceptions of humanism because these per- Judy, the young mother active in the group. “The point of ceptions are dominated by intellectuals—scientists, philoso- this is the people,” she said at another point. Benjamin, who phers, novelists, and serious journalists—who trade primarily was brought up in a self-consciously atheist household, dis- in words and regularly frame their critiques of religion as agreed: “I think many people would be embarrassed, but the idea of having a song to start off humanist meetings with— 9. In 2011 the CEO of the BHA began sponsoring an annual lecture named in honor of Percy Bysshe Shelley and meant to feature poets, it would be an excellent idea.” John, a semiretired psychologist biographers, and other more humanistic humanists. The BHA sponsors several annual lectures (their Darwin Day lecture being the most signif- 10. The local group that met in central London was one of the ex- icant) and numerous other speaking events each year, a majority of which ceptions; it was particularly large and particularly diverse in terms of feature scientists and philosophers. background and age, drawing easily on the university student bodies. Engelke The Anthropology of Secular Humanism S299 who was working on a book about “atheist spirituality” and coffee mornings, for instance, and helped run a soup kitchen. training to become a celebrant, agreed with Benjamin. They had a Christmas party. “There’s the Unitarians, who are virtually atheists—now they These were people of conviction. They had ideas about the have gone for architecture, and for songs, and for those bits world and the way it should be—some firmer than others, of religion that they think are worthwhile. And I think what to be sure, and some more fully worked out, but by and large they do is interesting.” “If you had all that, it would definitely of a piece. They were committed to spreading their views; as put me off,” Judy replied. “Me too,” said Nigel, a relatively far as they were concerned, their vision of the world is the new member, and someone who often identified as an en- right one—the true one. Questions of belief and belonging vironmentalist. “I don’t want songbooks and I don’t want were commonly posed. Many thought of the group as a source beautiful buildings, because that immediately to me intro- of comfort and community. Some, in addition, did choir out duces an influence which has nothing to do with the rational of a particularly strong commitment to community; others but has everything to do with the emotional, which is for me found singing slightly embarrassing. The group also provided not what humanism is about.” important resources for marking the cycles of life: trained Here we have a further sense of what “like-minded people” specialists who could help people through the process of share—not always everything. But the disagreements were mourning or in celebrating the marriage of a couple or the thrashed out with bonhomie, and the discussion wound down birth of a child. by everyone agreeing these differences of opinion would never Any student of religion in Britain might well assume that split the group. “That’s exactly it, isn’t it?” said Mark, Judy’s what I am talking about here is the stereotypical Church of husband. “We can have this [debate], and it doesn’t matter— England congregation. And indeed it could be; but it is not. that’s kind of the key thing. You would have schisms in re- This is an anthropology of secular humanism, not an an- ligion, you would; they would split. That won’t ever happen thropology of Christianity. here.” It would not ever happen, Mark was saying, because Humanism is not Christianity. Humanism is not “a reli- these were reasonable people having reasonable disagree- gion.” “One problem with [such a] position is that it takes ments. as unproblematic the entire business of defining religion” There is a lot of conversation at humanist meetings; Judy (Asad 2003:189). It suggests that religion has an essence; it is got what she wanted. The meetings at Thames Path were to say that “religion” is a thing whose characteristics can be repackaged but not remade. Humanism, in spite of Chris- organized around a presentation by a member or a guest tianity—and indeed often out of spite for Christianity—is speaker. These were sometimes complemented by small group different. Part of what we see in light of this ethnographic exercises. The discussions were often quite academic and pep- exploration is how the difference gets perceived and produced. pered with references to great minds of the past: Diderot, At a local, grassroots level, there are a growing number of Aristotle, , John Stuart Mill, . people throughout Britain who come together as humanists Thames Path addressed a range of issues over the course of and whose activities and perspectives as such play a role in 2011: medical ethics, homeopathy, faith schools and the struc- defining religion today. Every time these people come to- ture of state primary and secondary education, conceptions gether; every time they discuss medical ethics or the afterlife; of the afterlife. The range is typical for local groups. Hu- every time they sing; every time they argue over whether they manists talk about science, religion, ethics, and social issues. should sing; every time they take jibes at Christians; every One notable thing here, however, is that a lot of what hu- time they take offense at such jibes; every time they organize, manists talk about is the body: its care, its regulation (by the attend, or facilitate a “nonreligious” or humanist wedding or state and by oneself), its fate. So despite the ways in which funeral—these are all acts, articulations, and assertions of humanism is often portrayed as all about talk, the talk is often what it means to be religious and not in contemporary Britain. driven by the mundane, by material concerns, concerns of At the center of this humanist vision of religion is belief. life and death: medical ethics, assisted dying, stem cell re- To be religious is to be a believer, and to be a believer is to search, reproductive rights. be a certain kind of person who brackets off as separate a set of truths not explicable in scientific or naturalistic terms.11 Conclusion 11. There is not space here to address the matter of “belief” for hu- I spent 2011 studying a voluntary association. Its members manists; I am certainly not arguing that humanists have cracked the faith/ knowledge problem and operate only in the realm of the latter. Neither, got together, in the main, once a month for a couple of hours though, is it enough to rest with the kind of position of, say, Stathis to talk about ethical and social issues. They were primarily Gourgouris (2013), for whom this kind of “Christian-derived” atheism in their 50s or older. Sometimes their conversations concerned “reiterates and preserves, albeit by denying it, the semantics of belief as very personal issues, such as death and the afterlife, and some- a prosthetic dependency” (44). I would not want to back this normative claim about what counts as really real difference. In any case, to make times they addressed broad social concerns, such as faith- sense of “belief” in any given context, it would be necessary to trace a based schooling and health-care provision. These meetings range of relations, actions, and dispositions—again, not something there were complemented by other kinds of gatherings. They had is space here to address. S300 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Contemporary humanism thus reinforces a certain post- Whether we want to say the anthropology of Christianity is Enlightenment conception of religion that locates it in a set secular, we must at least acknowledge its secularizing sensi- of propositional assents—and “irrational” (or stupid, or de- bilities. Chief among these is the way it—like Thames Path lusional, or illogical) ones at that. The Victorian social an- humanism—makes Christianity “cultural.” thropologist E. B. Tylor once famously defined religion as This raises an issue for the anthropology of Christianity, “the belief in Spiritual Beings” (1871:383). Contemporary hu- for the “seriousness” with which Christianity is taken is, by manism enacts this definition; humanists take what Tylor said most theological and lay measures alike, categorically not the out of the scholar’s study and into the high street pub, into seriousness with which Christians take it. One important as- daily life. They take it from theory to praxis, and this in itself pect of the difference in the seriousness is that for Christians, is, I think, a valuable contribution to the ethnographic record. Christianity is never cultural. This is the difference the “sec- We have numerous genealogical and intellectual-historical ac- ular reason” (Milbank 1990) of social theory makes. Secular counts of how religion became belief after the Enlightenment reason is conditioned by culture, not Christ. It makes culture but surprisingly few case studies of how enlightenment gets axial. lived beyond its imagining. As some of the remarks by Audrey Christians are often uneasy with “culture.” Among the Af- and John (the semiretired psychologist) also suggest, this un- rican apostolics I studied in Zimbabwe (Engelke 2007), for derstanding of religion is based on its compartmentaliza- instance, culture was cause for concern. Christianity and cul- tion—another Enlightenment and specifically liberal conceit ture were juxtaposed with one another, and much of the that religion is a private matter, something that can be brack- apostolics’ thought and action was devoted to ridding them- eted off. There are some “bits of religion,” as John put it, that selves and society of those aspects of tradition—“African cul- might be worth saving. ture” is the term they used—that prevented the realization of To save these “bits,” humanists strive to make them not authentic Christianity. Of course this does not mean that they religious. Organized humanism is a project of clarification of understood themselves to live without culture or that certain the insisted on difference between what is cultural (religious aspects of what they did as Christianity was not cultural, even belief) and natural (certain modes of sociality). The humanists “African.” At core, though, Christianity itself—the truth of do not want belief, but they do want belonging; they do want the gospel message, the power of the Holy Spirit—had noth- the sense of community and even in some cases comfort that, ing cultural in its elementary makeup. The truth of Chris- as Sage said, the church has provided as a “default.” Some of tianity is universal, and this puts it beyond any bounds of the humanists also want to sing, some want places of their culture. More broadly in the ethnographic record, we have own, and some even want those places to be inspiring and numerous cases of how culture becomes a problem in this special. Local action is an important way in which these el- sense and how Christian moderns (Keane 2007), especially in ements of sociality and religiosity get asserted and made. the colonial and postcolonial world, attempt to resolve it.12 Humanism cannot countenance “acts of God,” then, pre- Among the evangelicals I studied in England (Engelke cisely because such acts depend on what they see as belief 2013), culture was likewise an oppositional term. But for these rather than knowledge. To call something an act of God is a Christians culture did not mean “English traditions,” as if in misstatement and a misperception of what is, for these hu- parallel with the Zimbabwe case. In the English context—as manists, really real: it confuses the forces of nature for agentive indeed more widely in the West—culture meant “secular so- action. Floods happen as a result of certain contingencies, not ciety,” the society writ large, for which Christianity was un- purposeful design—not the will of “spiritual beings.” As I derstood to be an irrelevance. The evangelicals often spoke have aimed to show, the only meaningful stories in humanist and acted as if they were not part of “the culture.” They were understandings of history can be those attributed to human part of “the Church.” (Not that they were always happy with action, human projects built up over time, slowly sifting out the Church.) The opposite of culture was “the Church.” And the residues of belief to uncover “the unshakable foundation much of what they did was geared toward “connecting with of universally valid knowledge about nature and society” the culture,” getting “the culture” to understand the relevance (Asad 2003:193). Sometimes the best way to take Christianity and ultimate, universal truth of Christianity. Here, too, in the seriously is not to take it too seriously. ethnographic record, we have numerous examples of how At the emic level, humanism produces what more and more “culture” becomes the index of a secular modernity against anthropologists and others in the human sciences bridle which Christians define themselves.13 against: the very idea that religion has to mean “belief.” Yet One way the literary and cultural critic Bruce Robbins if humanists are unanthropological in this way, reinforcing a (2011) describes the history of secularization is as “the tran- rather narrow definition, they are very anthropological in others. Or perhaps it would be better to say anthropologists 12. Many of the studies cited in n. 4 do just this. are often secularly humanistic, too. Anthropology might not 13. Good examples include James Bielo (2011), Omri Elisha (2011), Mathew Guest (2007), Susan Harding (2009), and Anna Strhan (2012), be “so secular” as the master narratives of modernity demand, all of whom trace the ways in which this language of church/culture but it is still, I would argue, somewhat so. There is a Chris- shapes Christian projects of social engagement, in these cases in the tianity of anthropology, to be sure, but it is not thus Christian. United States and United Kingdom. Engelke The Anthropology of Secular Humanism S301 sition from God to God-terms” (91). For the secular hu- Bielo, James. 2011. Emerging evangelicals: faith, modernity, and the desire for authenticity. New York: New York University Press. manists I got to know, as we have seen, any such transition Cannell, Fenella. 2005. The Christianity of anthropology. Journal of the Royal is not enough. The God-terms themselves have to go. They Anthropological Institute 11(2):335–356. have to be replaced with nature-terms, with a world not open ———. 2006. Introduction. In The anthropology of Christianity. Fenella Can- nell, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. to the gotcha arguments of a Carl Schmitt or John Milbank. Chua, Liana. 2012. The culture of Christianity: conversion, ethnic citizenship, Robbins (2011) goes on to say that many cultural critics “have and the matter of religion in Malaysian Borneo. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave never been very good at facing . . . whether these God-terms Macmillan. Elisha, Omri. 2011. Moral ambition: mobilization and social outreach in evan- are or are not God-equivalents” (91). I think anthropologists gelical megachurches. Berkeley: University of California Press. have to face up to this suggestion more readily and raise the Engelke, Matthew. 2004. Discontinuity and the discourse of conversion. Jour- question of the continuity thinking thus engendered. Another nal of Religion in Africa 34(1/2):82–109. ———. 2007. A problem of presence: beyond scripture in an African church. problem of Christian culture, then, is how to acknowledge Berkeley: University of California Press. and address culture’s secularity and what that might mean ———. 2010. Past Pentecostalism: rupture, realignment, and everyday life in for doing not only the anthropology of Christianity but what Pentecostal and African independent churches. Africa 80(2):177–199. ———. 2013. God’s agents: biblical publicity in contemporary England. Berke- is not the anthropology of Christianity. ley: University of California Press. To say that humanism is not Christianity is not to accept Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity. or reproduce the worldview of humanists themselves. This is Gourgouris, Stathis. 2013. Why I am not a postsecularist. Boundary 2 40(1): 41–54. not the surrender of critical distance. It is, rather, to “take Gray, John. 2007. Black mass: apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia. seriously” not only the difference Christianity makes but also London: Penguin. the difference something called secularity makes, in both Grayling, A. C. 2006. Against all gods: six essays on religion and an essay on kindness. London: Oberon. broad outline and in social and historical detail. In the case Guest, Mathew. 2007. Evangelical identity and contemporary culture: a congre- of these humanists in England, that difference hinges on some gational study in innovation. Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster. quite distinct notions of agency, of historicity, and of hu- Harding, Susan. 1991. Representing fundamentalism: the problem of the re- pugnant cultural other. Social Research 58:373–393. manity, of what is involved in backing not God but nature ———. 2009. Revolve, the Biblezine. In The social life of scriptures: cross-cultural in the organization and understanding of the world. perspectives on Biblicism. James Bielo, ed. Pp. 176–193. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Harris, Olivia. 2006. The eternal return of conversion: Christianity as contested domain in highland Bolivia. In The anthropology of Christianity. Fenella Cannell, ed. Pp. 51–76. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Acknowledgments Haynes, Naomi. 2012. Pentecostalism and the morality of money: prosperity, inequality, and religious sociality on the Zambian Copperbelt. Journal of The fieldwork for this article was funded by the Economic the Royal Anthropological Institute 18(1):123–139. and Social Research Council (RES 000-22-4157). I would like Keane, Webb. 2007. Christian moderns: freedom and fetish in the mission en- counter. Berkeley: University of California Press. to thank the many British Humanist Association and Thames Lilla, Mark. 2007. The stillborn god: religion, politics, and the modern West. Path Humanist members for their openness and engagement. New York: Knopf. An earlier version of this article was delivered as the Non- Lindhardt, Martin. 2009. The ambivalence of power: charismatic Christianity and occult forces in Tanzania. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 22(1): Religion and Secularity Research Network 2012 Annual Lec- 37–54. ture, at Conway Hall, in London; the version for the Wenner- Meyer, Birgit. 1998. “Make a complete break with the past”: memory and Gren Symposium was also given at the Max Planck Institute post-colonial modernity in Ghanaian discourse. Journal of Religion in Africa 28(3):316–349. for Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Go¨ttingen. I would like ———. 1999. Translating the devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in to thank the organizers, participants, and audience members Ghana. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. on these occasions for their feedback and engagement and Milbank, John. 1990. Theology and social theory: beyond secular reason. Oxford: Blackwell. above all, the other Wenner-Gren symposium participants in Mosse, David. 2012. The saint and the banyan tree: Christianity and caste society Sintra, Portugal. Thanks also to Leslie Aiello and Laurie Ob- in India. Berkeley: University of California Press. bink of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for making our stay in Pullman, Philip. 2011. Customs of my tribe. New Statesman, June 20. Robbins, Bruce. 2011. Enchantment? no thanks! In The joy of secularism: eleven Portugal so enjoyable and productive and Joel Robbins for essays for how we live now. George Levine, ed. Pp. 74–94. Princeton, NJ: his Herculean efforts, both intellectual and organizational. Princeton University Press. The final version of this article benefited from the comments ———. 2013. Is the postcolonial also postsecular? Boundary 2 40(1):245–262. Robbins, Joel. 2003. What is a Christian? notes toward and anthropology of of Naomi Haynes and two anonymous reviewers for Current Christianity. Religion 33(3):191–199. Anthropology. ———. 2007. Continuity thinking and the problem of Christian culture. Current Anthropology 48(1):5–38. Schmitt, Carl. 2006 (1934). Political theology: four chapters on the concept of References Cited sovereignty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Strhan, Anna. 2012. Discipleship and desire: conservative evangelicals, co- Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of religion: discipline and reasons of power in herence, and the moral lives of the metropolis. PhD thesis, University of Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kent. ———. 2003. Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity.Palo Tylor, E. B. 1871. Primitive culture: researches into the development of mythology, Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. philosophy, religion, art, and custom. London: John Murray. S302 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

An Unjealous God? Christian Elements in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion

by Janet Alison Hoskins

Despite the immense success of Christianity in many parts of the Global South, Asian intellectuals have often resisted actual conversion by incorporating Christian elements into new, more universal forms of spirituality. , a syncretistic religion that emerged in French Indochina, offers one case study of this process, which is also found in , Bahaism, and several Chinese redemptive societies. The place of Jesus within this new pantheon is explored in this paper by looking at the ways in which Christian ideas have influenced the organization, doctrine, and self-image of Caodaists in Vietnam and how these ideas have gained new force among Caodaists in the North American diaspora. Caodai “saints” famously incorporate prominent historical and literary figures as spiritual teachers, including Victor Hugo, Jeanne d’Arc, Vladimir Lenin, and (in the United States) . They provide new scriptures through spiritist se´ances, and through this mechanism they are able to “modernize” Caodai doctrine and expand it to fit new circumstances.

How have peoples who have not actually converted to Chris- constantly expanding pantheon of local heroes, literary fig- tianity been influenced by what we could call the “Christian- ures, and divinities, which fuses many different traditions. ization of religious categories”?1 I define this as the framing They envisioned an Asian synthesis that would be more tran- of the notion of religion in primarily Christian terms and the scendent than Christianity, absorbing the rituals of Rome as discussion of the history of religions in relation to Christian “localized practices” that addressed the same supreme deity themes (revelation, chosen peoples, apostles, congregations, as the one worshipped by their own ancestors. resistance to an empire, etc.). Is it possible to “convert to Caodaists promoted a new faith in which one could “con- modernity” without converting to an existing world religion? vert” to an organized, hierarchical religion with five levels of Perhaps more pointedly, is it possible to convert to modernity worship—Buddhist enlightenment is at the top, followed by without taking the Protestant model as the primary template the way of the Taoist immortals, then the “way of the saints” of the “Christian modern”? (including Jesus as well as Moses and Mohammed), the “way Caodaism is a new religion born in Vietnam in the 1920s of local spirits,” and ancestral veneration. Jesus is part of this that articulated spiritual goals for the nationalist struggle and pantheon, but in a relatively junior status, placed three levels developed its own alternative form of conversion. I explore below Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius. Countering the ar- its history to show how boundaries were drawn by European guments of Western missionaries that Christianity provided missionaries and how Asian colonized intellectuals have “tres- a more encompassing language to bring local beliefs into the passed” into the territory of Christianity. Although influenced modern age, Caodai revealed messages explicitly detailing how by many Christian ideas, Vietnamese colonized intellectuals Jesus and Jehovah could be integrated into the tolerant, syn- chose not to convert but to “absorb” Christianity by assigning cretistic traditions of the Asian sages.2 I will also argue, how- it a ranking within their own hierarchical worldview. They ever, that Christianity as a discourse of modernity competed built their own “Vatican in Vietnam,” situating it on the same strongly with French secular discourses of modernity, includ- plane as the Vatican in Rome, and refused to abandon the traditions of Buddhism, , and in moving ing Victor Hugo’s idiosyncratic “oceanic faith,” Spiritism, and toward modernity. As a new syncretistic religion, Caodaists the Free Masons (a ritualized fraternity with several intriguing reevaluated the figure of Jehovah to make him an “unjealous 1. Scholars of Chinese religion have showed how the idea of “religion” God”—the Jade Emperor—who presides over a diverse and has been shaped by Christianity in China, although actual conversions were relatively rare throughout the twentieth century. See Clart (2003), Goossaert and Palmer (2011), and Duara (2009). Janet Alison Hoskins is Professor of Anthropology and Religion at 2. Peter Van Der Veer (2014) has argued that Hindu modernists also the University of Southern California (3620 South Vermont Avenue, argued that theirs was a “form of spirituality that was far superior to the KAP-352, Los Angeles, California 90089, U.S.A. [[email protected]]). parochial teachings of Christianity” (89). Christianity was associated with This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 10 VII 14, and colonialism and secular materialism, so it was absorbed by being placed electronically published 19 XI 14. at a lower rank within a universal spirituality.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0015$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678183 Hoskins Christianity in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion S303 parallels to existing Sino-Vietnamese secret societies). Wouter late “saints.” The only term they did not find a place for in Hanegraff’s (1998) argument that religion emerged the Catholic pantheon was the one for localized guardian “in the mirror of secular thought” is perhaps also applicable spirits (thần), a term translated as “genie.” They denounced to this “New Age religion born in colonial Vietnam.” the “culte des genies” but simply reconfigured the worship of immortals and saints to fit Catholic doctrine. Each Catholic village came to be identified with a particular saint, whose name was then given to many villagers, replacing the guardian French Colonial Influences: spirits with a Catholic thần. Caodai theology emerged in part Catholics and Secularists as a systematization of the parallels between Vietnamese local spirit cults and Catholic divinities already established in these Given the history of colonial conquest, it is hardly surprising translations. that the face of the “Christian modern” in Vietnam was that of the tall spires of a Gothic cathedral filled with Papal pomp and pageantry. The first Frenchmen to make contact with French Views of Vietnamese Religion Vietnam were Catholic priests, who created a new romanized as “Confusionism” script to write the language, forged alliances with the founder French observers, even relatively sympathetic ones, viewed of the Nguyen dynasty, and proceeded to establish Catholic Vietnamese popular religion as a shapeless, anarchic jungle communities in many parts of the Red River Delta in the of wild elements that defied comprehension. Here is the fa- 1700s. mous opening to the French missionary scholar Le´opold Ca- The Catholic Mission was initially much more successful die`re’s Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Vietnamiens (The in the disciplined, communal villages of northern Vietnam Religion of the Vietnamese 1992 [1944]:1): and had relatively few converts in the more religiously eclectic Vietnamese religion (if indeed one can use the singular) south, where Ming dynasty Chinese refugees lived alongside produces an impression like that which is inspired by a Khmer Buddhists and the Muslim Cham. The city of Saigon journey into the great forest of the Annamite Cordillera: on was built as “the Paris of the East” by a generation of French- all sides are great tree trunks, their roots penetrating to men led by Free Masons and secular governments who col- unfathomable depths, supporting a vault of foliage lost in laborated with the Catholic Mission but wanted it to stay in shadow; branches stoop down to the earth and take root; its place. French secularism weakened the hold the Catholic seemingly endless creepers run from tree to tree, their or- Church had once had on their country by privatizing it, re- igins undiscoverable. stricting it to the sphere of family and individual subjectivity and using it to socialize inferiors—the young, the sick, the While his description is not without an appreciation for the poor, and the colonized. Elite European culture was seen as aesthetic value of Vietnamese ritual (“there are inextricable “enlightened” because it was not burdened with religious con- thorns, and fronds of surpassing elegance and delicacy”), it tent. The increasingly differentiated institutions of govern- also stresses elements of decadence (“the bark of the trees is ment, science, and religion defined their own spheres of au- dark, gnarled, or slimy, and one cannot touch it without a thority over health, education, morality, ritual, and politics. shudder, there are dead branches upon a thick carpet of mold The French Republic enshrined its secular heroes in the and decay”). And yet he finds within it a vitality and exu- Panthe´on mausoleum in Paris in much the same way that berance that is inspiring (“on all sides sap thrusts up and life the Confucian Temple of Literature in Hanoi reverently dis- abounds in overwhelming profusion”). played stone stelae with the names of great scholars engraved But what he does not find is coherence, or order, or a on them. Confucian scholar officials were also “Ministers of logical relation between the parts. While he argues that “re- Rites” and offered official certificates to establish the legiti- ligious feeling makes itself fully manifest and dominates the macy of the worship of certain local spirits or deified heroes whole of life,” he describes it as parading in the pomp of but not others. In 1919, the French colonial regime dissolved official ceremonies or “lurking furtively” at the foot of a tree the Confucian examination system, destroying the authority or in front of a rough stone. Because of this strong religious of Vietnamese scholars to regulate religious activities and co- feeling, the Vietnamese may “bow down before baleful idols” ordinate them. The creation of a complex Caodai religious or “make a serpent into an object of worship”: “Magic, with hierarchy was a partial response to this dissolution. It was its barbaric or absurd practices, is mingled with the noblest modeled not only on the offices of the Catholic Church— of religious observances.” While he recognizes Buddhist and with a pope, cardinals, and —but also on the idea Taoist elements, he concludes that “in the bulk of its beliefs of a modern republic—with a constitution and a division of and practices,” Vietnamese religion is “close kin to (and al- powers between executive, judicial, and legislative branches. most confounding itself with) the baser religions characteristic French Catholic missionaries of the seventeenth century of primitive mountain dwellers.” used the Vietnamese term for immortals (tieˆn) to translate It was descriptions such as these that inspired the rage of “angels” and the term for deified local heroes (tha´nh) to trans- Vietnamese intellectuals, who responded to this critique by a S304 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

French priest by deciding that they needed their own “Jesu- that they proposed were part of the nationalist project, but its”—religious scholars who would help them to claim a po- their own redrawing of the borders around religion (modeled sition within the religious field and reinvent Vietnamese on Western notions) were also motivated by a shrewd analysis traditions as a “religion” as centralized and imposing as the of what could be prohibited by a secular state and what it Catholic Church. They also needed their own organization— should be committed to tolerate. “a Vatican in Vietnam”—with a powerful administrative hi- Was Caodaism looking backward to the past or forward to erarchy and the capacity to transform worldly service to their the future? Caodaism’s “outrageous syncretism” was not as new religion into celestial ranks after death. And they received innovative as it appeared initially, but it managed to grow spirit messages telling them that the Supreme Being had rec- into a large, doctrinally complex religion whose “dogmatic ognized their sufferings and their humiliations and would grandeur” (as Woodside [1976:184] describes it) gave it more provide them not only with a divine mandate to organize stability and resilience than many related East Asian Salva- such a religion but also a new set of revelations to guide its tionist groups. In the early twentieth century there were many growth. syncretistic groups that tried to reconcile Asian religious traditions with Western belief systems.3 Caodai founders ar- gued in 1926 that both Eastern and Western traditions had The Jade Emperor Reveals a become morally bankrupt. They proposed to restore a lost “New Religion of the South” social equilibrium through a new congregational discipline. The that always existed implicitly in The mandate to form a new religion came from the Jade the Vietnamese combination of Buddhism, Taoism, and Con- Emperor, who contacted a group of three young spiritists who fucianism now needed to be defined explicitly against the worked in French colonial offices in Saigon. After months of pressures of European culture. This was done by casting it refusing to reveal his identity, a very erudite and literary spirit into color-coded institutional forms in which the cardinal red came down in a midnight se´ance on Christmas Eve in 1925 robes of Confucian and Catholic dignitaries represented the to declare, administrative branch, the turquoise robes of Taoist occultists For as long as we have seen, the southern country has not represented spiritual purity and tolerance, and the saffron had it own religion. Its foundation must now be laid. . . . robes of Buddhist dignitaries represented compassion and I, as the highest Master, have founded the in this south- charity. The revival of the pomp and pageantry of the imperial ern region to compensate a country that since the beginning past was conducted “in an atmosphere of almost voluptuous of its history has regularly suffered my vicissitudes. This nostalgia and strict liturgical discipline,” but it was able to time, I have decided to forgive you for your sins and redeem connect at a deep cultural level with the population because— you by returning glory to your country....Iwill give the as Alexander Woodside (1976) notes—“the eighth century greatest rewards to those disciples who show that they are Chinese poet Li Po [Ly´Tha´i Bach] . . . still touched the hearts most worthy of my favor. ...Fromthis day on, there is of more Vietnamese peasants than did the Paris commune” only one true religious pathway, the Tao, and that is my (187–188). pathway, which I have founded for my disciples and named Caodaists gave concrete form to their dream of unity by as the national religion of this region. building a splendid holy city, including a Great Temple with In 1926, twenty-eight prominent Vietnamese leaders—land- a Gothic front, and 1,338 smaller versions of this temple lords, businessmen, teachers, civil servants who worked for throughout the countryside (as well as almost a dozen replicas the colonial administration—and 245 others signed a decla- of the temple overseas). This “edifice complex” buttressed a ration officially founding their new movement. This docu- congregational and ceremonial form of ritual that resurrected ment was a sort of “Declaration of Religious Independence,” the vestments and pomp of the now banned Confucian rituals. which clearly stated that dozens of once secret societies were The high pointed hats worn by Caodai dignitaries are modeled to be united under one banner to reform morality and revive on those of Confucian scholars presenting themselves at the traditional ethics. What was not explicitly stated—but was imperial examinations. The amazingly intricate and complex clear for all to see—was that this ambitious unification of religious groups in Vietnam was meant to create a community 3. The Chinese “New Religion to Save the World,” formed in Beijing strong enough to stand up to both the French Catholic in 1919, combined the worship of six historical sages—Confucius, Bud- dha, Lao Tsu, the Jade Emperor, Jesus, and Mohammed—and spread Church and the secular French state. rapidly throughout China by 1925. The Fellowship of Goodness, founded Since 1905, France has had the strongest separation of in 1915, had mediums who were possessed by Confucius, Buddha, Lao church and state of any European power, which guaranteed Tzu, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, George Washington, and Tolstoy and the neutrality of the state and the freedom of religious exercise. was found throughout northern China by the 1920s. Woodside describes While the colonial state made no such guarantee of political both of these as an “attempt by less Westernized sections of Chinese society to bring under control the stormy mental phantasmagoria of freedoms (especially for incipient nationalists), when a com- China’s cultural revolution” but notes that they seem to have been thor- munity was incorporated as a religion, it would be hard to oughly destroyed by the later Marxist cultural revolution (Woodside 1976: challenge its legality. The kinds of moral and ethical reform 184.) Hoskins Christianity in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion S305

Caodai administrative hierarchy establishes ranks and duties Jesus and Jehovah from an for over 100 people, embodying its syncretistic theology in a East Asian Perspective series of titles bestowed on his disciples by the Jade Emperor Caodaists did not intend to provoke accusations of , himself. but they did insist on integrating Jesus and Jehovah into Asian Asian religious ideas were systematized and rationalized in theology. see divinity as something that Caodai theology, but its hierarchy combined Confucian titles exists as a potential in all people and that needs to be nurtured with French ones, so the title of Gia´o Toˆng, or “religious ð and cultivated. In Christian mythology, Adam and Eve live leader,” was translated as “pope,” and ảuSư, or “ceremonial in the garden of paradise and then eat an apple and lose their master,” was translated as “cardinal.” This was done to claim immortality. In East Asian mythology, humans are born mor- parity with Roman Catholicism, but organizationally the three tal, but a select few may attain immortality when served Asian religions were of much greater importance. Biblical peaches by the Taoist Queen of the Heavens, who has her ideas about history and popular emancipation were embraced own garden of celestial delights. Instead of a story of a fall, but given new interpretations: the Vietnamese were “God’s there are many stories of ascent, of individuals who have chosen people” because they had suffered the most oppressive cultivated their virtue and been able to ascend to the ranks colonial regime in Asia but had maintained their virtue, so of the gods (Sahlins 1996). The Jade Emperor also speaks in they would be rewarded by receiving teachings directly from a different register from the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Supreme God. more an indulgent father than an authoritarian lawgiver. I argue that Caodaism created a new religious field in Many messages are punctuated with cười, which means “smile French Indochina and in doing so invested a number of very or chuckle,” cluing us in to divine irony, much like the texting traditional elements with new significance and new dyna- smiley emoticon. mism. A religious field comes into being when a class of Caodaism preaches a discipline of self-cultivation and self- religious specialists emerge and try to centralize, systematize, perfection through which it is possible to attain divinity. All and control a body of knowledge. They do so to assert their spirits can aspire to become reunited with God, although only through a cycle of many different incarnations (the stages of religious authority and create a field of power in which others saints, immortals, sages). The “divinity of Christ” is therefore are disqualified as laypeople or dismissed as practicing “su- nothing special, and while Christmas is celebrated on the perstition,” “magic,” or some lower form of popular religion.4 Caodai religious calendar as the birth of Jesus, no particular The creation of a new religious field is often described as attention is paid to Easter. The immortality of the soul does the “modernization” of religion, but it can also be the opposite not require the resurrection of the flesh. of modernization. Paradoxically, this new religious field can The “Son of Man” in Caodaism is presented as a vulnerable be a defensive weapon used by the advocates of “tradition” young man who heroically sacrificed his life in the struggle who want to claim the same status for the beliefs and practices against an oppressive empire based in Rome. Noting that the they already have as the beliefs and practices of Christianity. Romans crucified him for leading what they saw as a na- When a self-consciously new “religious field” was opened up tionalist movement, calling him the “King of the Jews,” they in the early twentieth century in Vietnam, it was as a result saw immediate parallels in the French incarceration and ex- of a dialogue between Vietnamese heritage and Christian mis- ecution of young Vietnamese nationalists. The Second Com- sionaries as well as secularizing political reformers and rev- ing does not fit into this scheme and does not, in fact, make olutionaries. much sense in relation to karmic principles, so it is hardly Caodaists have been accused of trespassing on the terrain mentioned. of Christianity. Caodaism is a “modern” religion that marks In keeping with an East Asian emphasis on the teachings boundaries and institutionalizes them. French Catholic priests of elderly sages, Jesus does not give a great many teachings argued at the time that Caodaists had “kidnapped Jesus Christ in Caodaism. Many more come from his father, Jehovah, who and held him captive” in an East Asian pantheon. Christianity identifies himself as Cao ða`i, the “highest power,” the Jade 5 sees itself as a broad and welcoming spiritual land, but those Emperor. Jehovah bitterly scolds “humanity” for murdering who choose to immigrate there must observe the conventions of conversion—the right papers and documents, a waiting 5. The spirit message (received in French) in which Cao ða`i identifies period of learning catechisms before applying for the “citi- himself as Jehovah is as follows: “Nothing in this world exists without my will. There are many poor spirits who pretend that they have the zenship” of the baptism, and of course an exclusive com- secrets of God. But I have not given my revelations to any human being. mitment to keeping Christian figures at the top of the pan- To make contact with me, you need to pray to me directly. I will not theon, not messing things up with other religious teachers. hesitate to respond to sincere prayers. I am the Jehovah of the Hebrews, the God of the Israeli armies, the unknown God of the Jews, and the true father of Jesus Christ, and you can call on me with the name Cao ða`i so that your wishes will be heard. You come to me with the sincere 4. Goossaert and Palmer (2011:6–13) provide this summary of the feelings of the oppressed people whom you represent. I ask you to spread concept, developed from Pierre Bourdieu (1971). this doctrine to all your prote´ge´s. It is the only one that will sustain S306 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 his son and neglecting his most important teachings—those speaks to Caodai disciples mainly to urge them to follow the of equality and justice, kindness and charity. These charges Tao, the new way opened up by his father, which has super- of hypocrisy are, of course, most obviously directed at the seded all earlier religions. The Eucharist ritual in which wine French colonial presence, but they also include Vietnamese and wafers are supposed to represent the body of Jesus is Catholics. explicitly compared with the Caodai offerings of the three The image of Christ as a deity executed as a criminal and treasures, which take the form of offerings of incense, fruit his corpse displayed as a religious icon is in stark contrast to and flowers, tea and alcohol (“spirit”). Jesus’s relatively low the sages of the East (Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu), who all liturgical profile in Caodaism is similar to the place that he lived long lives and died peacefully. Jesus’s death on the cross occupies in related Chinese new religions such as is seen as punishment for the fact that he tried to spread the or the Daoyuan (Clart 2007:1325).6 He was the founder of a full and true Way, but the time for this had not yet come. So limited religious tradition that heroically resisted imperial tyr- he had to die lest the secrets of heaven be divulged in an anny and has now been incorporated into a more encom- untimely manner. passing spiritual vision. Caodaism urges its followers to see In a sermon delivered on Christmas Day in 1949, the Head the unity behind the differences, so specifically Christian Spirit Medium PhamCoˆng Tắc explicitly denied that Jesus teachings receive less emphasis than a shared ethical orien- himself was divine and stated that he—like all the rest of tation. humanity—was a child of God, although a deeply loved one: Several passages in the New Testament are read as proph- esying the coming of Caodaism: sections of the Apocrypha that speak of many people dressed in white preparing for the Why did Jesus Christ have to die? The death of Jesus means Second Coming, and the verse that says “You know very well that Jesus has offered to the Supreme Being his precious that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” saintly body exactly like the offering of the three treasures (1 Thessalonians 5:2; also Matthew 24:32–44). The se´ance at (body, mind and spirit) in our ceremony. His sacrifice re- which Cao ða`i first revealed his true purpose to the young deems the sins of humanity especially in Europe. Therefore, mediums was on Christmas Eve 1925, at midnight, “the hour it was not exaggerated to call Him by the two words “Cứu of the rat” in Sino-Vietnamese tradition. Most importantly, Thế” (the savior). Jesus is placed in a line of prophets and religious teachers He died like that, but if not for the greatness and power that was continued with the nineteenth-century French spir- of the divine eye of God, the death of Jesus Christ would itists. On October 27, 1926, the Supreme God declared that, be only a single shadow cast out. In itself it has no divine “Humanity suffers all sorts of vicissitudes. I sent Allan Kardec, power. God promised us all that we were his own children, I sent Flammarion as I had sent the prophet Elijah and John and he has welcomed all of humanity to his house, so we the Baptist, who came to announce the coming of Jesus Christ. can all appreciate the sacrifice of his son. And all the children One was persecuted, the other killed. And by whom? By hu- of God will recognize Jesus’s filial piety toward the Supreme manity. My son was also killed by you. You have only ven- Being. erated him in spirit, not in his full holiness.”7 No other religious leader has died on the cross. Jesus (in offering His body to the Supreme Being to redeem the sins 6. Numerous other East Asian pantheons incorporated Jesus, although of humanity) has fulfilled completely His filial duty toward none went quite as far as Caodaism. In China and Taiwan, many of the the Supreme Being. If it were not for the great love that Salvationist secret societies received spirit messages from Jesus, but these did not assume a central place in their theology. In the 1920s, the same God had for his son, then the death of Jesus Christ would time that Caodaism was being born in Vietnam, spirit mediums in China’s not have any more significance than the death of a criminal Shandung Province received messages from Jesus saying “my religion also executed for a . His supreme place as a religious leader, reveres the One” and “all religions are originally one family,” so “how sitting on a divine throne for nearly 2,000 years, is owed can they be divided into Chinese and foreign ones?” He affirms that following the Dao simply adds a dimension to a Christian’s spiritual entirely to the power of the Supreme God. experience, providing access to other spiritual paths besides the rather Jesus’s relationship to the Jade Emperor is treated within limited Christian teaching. “Jesus never preaches any specifically Christian ideas, because this specificity is exactly what the Daoyuan wants to over- the framework of filial obligations as understood on the Con- come, reaching for the unity beyond the differences” (Clart 2007:1325). fucian model (ðức Chu´a Je´sus Christ la`m con hiếuhanh). He Kang Youwei tried to revamp Confucianism into China’s “national re- ligion” in the early twentieth century by institutionalizing Sunday worship humanity in the love of all creatures and bring you a lasting peace” (Taˆy and preaching, “rejecting the content of Christian beliefs” but absorbing Ninh Holy See [1972], received December 17, 1926, in Saigon by the the power of Christian institutions and Jesus as a significant historical three founding mediums). The term “Cao ða`i” first appeared in print figure (Duara 2006:7). The Daoyuan belief system includes messages from in 1913, in a British Bible Society publication in Chinese characters Jesus, but his words “only appear to stamp an imprimatur upon teachings printed in Shanghai, with the lines: “Oh Jehovah! You are the highest that arise out of Chinese religion itself” (Young 1989:26). tower where we seek refuge,” because Cao ða`i has the literal meaning 7. A similar message came from the Supreme God on June 8, 1926: of “highest tower.” Caodai theologians identify this as a “prophesy” of “Christ came among you. He spilled his blood for your redemption. How the divine announcement that Jehovah and the Jade Emperor were in have you benefited during the roughly 2000 years that he has been gone? fact one in 1925. You preach his Gospel without understanding it. You distort the signif- Hoskins Christianity in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion S307

Caodaists assert that theirs is the first religion revealed di- humanity away to freedom, freedom away to equality, equality rectly by the Supreme Being, so it has no human founders. away to fraternity” (Chambers 2008:302). The falseness of Christianity is presented as having been very close to the earlier religious doctrines should be condemned by science teachings of Buddhism before it was “corrupted” by later and a new humanism, according to Hugo, in which the ideals European interpretations. of liberte´, e´galite´, and fraternite´ would be realized as the sacred coordinates of a new era. Hugo’s religious views, inspired by his own spiritist se´ances, Jesus in French Spiritism and were roughly in accord with Allan Kardec’s L’E´vangile selon the Work of Victor Hugo le spiritisme (The Gospel According to Spiritism 1987 [1866]). Kardec endorses the three stages of revelations, although he The first revelations from the Jade Emperor were received by a group of young Vietnamese civil servants who were exper- starts them with Moses (as do Caodaists) rather than with imenting with table tipping, inspired by recently published the Druids. He also interprets many of Jesus’s statements to transcripts of Victor Hugo’s 1853 se´ances on the island of confirm spiritist doctrines. The line “Except a man be born Jersey (Chez Victor Hugo: Les tables tournantes de Jersey, 1924). again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven” is interpreted Hugo was a famous critic of the Catholic Church and the as endorsing ideas of reincarnation (Kardec 1987 [1866]:45). sworn enemy of Napole´on III, the conqueror of French In- Both Hugo and Kardec were, of course, trying to merge “the dochina. From 1927 onward, Hugo’s spirit delivered a series gods of the East” with “the gods of West” in their own ways— of messages in both French and Vietnamese at Caodai se´ances, which is one reason they were attractive to Caodaists. Both condemning the French colonial regime and endorsing this were seen primarily as precursors of Caodaism, figures like new synthesis of East and West. John the Baptist, who announced the coming of a new era. The historical Victor Hugo did not believe in the divinity Kardec and the astronomer Flammarion are explicitly men- of Christ, but he did admire Christ as the mightiest figure in tioned by the Supreme Being, while Victor Hugo was ap- the history of mankind because he regenerated humanity “not pointed the “spiritual head of the overseas mission,” asked by spilling the blood of others, but by spilling only his own to oversee translating the message of Caodai to Europe and blood, by achieving great things through this death” (Cham- other French colonies.8 Later messages from Jeanne d’Arc bers 2008:253). He saw Jesus’s sacrifice as admirable but noted (defending the right of the Vietnamese to self-determination) that he had failed to root selfishness from the human heart. and Vladimir Lenin (noting the parallels between communist Jesus spoke to Hugo in a se´ance on February 11, 1855, to ideas of equality and justice and Buddhist ones) develop this affirm a three-stage eschatology similar to that preached by more cosmopolitan pantheon in the 1930s. East Asian Salvationists: two earlier ages of religious revelation are identified as the time of the Druids and the time of Chris- tianity, the one identified with blood sacrifice, the other with The Loss of Country at Two Crucial Moments the sacrifice of the god himself. Caodaism was formed in response to the colonial crisis, when The Gospel took man out of the shadows and elevated him sovereignty was lost to the French. Vietnamese intellectuals to the heights. ...Itturnedadeaf-mute God into a living God who heard and spoke....Itremade man and it made responded to a need to create national unity on the spiritual woman....Itseyewasthefirst to see the mother as more plane as their country was divided into a colony and two than a breast....Thegreatconcern of religion should be protectorates. Fifty years later, it met its greatest challenge at not so much the just as the unjust, not so much the good the time of the fall of Saigon, a refugee crisis in which man as the wicked, not so much he who repents as he who thousands of Caodai disciples were sent into exile. This crisis seeks remorse. . . . The Gospel of the past said: the damned. eventually led to the globalization of the religion and the The Gospel of the future says: the forgiven. (Chambers 2008: reformulation of doctrines and practices in a new world. 300–301) Both of these crises were described in Vietnamese as the “loss of country” (mắtnước), a severing of the bonds between Victor Hugo described himself as the prophet of a third, nation and faith. The 1925 “conversion to modernity” was new, true religion that would declare the forgiveness of all an effort to seek equivalence with French notions of what a things and recognize that all things in the universe had souls. religion could and should do in the public sphere. The 1975 He saw himself as “the mighty questioner of God,” “the being who doesn’t believe but who thinks,” who follows in the conversion to a “global faith of unity” was an effort to re- footsteps of Moses, Socrates, Luther, Galileo, and as formulate this religion so that it could be both practiced in well as Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, and Molie`re. “He bears other countries and normalized within the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. icance of his holy doctrine. Humanity suffers the vicissitudes of all his apostles. They have not known how to follow the same pathway as their 8. A longer discussion of “European spirits” can be found in Hoskins Master.” (2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a,2012b, 2014, 2015). S308 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

The New Religious Field in California the revelations of the colonial period with the challenges of bringing Caodaism to a new land. After the communist vic- When Caodaists moved from Vietnam to California, the “long tory in 1975, spirit medium se´ances were no longer permitted. conversation” that they had been part of between Asian re- Taˆy Ninh, as the largest Caodai religious center and “the ligions and French Catholics and secularists was replaced Vatican,” was heavily policed, and thus access to divine coun- by a new set of interlocutors: Fundamentalist Protestant sel was cut off. Several smaller denominations of Caodaists Churches who sponsored refugee families, interfaith organi- had held their own spirit medium seances in Vietnam, and zations that included Baha’is and Mormons, and California a Caodai spirit medium from one of these non–Taˆy Ninh New Age secular religionists who practiced yoga, , groups founded a Caodai temple called Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a and mysticism instead of table tipping, poetry writing, and (“Court of Heavenly Reason”) in San Jose, California, in 1977. Spiritism. Caodaism came to see itself in the mirror of a new Led by two women (spirit medium Bach Dieˆu Hoa and a array of spiritual alternatives in which its supposedly “out- female archbishop), this temple received a huge volume of rageous syncretism” came to seem a bit tamer and less un- new spirit messages, which they published in eight different usual. volumes in the period from 1979 to 1999. The design of the Caodai leaders in California have tended to group them- altar at Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a was novel: spirit messages instructed selves into two factions. Some want to bring together the Bach Dieˆu Hoa to build it with Buddha in the center, flanked Vietnamese community of Caodaists as a “religion in exile” by the first disciple of Caodaism NgoˆVa˘n Chieˆu on his left in order to fortify themselves against the dangers of Western and Jesus to his right. This accorded a more central position consumerism and hedonism. Others want to translate Caodai to Jesus than any earlier Caodai temple and positioned Cao- scriptures into English to promote a global “faith of unity” daism as the “intersection” of Buddhism and Christianity in that will eventually expand beyond the Vietnamese com- an intriguing way. munity once its teachings become better known to a wider Most of the communications she received were from the public. great spiritual teachers of the past. In the “first Bible” of spirit Proponents of the “religion in exile” position were very messages received at the temple (Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a 1984), concerned about the fact that the religious hierarchy in Taˆy there were 54 messages, including 12 from the Jade Emperor, Ninh had been “contaminated by communists,” while the six from Jesus Christ, two from Buddha, two from the warrior younger generation of young Vietnamese growing up in Cal- saint Quan Tha´nh ðeˆQuan, one from the Virgin Mary, four ifornia were “contaminated by American values” that dis- from NgoˆVa˘n Chieˆu, two from Ly´ Tha´i Bach (the Taoist couraged respect for elders and for the community. They were poet and “spiritual pope”), one from the Mother Goddess engaged in projects of purification that tended to work (Dieˆu Trı´ Kim Mẫu), one from Noah of the Old Testament, through exclusion—of those who were politically incorrect, and one from the first American spirit to be heard from in of those who provided idiosyncratic interpretations, and of the new world: Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.9 those who proposed to modify Caodai rituals in any form. In 2003 and 2004, conventions of Caodai leaders from all As a result, they have been relentlessly conservative and even over North America (and even some coming from Europe dogmatic in many of their policies. and Australia) were held at Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a to ordain a On the other hand, the proponents of the global “faith of new generation of priests and deacons (lễ sanh) to lead the unity” persuasion have sought to reach out through cable overseas congregations independently of the organizations in television programs, LISTSERVEs, publications, and websites. Vietnam. This controversial move was sanctioned by spirit They have been particularly intrigued by the conversations messages that had announced that as long as the Vietnamese they have had with related religious movements, such as the temples were “in the hands of the communists,” congregations similarly syncretistic Baha’i and America’s largest “indigenous in the diaspora would need to train their own leaders. I at- religion,” Mormonism. From Los Angeles, they have explored tended the 2004 conference in San Martin (near San Jose), links their theology shares with the now Taiwan-based Yig- where Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a had relocated on a large rural prop- uandao and in the Oomoto lineage. erty with an elaborate pond, bridge, and garden designed to The primary inspiration of their efforts to expand has been resemble the temple of the first disciple of Caodai, NgoˆVa˘n the success of Tibetan Buddhism—also a religion in exile, Chieˆu, in CầnThơ. persecuted by a communist government, and lead by a char- These “new revelations of the New World” have reached ismatic figure open to science and diverse perspectives. Cao- daism’s Dalai Lama figure in the 1950s was the Head Spirit 9. Caodaists had met Mormon missionaries in California and had seen Medium PhamCoˆng Tắc, who explicitly modeled his anti- pictures of the Gothic towers of the Great Temple in Salt Lake City, which colonial resistance on Gandhi’s. Some people in Taˆy Ninh has many “Caodai symbols” displayed on it—the all-seeing eye, the sun refer to him as “the Mahatma of Vietnam,” but since his and moon and the Big Dipper. Joseph Smith’s message—like many of the messages received from Jesus—is basically an endorsement of the death in 1959, he has had no successor. Great Way of Caodaism, and advocates continued self-cultivation in a The primary challenge for the global “faith of unity” pro- very Asian style. But the inclusion of this “American religious leader” in ponents has been seeking divine guidance in order to reconcile the Caodai pantheon was of some consequence. Hoskins Christianity in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion S309

Vietnam through the Internet and were familiar to many floating spiritual signifiers that find their homes in the hearts Caodai leaders I met in Ho Chi Minh City and elsewhere. of their disciples rather than in the soil of a particular place. While few of them supported the idea of an independent diasporic religious hierarchy, they did appreciate funding sent Caodaists and Christians in Dialogue from Caodaists overseas to renovate their temples, and they happily received visitors from Caodai communities all over Today, Caodaism’s relationship with Christianity has shifted the world who came to do meditation workshops, who con- in both Vietnam and in diasporic settlements. In 1992, the tributed articles to Caodai publications, and who visited Taˆy Catholic Pope invited Caodai leaders to visit him in Rome Ninh and other temples on pilgrimages. Caodaism, which had to “pray for peace” and devise a united strategy to rebuild struggled to heal the wounds of colonialism in the 1920s and their congregations in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The 1930s, is now trying to reconcile deep Cold War divisions Vietnamese state had “nationalized” most properties belong- that still separate congregations on opposite sides of a huge ing to both Catholics and Caodaists, and so they shared a ocean. desire to work toward the gradual return of many temples, In Vietnam, Caodaism has been redefined as an “indige- offices, schools, and clinics. In today’s Ho Chi Minh City, nous religion of the south” in a formulation that neutralizes Caodaists cooperate with Catholic priests to run a free medical some of its political history by stressing its roots in Saigon clinic that rotates from church to temple. They participate in and the Mekong Delta, emphasizing its regional spread rather an increasing number of interfaith activities together and pro- than its global ambitions, and circumscribing its influence claim their “mutual respect” frequently and publicly. while relaxing some restraints on worship.10 “Caodaists want to have Christ without Christianity,” one In 2007 the Vietnamese Department of Religious Affairs Catholic priest told me recently. “They see Jesus as a prophet, published a new study of Caodaism arguing that although but not as a divinity.” Many Caodaists might agree, because Jesus was prominently pictured in the pantheon, “there was they say that they have reclaimed the insurrectionary power no Christian theology” in this “.” The var- of the early gospels but have separated them from the insti- ious elements of Caodaism were all seen as present in southern tutional framework that had historically served to link “Chris- Vietnam and assembled “in the tolerant, accepting spirit” of tian values” to European ones. But opposition to French or Vietnamese folk psychology (PhamBı´ch Hơp 2007). Down- American values is no longer an urgent issue for contem- playing both Caodaism’s very substantial foreign influences porary Vietnamese, who are becoming increasingly enthusi- and global ambitions, this description notes that Caodaists astic participants in a globalized market economy. For them, do not self-identify as Christian but as “modern” and see a “fusion religion” such as Caodaism is attractive for its cos- Caodaism as a modernist synthesis of , which mopolitan elements instead of the “indigenous” origins makes the Vietnamese people the central actors in reconciling stressed by government policies of normalization. divergent traditions. Caodai websites and Internet forums have brought in a In California, an alternative hierarchy has been formed that number of non-Vietnamese “Internet converts” who made blends New Age aspirations and anticommunism, new rev- contact with religious leaders through e-mail and eventually elations with ancient “wisdom teachings.” Vietnamese Cao- became more active in the religion. In 2006, the Southern daists argue that for a religion born in Vietnam, its “Holy California Caodai community decided to ordain its first non- Land” (tha´nh d¯ia) cannot be shifted to a new continent— Vietnamese minister. Linda Blackeney Holverstott, an African not even to the immense new Caodai temple being built in American nurse from New York City, had been in touch with Houston, sponsored by a Texas Caodaist who won the state them after she discovered Caodaism in 2004 when she visited lottery. For others, however, spiritist practices suggest that the Vietnam as part of a medical mission to treat AIDs patients. idea of “Holy Land’ does not chart a specific piece of land She was very impressed by the Taˆy Ninh temple and by the but a kind of spiritual geography, a de-territorialized idea of warmth of the people there. At her ceremony she said, I have traveled to many places as a medical missionary, but 10. In 2007, the official Religious Press of Hanoi published a book by never was I received as warmly as I was in Vietnam. At the PhamBı´ch H p titled The People of the Southern Region and Indigenous ơ temple in Taˆy Ninh, people were very welcoming. As a Religions (Người Nam Bộ va`Toˆn Gia´o Bản ðia) (2007), with a com- bination of interviews, surveys, and ethnographic research concerning person of color, I do not always feel comfortable visiting the southern millenarian religious movements known as Bu SơnKy´ religious sanctuaries, but at the Great Temple I felt that I Hương (strange fragrance from the precious mountain), Cao ða`i (the had finally come home. Some people have told me that I highest tower), and HỏaHa`o Buddhism (designating its village of origin). must be an Oriental inside, or perhaps I followed Asian This new study expressed a more conciliatory government attitude toward traditions in a previous life. In any case, I was very happy groups once designated as practicing “superstition” and “reactionary pol- itics,” sanctioning them under the new and increasingly common de- to visit the Taˆy Ninh temple, and I felt that it was a spiritual scription of these groups as “indigenous religions” (toˆn gia´o bảnd¯ia). homecoming. It began the process of learning about Cao- The nature of this new sanction and its history raises a series of questions daism, which is finishing at this ceremony. about what exactly could be meant by “indigenous” and how it is being used in today’s Vietnam (see Hoskins 2015). Linda had completed full training as an acupuncturist and S310 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 doctor of Oriental medicine (1994–1998), which included ex- tant place in the predominantly Christian religious field of tensive study of the Taoist principles so important in Cao- California. Some religious leaders now see the dozen non– daism. Caodai leaders were impressed that she had been a Taˆy Ninh denominations that emerged after 1934 as “Prot- vegetarian for over three decades, because vegetarianism is estant” responses to the overweening ambition of the Vatican often seen as a discipline that Westerners have trouble fol- in Vietnam. Caodaists continue to conceptualize their reli- lowing. While she did not know Vietnamese, she studied Cao- gious history in the mirror of both Christian and secular dai scriptures in English translations and took the oath at her images of modernity and to claim that their “expanding the- ceremony in both English and Vietnamese. ology” is flexible enough to face the new challenges of the Linda’s background was Christian, and she did not see twenty-first century. herself as abandoning her Christian beliefs in embracing this How “Christian” is a religion that does not affirm the di- syncretistic new religion. On the contrary, for her (as for the vinity of Christ and does affirm a unitary source for all di- founders of Caodaism in 1925), Jesus was simply “moved vinities? It seems to me that Caodaists are most “Christian” into a larger home,” which could also accommodate figures in their acceptance of a Roman Catholic institutional model such as Buddha, Confucius, and Lao Tzu. (fused with the Confucian bureaucracy and its Ministry of Caodaists see their religion as the culmination of a historical Rites) and a “theologizing of history” that identifies chosen evolution toward a universalistic spirit. Denying the “impe- people, a master and his 12 apostles (associated with the rially global perspective” of Europeans who saw Christianity twelve animals of the East Asian zodiac), a lost homeland, as the basis for categories of human rights and social justice and a divine mission to reconquer it. Caodaists see themselves (Masuzawa 2005; Robbins and Engleke 2010), they find these as followers of a modern, congregational religion that fuses same categories in the East Asian tradition. At the same time the great philosophical ideas of the East with the great his- they also see this evolutionary trajectory as predestined, be- torical achievements of the West and that a fusion cause all religious diversity originally came from a single of Eastern ethics and Western statecraft in a new divinely source. Syncretism is therefore both the starting point and mandated nation state. the ending point of history. Through diaspora, syncretism is For the anthropology of Christianity (Cannell 2006; Rob- projected out across space, and the uniquely Vietnamese char- bins and Engelke 2010), it provides an example of what we acteristics of early Caodaism are inscribed onto a much wider might call “counter Orientalism.” Jesus, seen as a figure of geographic expanse. Western modernity because his teachings were spread by Eu- ropean empires, is reclaimed as a revolutionary leader com- mitted to the self-determination of Asian peoples. And his Caodaism and “the Anthropology message may then also come to appeal to people such as of Christianity” Linda Blackeny Hofstetter, not Asian herself but drawn to the syncretistic fusion of a postcolonial theology. The has become increasingly aware Cannell notes that many Western writers, though not ex- of how much of the supposedly “objective” tool kit of com- plicitly Christian, still believe that Christian conversion is a parative concepts comes from Christian traditions and Chris- “unique and irreversible event” and that Christianity is in- tian ideas of what a “religion” is supposed to be. The impetus evitably a modernizing force. She suggests that the term “mo- for Caodaists to modernize East Asian traditions and unite dernity” itself may have “become superstitious in the social them into an organization that could “claim a seat for Viet- sciences,” as it is “itself modeled on the Christian idea of nam” at the Parliament of World Religions reflects a fusion conversion” (Cannell 2006:39). Christians are convinced of of theological “modernity” with Christian-like doctrine. Cao- “Christian exceptionalism,” that their doctrine is an unprec- daism includes Jesus but is not “Christocentric,” and it pro- edented and singular revelation of the truth, so “it is when duces “latter-day saints” who will become divine in the af- this vision of itself is met with indifference by another culture terlife, in some ways like Mormonism (Cannell 2005:349). that Christian thinking seems to fall into most confusion” Placing Jesus at a lower level than many Asian sages meant (Cannell 2006:44). that in the past, Caodaists were more likely to be accused of Caodaists, while hardly “indifferent” to Christianity, did blasphemy than praised for their tolerance (Hoskins 2010, receive spirit messages that placed Jesus and his teachings in 2015). an important but not supreme position in relation to the Caodai spirit se´ances in the 1920s defined a place for Viet- older teachings of the Asian sages. They believed that their namese people to stand in relation to a cosmopolitan con- fusion of all religions expressed a higher transcendence—the versation about the relations between the world religions and culmination of a process of religious evolution that has pro- the specific historical destiny of the Vietnamese. The borders gressed considerably further than Axial age assumptions. By of Christianity and Buddhism were drawn in one way during integrating Christianity under the wider umbrella of East the French colonial period but came to be perceived rather Asian cosmology, they have made themselves “more catholic differently after partition in 1954 and especially after the “ex- than the Catholics,” applying the Catholic theory of “incul- odus” of 1975. Jesus Christ has been granted a more impor- turation” to European religion and tolerating Christian rituals Hoskins Christianity in a Vietnamese Syncretistic Religion S311 as “sincere but unsophisticated practices” that approach the Duara, Prasenjit. 2006. Religion and citizenship in Asia. Asia Research Institute Public Lectures. Singapore: National University of Singapore. Jade Emperor as the supreme transcendent deity. ———. 2009. An East Asian perspective on religion and secularism. In State Peter Van Der Veer (2010:1) has argued that “By far the and secularism: perspectives from Asia. Michael Heng, Siam-Heng, and Ten greatest problem for the anthropological study of Christianity Chin Liew, eds. Singapore: Word Scientific. Goossaert, Vincent, and David A. Palmer. 2011. The religion question in modern today is that it is not part of a comparative endeavor that China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. examines the interaction of religious movements and projects Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1998. New Age religion and Western culture: esotericism in different regions of the world.” Anthropologists and his- in the mirror of secular thought. SUNY Series in Western Esoteric Traditions. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. torians have managed to “provincialize Europe” (Chakrabaty Hoskins, Janet. 2009. Can a hierarchical religion survive without its center? 2000) in many ways but have not yet managed to “provin- Caodaism, colonialism and exile. In Hierarchy: persistence and transfor- cialize Christianity” as an object of study that does not nec- mation of social formations. Knut Rio and Olaf Smedal, eds. Pp. 113–141. London: Berghahn. essarily represent an irreversible moment of transformation. ———. 2010. Seeing syncretism as visual blasphemy: critical eyes on Candoi One step toward doing so might be to pay attention to the religious architecture. Material Religion 6(1):30–59. ambitions of this new faith that proclaimed a postcolonial ———. 2011a. Diaspora as religious doctrine: “an apostle of Vietnamese nationalism” comes to California. Journal of Vietnamese Studies 4(1):45– Age of Enlightenment in which Christianity would have a 86. diminished but still significant place in the hierarchy of wis- ———. 2011b. What are Vietnam’s indigenous religions? Newsletter of the dom traditions. Center for Southeast Asian Studies 64:3–7. ———. 2012a. “God’s chosen people”: race, religion and anti-colonial resistance in French Indochina. Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series, no. 189. Singapore: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Acknowledgments ———. 2012b. A posthumous return from exile: the legacy of an anti-colonial religious leader in today’s Vietnam. Southeast Asian Studies 1(2):213–246. Research in Vietnam and California was supported by the ———. 2014. “From colonial syncretism to Transpacific diaspora: re-orienting Caodaism from Vietnam to California. DORISEA Working Paper Series. National Science Foundation (grant 0752511, “Ethnic Resil- German Consortium for Research on Southeast Asia, University of Go¨t- ience and Indigenous Religion: A Transnational Perspective tingen. http://www.dorisea.de/de/node/1615. on Vietnamese Immigrant Congregations in California”), the ———. 2015. The divine eye and the diaspora: Vietnamese syncretism becomes Transpacific Caodaism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Forthcoming. Henry R. Luce Foundation (funding received through the Kardec, Allan. 1987 [1866]. The Gospel According to Spiritism. J. A. Dun- Center for Transpacific Studies), and the Center for Religion can, trans. London: Kardec Center. http://www.spiritisthouston.org/?page and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. I _idp62. Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The invention of world religions; or, how European want to thank Joel Robbins, Naomi Haynes, and all the par- universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism. Chicago: University ticipants at the Sintra conference for their comments and of Chicago Press.  ð suggestions. PhamBı´ch Hơp. 2007. Người Nam Bộ va`Toˆn Gia´o Bản ia [The people of the southern region and indigenous religions]. Hanoi: Religious Affairs Department. Robbins, Joel, and Matthew Engelke. 2010. Introduction. In Global Chris- References Cited tianity, global critique. Special issue, South Atlantic Quarterly 109(3):623– Bourdieu, Pierre. 1971. Gene`se et structure du champs religieux. Revue Fran- 632. ¸aisec de Sociologie 12:295–334. Sahlins, Marshall. 1996. The sadness of sweetness: the native anthropology of Cadie`re, Le´opold. 1992 (1944). Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Vietna- Western cosmology. Current Anthropology 37(3):395–428. miens. Paris: E´cole Franc¸aise d’Extreˆme-Orient. Taˆy Ninh Holy See. 1972. Official spirit messages [Tha´nh Ngoˆn Hiệp Tuyeˆn]. Cannell, Fenella. 2005. The Christianity of anthropology. Journal of the Royal Taˆy Ninh: Vietnam. Anthropological Institute, n.s., 11:335–356. Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a. 1984. ðai Gia´c Tha´nh Kinh [Revelations of sacred scrip- ———, ed. 2006. The anthropology of Christianity. Durham, NC: Duke Uni- ture]. San Martin, CA: Thieˆn Ly´BữuTo`a Desktop Publishing. versity Press. Van Der Veer, Peter. 2010. “Christianity and its Others.” Global Christianity, Chakrabaty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and his- global critique: the immanent frame: secularism, religion and the public sphere. torical difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/10/25/christianity-and-its-others (accessed Chambers, John. 2008. Victor Hugo’s conversations with the spirit world. Roch- August 1, 2015). ester, VT: Destiny Books. ———. 2014. The modern spirit of Asia: the spiritual and the secular in China Clart, Philip. 2003. Moral mediums: spirit-writing and the colonial construc- and India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. tion of Chinese spirit-mediumship. Ethnologies 25(1):153–190. Woodside, Alexander. 1976. Community and revolution in modern Vietnam. ———. 2007. Jesus in Chinese popular sects. In The Chinese face of Jesus Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Christ, vol. 5. Roman Malek, ed. Pp. 1315–1333. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Young, Richard Fox. 1989. Sanctuary of the Tao: the place of Christianity in Institut Monumenta Serica/China-Zentrum. a Sino-Japanese unity sect. Journal of Chinese Religions 17:1–26. S312 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Rotting Bodies The Clash of Stances toward Materiality and Its Ethical Affordances

by Webb Keane

Any community supposedly identified with a “single” kind of Christianity is likely to contain conflicts and divisions due to the different logics and temporalities associated, respectively, with ecclesiastical institutions, popular practices, and scriptural texts. These conflicts may extend even to basic ontological assumptions. This article looks at clashes concerning popular practices surrounding relics and icons in Eastern Orthodoxy. It asks what are the ethical stakes when people insist on the powers of material things even in the face of withering criticism and contempt from inside and outside their church. That criticism, which can have both theological and atheistic bases, often focuses on the allegedly instrumental reasoning and selfish motives of people who expect to receive divine intervention from objects such as relics and icons. I argue that popular practices that focus on the agency of objects may above all be responding to material properties as ethical affordances. These affordances provide ways of treating the world as ethically saturated. In the Eastern Orthodox context, this may be one way for ordinary villagers to take lofty theological claims about the divine nature of humans in concrete terms.

By now it is widely accepted that even the most austere and tified with a “single” religion.2 These conflicts tend to fall into otherworldly religious traditions must take some material certain patterns. Christianities (a baggy category, to be sure, form. But why should that matter? I have suggested some but an indigenous one) are continually shaped by interactions answers to that question elsewhere (Keane 2007, 2008), as among three components of their ongoing religious self-for- have many others (e.g., Meyer and Houtman 2012; Morgan mation. These components are (a) ecclesiastical institutions, 2010; Yelle 2013). In this article I attempt to develop a dif- (b) popular practices, and (c) scriptural texts. Certainly cat- ferent approach by asking what are the ethical stakes when egories such as these can only be rough heuristics, and cer- people insist on the powers of material things even in the tainly they articulate with all the political, economic, tech- face of withering criticism and contempt from inside and nological, demographic, and other dynamics that shape any outside their church. That criticism often focuses on what are history, religious or not. Moreover, in any given context, they apparently this-world goals, instrumental stance, and selfish are likely to be deeply intertwined with one another. Clerics motives of the kind of (supposedly) simple folk who expect may try to co-opt unruly visionary shepherds, nobles and to provoke or receive divine intervention from objects such soldiers take monastic vows, institutions control scriptural as relics, icons, amulets, holy water, and so forth. By stressing education, money lenders must mind moral legislation, mil- the ethical dimension, I want to suggest an alternative, or at lenarian leaders repurpose liturgical devices, reformers strip least a supplement, to this familiar viewpoint. I will argue churches bare, egalitarians try to do away with priesthoods, that popular practices that focus on the agency of objects may revivalists denounce theologians, spontaneous pilgrims seek above all be treating the world as ethically saturated.1 In the officially sanctioned holy water, and somewhere there is likely Eastern Orthodox Christian context that I discuss here, this to be a scriptural text for just about anyone. Yet institutions, may be one way for ordinary villagers (or anyone else who popular practices, and texts also have their own rather dif- responds to that agency) to take lofty theological claims about the divine nature of humans in concrete terms. ferent historical dynamics, and there is something to be gained The conflicts I describe in this article exemplify, in certain by keeping them analytically distinct. They follow different respects, the kinds of deep ontological and semiotic divides 1. Although the debate with which this essay opens focuses on the that we are likely to find in any community supposedly iden- practices of peasants, the term “popular practices” can apply to any social group. The point here is that people of all sorts are prone to inventing new practices more or less independently of official approval or doctrinal Webb Keane is George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor in the authority. We might include here someone like Rasputin who, although Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan (101 West accused of heresy by the Holy , was a favorite of the royal family. Hall, 1085 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109- 2. The anthropological use of the category “religion” is subject to a 1107, U.S.A. [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII well-known set of criticisms (see Asad 1993; Masuzawa 2005), but its use 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and electronically published 19 XI 14. in this article attempts to be consistent with the indigenous category.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0016$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678290 Keane Materiality and Its Ethical Affordances S313 logics, are shaped by different causalities, and follow different undertaking in mind, I have written this article as an exercise temporalities. Each offers its own kinds of affordances on in thinking through some ethnographic materials from East- which new institutions, practices, and ideas may draw.3 ern Orthodoxy that I cannot claim as “mine.” The purpose Their interactions are, in part, provoked by the distinct is to see what insight we might gain by bringing to these kinds of problems that materiality poses for social organi- materials some of the questions that arose in my own field- zations, ongoing practices, spoken and written words, per- work with a different kind of Christianity. sonal emotions, and ideas.4 Because institutions, popular practices, and scriptures are semiotically mediated in different Relics, Representations, and Revolutions ways, they are also prone to developing divergent semiotic ideologies. These are the major forces “internal” to religion (to put this in crude shorthand) that give a distinctive shape In a recent book about saints’ relics in late imperial and early to its history. They are further complicated when confronted revolutionary Russia, the historian Robert Greene quotes an with forces that define themselves as “external” or even op- exchange that took place in 1919 between an Orthodox bishop posed to religion, such as the Bolshevik proponents of atheist and a Bolshevik commissar over the exhumation of the re- materialism discussed below. But it is important to bear in mains of Saint Feodosii Totemskii. This exhumation was part mind that as in social worlds generally, conflict and contra- of an ongoing campaign by the Bolsheviks to discredit the diction are inevitable parts of any religion, no matter how church and prove to the lay public that they had been hood- winked by the clerics. It was an opening volley in a long hegemonic it may seem, and they are hardly confined to novel campaign to use the techniques and findings of modern sci- situations introduced only by outsiders. ence to demonstrate scientific materialism and disprove re- In order to recognize such distinct temporalities, logics, ligion that, in various permutations, would run throughout and causalities, anthropologists must be ethnographic. But we the Soviet era (see Husband 2000; Luehrmann 2011; Peris cannot stop at being only ethnographic: we must also think 1998). The exhumations focused on the materiality of bodies. with and beyond our particular observations. As I have argued In the first decade of Bolshevik rule, more than 70 “relic in- elsewhere, our strongest insights grow neither from the in- spections” were carried out, intended to demonstrate publicly timacy of the fieldworker nor the distant gaze of the theorist that the supposedly incorruptible saints were in fact decayed but from our constant movement between these poles (Keane and therefore mortal flesh (Greene 2010:104). The presuppo- 2003a). To my mind, this means we must reinvent the com- sition of these inspections was that believers in miracle-working parative endeavor in order to learn from one another. If an- relics expected them to be sacred, and because they were sacred, thropology is to be comparative, anthropologists must be able immune to corruption. This incorruptibility was in turn sup- to work with one another’s ethnographies.5 With such an posed to be the proof any believer should expect of the sanctity of the relic. The Bolsheviks’ expectation was that once the 3. I refer here to interactions among different components of what we are calling “religion” rather than those among different groups or ordinary materiality of saintly flesh was exposed, the simple doctrines such as occurs in reform, schismatic, or missionary movements. believers would come to their senses (or perhaps more ac- But the play among institutions, popular practices, and scriptures can curately, the evidence of their senses would bring their minds be a factor in the more or less agonistic dynamics between groups, which around) and become disillusioned with the clergy, the Or- are the subject of several papers in this supplement to Current Anthro- thodox church, and by extension religion altogether. pology (e.g., Bialecki 2014; Handman 2014; Marshall 2014; Vilac¸a 2014). As Caroline Humphrey observes, oppositional dynamics can take the It was against this background, then, that the bishop spoke form of mirroring, an antithetical focus on the same ritual-liturgical of the sacrilegious treatment of Saint Feodosii. The commissar elements as those possessed by the opposing group. Even movements answered that his complaint was misguided, because “The that avoid scripture (Engelke 2007) are by the same token shaped by it. exhumation confirmed that the remains of the venerable Feo- And of course, as Hoskins’s (2014) example of Cao Dai in this issue shows, the dynamics can also be emulative or appropriative as well as dosii in no way constitute uncorrupted relics as the church oppositional. billed them, but are, rather, the ordinary, mortal remains of 4. “Materiality” includes sound (see Bandak 2014; Harkness 2014) and a human body.” In response, the bishop argued that the one’s own corporeality (see Mayblin 2014). church had never held that relics must necessarily be uncor- 5. Of course I am not the only one calling for a reinvention of com- rupted, and those who thought so are “possessed of a zeal parative anthropology. In this supplement to Current Anthropology, Cass- aniti and Luhrmann (2014) do so as well. But their approach, being for God beyond the bounds of reason. . . . One-sided and focused on individual psychological states, is not geared toward including incorrect, the opinion of these people brings much harm to those sociological and semiotic dimensions of religion that give them the the church.” To this the commissar sarcastically retorted, historical effect I would like to keep central to the project. And this supplemental issue as a whole arises out of Joel Robbins’s rather different Even if you, a man well-read in church books, think that vision of comparison in the form of an anthropology of Christianity (see relics are only the remains of a body, principally bones, can Robbins 2003). I take his grounds for comparison to be not human universals, such as cognition, or ideal types, such as charisma, or analytical problem faced by “” in light of the difficulties of constructs, such as power, but orders of things united by empirically establishing a nonethnocentric category of “religion” for the entire range particular genealogical relationships. That is one attempt to avoid the of human societies (see n. 1). S314 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

you really hold the position, then, that all peasants, think the most eloquent preachers of the truth and the life-giving the same, [peasants] who have not read Professor Golubin- nature of our holy Orthodox faith” (Greene 2010:34). skii, or the Sinaksarist of Nicodemus? . . . The majority of And yet, however otherworldly the stance expected of the the faithful (that is, primarily the peasantry) understand faithful, the immediate materiality of the saint’s body in this relics as uncorrupted bodies, not as the remains of bones. world still mattered. Here, I think the commissar, crude No one would have believed in bones, no matter how many though his theology (and sociology) may have been, was re- of them there were. You cannot persuade some naı¨ve peasant sponding to a real tension within the church’s position. As woman to worship bones and expect a “miracle” from them. one visitor to a shrine wrote around 1900, “The tangibility, No one calls bones relics. It is in vain that you turn to so to speak, of the relics makes a very powerful impression philology for help. (Greene 2010:18–19) on those who pray to them and touch them. Everything is up front and straight-forward here, and there is no room for And so tumultuous revolution, following on the heels of flights of fancy. See and believe” (Greene 2010:39). The pow- devastating world war, instigated an earnest argument about erful effects of real, material relics, which could compel un- materiality, belief, and religious practice. Running through believers and heretics to accept Orthodoxy, were widely re- this debate are the threads of three contending stances toward ported in popular writings. In this respect, perhaps, the the materiality of religious things: those of the atheist revo- commissar was not so far off: the materiality of the relic was lutionaries, those of the learned clergy, and those of the peas- essential to its persuasiveness (and not only to the uneducated antry, present here only as shadowy figures imagined by these and the rural people who were often the focus of the critics).7 writers. The revolutionaries’ attack on the relic clearly man- If the commissar similarly counted on that very materiality— ifests an explicit ideology of modernity and materialism. Yet revealed, in this case, to be the decayed state of the body— the iconoclasm of the Bolsheviks converges with the defense to persuade the viewer of the untruth of religion, the point of the relics in some important respects. Both appeal to rea- remained that the evidence of the senses was a powerful and, son. Both insist on a distinction between material things and it would seem, direct effect of concrete experience.8 something else, an agency or meaning that is not material. Like the accusation of fetishism launched in the Protestant Both consider the peasant, in contrast to those who have West against Roman Catholics and the colonial missions reason, to be ignorant. That ignorance is manifested in prac- against non-Christians, the imputation of ignorance about tices that reveal the peasant to misconstrue the true nature the true nature of material things by those who take them to of material things. In different ways, moreover, each sees that have “magical” powers—one manifestation of a clash between ignorance as posing a real threat. In the bishop’s view, peasant semiotic ideologies—contains an intriguing hint of anxiety 6 misunderstanding brings harm to the church. The commis- (Keane 2007). By semiotic ideology, I mean people’s as- sar, for his part, exemplifies the position of the revolutionaries: sumptions, either tacit or explicit, that guide how they do or common superstitions make workers and peasants susceptible do not perceive or seek out signs in the world and respond to the depredations of the church as it enriches itself at their to them. Those assumptions help shape people’s expectations expense. Here too, misguided understanding of materiality about what is likely to be good evidence for a causal chain leads to social harm. to be tracked down, an intention to be construed, or a code Greene remarks that the commissar was “better skilled in to be deciphered. Given one semiotic ideology, a bolt of light- dialectics than in doctrine,” because the official position of ning is a candidate for being a sign of divine intentions and the church since the seventeenth century had been to de- thus requires a serious ritual response; given another, it man- emphasize incorruption; the real proof of a relic was that it ifests nothing more than atmospheric conditions, warranting had effected miracles (Greene 2010:19–20). Moreover, by the no further attention beyond, perhaps, installing a lightning nineteenth century, as the church increased its efforts to en- rod. Note, then, that semiotic ideology is hardly a peculiarity lighten and educate the laity, it emphasized what we could of any particular historical moment (such as modernity) or call the more representational stance toward relics. That is, social world (such as the Protestant West). relics are best understood as teaching the faithful about their The word “ideology” is fraught with ambiguity (see Ea- spiritual salvation rather than bringing worldly benefits. Even gleton 1991). I want to be clear that I am not using it in the when relics are miraculously preserved, their primary value was as evidence of something else, their pedagogical or de- 7. With little apparent sense of irony, in later years the Soviet state came to appreciate the persuasive power of the incorruptible body in its monstrative function to inculcate doctrine or invigorate faith. own terms, as a product of modern science, when it embalmed Lenin Thus, one priest wrote in 1896, “by their silence, [they] are for eternity (nor was this an isolated case of socialist and postsocialist states appropriating the powerful presence of bodies for political and 6. More than a century later, in the religiously pluralistic Volga region ideological ends; see Verdery 1999; for a striking comparison in a post- republic of Marii El, Orthodox clergy tended to avoid polemics with socialist Buddhist context, see Bernstein 2011). other faiths, focusing instead on the “struggle of the ‘teaching of the 8. The uncorrupted condition of the relic also has a more specific Holy Fathers’ against the ‘teaching of the grandmothers’” (Luehrmann doctrinal function in Orthodoxy, prefiguring the bodily resurrection of 2010:69). the flesh on Judgment Day (Greene 2010:33). Keane Materiality and Its Ethical Affordances S315 common sense of “false consciousness” or “deception” or that nominational arguments taking place in the former Soviet of an explicit doctrine or program. Yet the debates over se- republic of Marii El a century later, their general thrust “is miotic ideology, between Calvinists and ancestral ritualists, or already anticipated in the Orthodox theology of the icon, Orthodox bishops and commissars, often do turn on explicit which, having been elaborated through centuries of fierce doctrines and accusations of false consciousness. Doctrines controversy, has given liturgical practices of icon veneration and delusions are part of the story, just not the whole story. an aspect of demonstrative defiance performed before an In order to sort them out, we need to attend to the sociality imaginary audience of critics” (Luehrmann 2010:56). and politics that enter into distinctive responses to signs and The presence of that imaginary audience is not only an to other people’s purported misreading of signs.9 instigation to explicitness and rationalization. It also induces The bishop, the commissar, and the peasant do not simply the sense of what I have called “markedness” (Keane 2008), represent three distinct positions. They represent articulated that one’s religious practices may stand in contrast to the responses to one another, each position the outcome of imag- largely unnoticed default assumptions of everyday life with ining the other’s position, the other’s accusations, and thus, the result that they seem strange even to the practitioner him- how one appears in the eyes of the other. Here’s where the or herself. Thus the words of one nineteenth-century Ortho- bishop and the commissar share some common ground. Liv- dox hymn addressed to a Kazan icon of the Virgin Mary, ing in a world of debates and doctrines, newspapers and “Strange and doubtful it sounds to the unbelievers how from books, schools and ministries, and mandated to correct the Your icon flow streams of grace and living odors exude” errors of others, the bishop and commissar are constantly (quoted in Luehrmann 2010:60). One conclusion we might articulating their semiotic ideologies in explicit verbal terms. draw from these words is that the miraculous character of They are engaged in and committed to projects of objectifi- the icon is proven by that very sense of strangeness. And this cation and are quite self-conscious about the surrounding sense of strangeness seems to depend on, or at least is most presence of people who (they assume) do not objectify or emphatically brought home to the believer by, the presence take a reflective distance on things in quite the same way. of others, by seeing oneself through the eyes of the unbelievers. The real differences among semiotic ideologies in this case But in the clash over rotting bodies, we have the priest and may lie less along the doctrinal divides between East and West, the commissar each seeing the other through one another’s or pre- and post-Reformation, or even pre- and post-revo- eyes and also through the eyes of imagined peasants. The lution, than those between the explicit concepts of clerical shared space within which this recursive envisioning takes (and revolutionary) high theory on the one hand and the place rests on the ground of the material things whose sen- largely unspoken, or at least unheard, implications of practices suous presence, it is assumed, each party shares.11 (whether humble or elite) on the other. I will return to this shortly. What I want to stress here is that the bishop, the The Palpability of Things commissar, and the peasant, in certain broad respects, all inhabit the same social world and speak the same language. The idea of semiotic ideology works best, I think, if it is Most of all, their actions and reactions to one another play grounded in some understanding of a common ground of out as they navigate a shared landscape of cities and rural possible sensuous experiences. It requires that people share districts, educated elites and illiterate masses, churches and some basic phenomenology of material things, and at least state institutions, icons and propaganda posters, rituals and the possibility of imputing or denying intentionality and political theater. Like the inhabitants of the heteroglossic agency on the basis of or in response to that phenomenology. world depicted by Bakhtin (1981), they may be moving within Differences in how experiences are taken as signs are not more or less carefully patrolled social boundaries, facing dif- differences of experience as such. This is one reason why ferent life chances and legal restrictions, thinking and speaking fetishism can seem so dangerous to its opponents, because in quite distinct registers and dialects—but for all that, they they share something with the fetishist—they recognize the are not strangers to one another. temptations of fetishism (see Keane 2007). In fact, as I will argue below, we cannot understand their To be sure, what experience offers is underdetermined; explicit claims without considering the context in which each hence, it can be nothing more than a source of affordances. remains at least a virtual participant in dialogue and debate “Affordance” refers to the properties of something in light of 10 with the other. As Sonja Luehrmann remarks of interde- what those properties offer to someone who perceives them

9. For contemporary Russian debates over the semiotic ideologies of sikov, the architect of the exhumation campaign, who was raised in the social interaction, see Lemon (2008). home of his grandfather, an (R. Greene, personal communica- 10. As Caroline Humphrey suggests in the version of her chapter pre- tion). Conversely, after the fall of the Soviet Union, some teachers of atheism sented at the Sintra conference, “the October Revolution . . . was a revolution found their skills well suited for Christian preaching (Luehrmann 2011). in some sense within, not against, an encompassing ‘religious’ conception 11. Or at least they are sensually present in principle if not in fact. For of society.” In many specific cases, the Orthodox and the atheists were there are many stories of icons and relics vanishing when the iconoclasts quite intimate. Some of the militant Bolshevik atheists were former clerics or materialists try to seize them, only to reappear elsewhere (S. Luehrmann, (Peris 1995). Others hailed from clerical backgrounds, notably P. A. Kra- personal communication). S316 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

(Gibson 1977). For example, the properties of a wooden chair are surrounded with votive gifts, candles, incense, in spaces can afford sitting on it, but also using it as a stepladder, as a often crowded with bodies and saturated with the sounds of paperweight, as firewood, as a weapon, as a barricade, as a hymns, chants, and the cries of the petitioners) is motivated. hat hook, and so forth. What is crucial about the idea of A clerical view is that this sensuousness should induce or affordance is that it is not deterministic. The objectively real reinforce faith that in the absence of palpable experience features of the chair afford its use as a stepladder or hat hook, might falter. It is not simply a didactic representation or re- but it is a human agent who decides whether or not to respond minder of doctrine.14 to them, and if so, which ones to take up and to what But material practices are a problem, because these proper purpose.12 responses to things are in constant risk of going too far, spill- Ethical affordances are those features of the world, as people ing over into “a zeal for God beyond the bounds of reason,” experience it, that can be construed in ethical terms. By as the bishop put it in his debate with the commissar. Whether “ethics,” I refer to people’s ability to evaluate acts as good or this zeal is something that must be countered or quietly ig- evil, people as virtuous or vicious, lives as worthy or worthless, nored clearly varies across historical and geographical con- and to their awareness of being themselves evaluated in turn. texts. In contemporary Marii El, for instance, “What matters Typically these evaluations arise in interactions with other [to the priests] . . . is the spirit of reverence or willfulness in people, but they may involve any entity at all (such as divine which people encounter such grace-filled objects as icons, beings) whose actions can be judged in these terms and so rather than where they locate the source of the grace. This can be held responsible for purposeful harm or benefit. criterion allows for a variety of stances toward the materiality Let me start with the phenomenology and then turn to of the icon, a variety perhaps best accommodated by thinking intention seeking. Doing so requires me to broaden our eth- of icons as persons” (Luehrmann 2010:70). nographic scope to encompass icons and other aspects of In nineteenth-century Russia and in contemporary Mol- Orthodox materiality that have also provoked critics and to davia and Marii El, clerical efforts to raise lay practices to a other branches of Orthodoxy whose ethnographers allow us higher, more spiritual plane seem also to be responding to a a closer look at similar practices.13 problem posed by the church itself. The temptation that icons Here is Gabriel Hanganu’s account of how common Or- present was evident early on. thodox practices in villages in the Romanian region of Mol- The Orthodox cathedral of Kerkyra (Corfu) contains an icon davia at the turn of the twenty-first century create a shared of the Byzantine empress . . . Saint Theodora, who in 843 sensory world. A.D. reinstalled the veneration of icons. . . . In her hands Pilgrims often visit famous icons hosted in monasteries and the canonized empress holds not only an icon of the Theo- spend long hours praying in front of them, passing under tokos and Christ, but also a rotulus bearing the words “If them, and touching them. Many rub against their glass you venerate the icons like God, you are three times con- covers clothes belonging to sick relatives or friends, in the demned.” (Hann and Goltz 2010:23, n. 16) belief that the icons’ spiritual power can be transferred Historically, the use of relics and icons was motivated in part through physical contact with another material. . . . On by ideas about human weaknesses, which required the con- special annual occasions, such as before Christmas or Epiph- creteness of things to shore up faith (Pelikan 1974). By the any, the icons of the approaching feast are carried by the beginning of the twentieth century, when the scope of the priests to every household. . . . People commonly display church’s educational efforts had broadened beyond literate icons at home and employ them in daily devotion by elites, similar condemnations may well have been addressed crossing themselves, kissing them, and kneeling and lighting to the ignorant peasant who, presumably, was most prone to candles and oil lamps in front of them. Together, these icon- such errors. centered religious practices create a particular sensory back- Of course a shared sensory world may provoke quite op- ground, which adds to the conceptual and psychological posite responses. The Bolshevik commissar, I imagine, would layers of religiosity, and influences the devotees’ relationship have looked on the scenes in Moldavia with scorn or pity. with the divine. (Hanganu 2010:46) The sacred chants of the Catholic church sounded, in Martin The sensuous experience of icons and relics (both of which Luther’s ears, like so much “babbling and bellowing” (Pelikan 2003:165). Although Romanian state socialism was unable to 12. The idea of affordances should constrain the sheer heroic will- eliminate religion, it did suppress its public expression. When fulness sometimes evident in anthropology’s stronger versions of social religious practices came back into public view in the 1990s, constructionism (Keane 2014). But I hasten to add this is not meant to there was a generation or two that had never had any explicit return us to any naive effort to ground knowledge either of self or others in the so-called authority of experience (see Scott 1991). . Yet these people had been exposed to the 13. Of course Eastern Orthodoxy is not a single, undifferentiated en- tity. But some forays into the ethnographic present will, I think, give us 14. According to Sonja Luehrmann (personal communication), Rus- sense of the appeal of icons and saint’s relics within an official tradition sian Orthodox Christians like to say that in other Christian denomina- that both accepts and criticizes them in ways that are quite distinct from tions Biblical events are merely “remembered,” whereas in Orthodox the Western churches. liturgies they actually “happen” or “unfold.” Keane Materiality and Its Ethical Affordances S317 sensory experiences of popular religiosity in baptisms, wed- prompting the depicted saint to intercede on behalf of the dings, and funerals: “even the villagers who were not believers community. (Hanganu 2010:36) or regular churchgoers were familiar with these diffusely dis- What about the villagers who think the problem is that they tributed forms of devotional activity. Previous social events should have borrowed a more proven wonder-working icon? in which they had taken part had familiarized them with the It would seem that they are responding to their past expe- idea that spiritual power can be ritually associated with human riences with icons. Now some of them may know the doctrine bodies and material objects” (Hanganu 2010:47). of the prototype and find it unpersuasive or irrelevant. Others, The differences at play in this scene are not simply those lacking even that much religious education, may not know it between believers and nonbelievers. Among the faithful there at all. In either case, however, I suspect what is stronger is are significant differences of practice and its interpretation. habitus structured, in this case, by the structuring structures For instance, Hanganu describes a case in which villagers of village practices around icons—touching and addressing suffering from drought had borrowed an icon from a nunnery them as if they were persons with strong if somewhat occult to process with it through their village to request rain. When powers. rain failed to come, Hanganu found several explanations within the community. The priests attributed the failure to the villagers’ poor focus while praying, the nuns to the weak Affordances moral fiber of the village. Among the villagers were those who But why should different icons have different powers? Con- agreed with the priests, others with the nuns, some who sider the idea of affordance. The material icon has all the blamed the choice of icon (it was not a wonder-working icon, characteristics of other objects: it has solidity, shape, size, and a different one should have been used), and others who weight, and is located in a particular place in a spatial world. asserted that there is nothing you can do to make it rain at As I have stressed elsewhere (Keane 2003b), the fact that all. qualities are bundled in the same object gives rise to an in- What is at stake in the question of whether a different icon determinate number of possibilities depending on which as- would have been more effective? According to Hanganu, the pect is brought into focus by a practice or reflection. As a nuns’ stance is due to the tenor of their vocation, which physical thing, the icon also has at least the potential for being orients them to the moral improvement of the community. recognized as possessing a self-identity that distinguishes it Therefore the role of the icon remains somewhat muted in from other icons, no matter how much they may resemble their view of events. The perspective of the priests is shaped one another or derive from the same divine prototype. This, by their commitment to education in theological doctrine. after all, is what makes it possible for the nuns to have a The theology of the icon centers on two fundamental claims different icon from the purportedly more efficacious icon of (Ouspensky and Lossky 1982; Pelikan 1974, 1990). One is the the same saint that could have been sought in another village. anti-Manichean assertion that the material and spiritual are Thus, in contrast to the unifying prototype, the material icon united. The second concerns the place of humans within di- is manifestly different from others. You can tell it is not the vine order. Humans, in this theological anthropology, were same: it is in a different place. As Michael Herzfeld observes the first and highest created likenesses of God. Thus they are of Greek icons, this spatial distinctiveness allows them to be referable to their invisible archetype. In effect, a parallel re- claimed socially—a given icon belongs to a particular village lationship to divine archetypes holds for icons. Thus, what is or other social group. Thus, the actual practices around icons, really being venerated is not the material thing but the divine he argues, reproduce the lines of social conflict that are denied archetype (Hann and Goltz 2010:12). Therefore, there can in at the level of official doctrine, which stresses the unity and principle be no spiritual difference among particular icons harmony identified with the prototype. Notice that the official because their value derives from the divine prototype they all view attributes villagers’ treatment of icons not just to ig- share. norance but to selfish instrumentality: “The holy figures have In practical terms, this distinction between the material a universal value, whereas icons all too easily become the instruments of selfish ends. . . . Whether reverence for an specificity of the icon and the spiritual or ontological unity icon venerates a specific picture or some superior, all-encom- embodied in its archetype is summarized in the contrasting passing, and unifying principle is, at another level, a question stances in the village. about the role of personal interest in relation to both the local The villagers’ insistence on carrying the icon in procession community and the encompassing collectivities of nation and showed that both the intercession of the depicted spiritual religion” (Herzfeld 1990:112). beings and the physical location of the icon mattered to The material properties of the icons and all that surrounds them for the successful fulfillment of the ritual. For the them, including the places in which they are to be found and priests, however, the ritual’s main power came from the the actions people perform toward and with them, serve as special prayers read during the rain-seeking service. To them affordances for further actions and reflections on them. They any icon would have been equally useful as a means for are invitations and provocations. People’s responses to those S318 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 invitations and provocations may or may not pick up on satanic. (Note that I am not arguing that all ethics necessarily certain aspects of experience (see Keane 2013). That experi- depends on intentionality. The point, rather, is that when ence may include speech, things they have been told by priests people do seek out signs of intentionality, it may be because or nuns or their grandparents or, say, commissars. What they they are interested in their ethical weight.) have heard and learned enters into the mix but does not This argument is rooted in the special characteristics of necessarily determine it. human sign-using capacities. These capacities facilitate the Recall that the commissar and the bishop both focus on degree of self-awareness and choice making that are precon- what saints’ remains look like, emphasizing the visibility of ditions for full-fledged imputations of responsibility on which the relic, in contrast to its efficacy or other sensual experiences many (but not all) ethical claims rest. Knowing that a sign is such as smell, which played an important role for defenders a sign and not that entity of which it is a sign is what gives of incorruptibility. As Luehrmann (2010:65) points out, both full-fledged sign use its relative freedom from direct deter- Soviet atheist pedagogy and modern Orthodox theology stress mination by natural causes, such as instinct. This reflexivity visuality (rather than, say, bodily practices such as having the and the freedom it affords are two preconditions for ethics: icon pass over the body of the pilgrim) as a principal source the abilities to take up the perspectives of other persons and of evidence and persuasion. This would seem to be consistent to be responsible for an action. The reflexive recognition that with the treatment of icons as representations to the extent signs are signs makes possible inferences about the inten- that they stress the impalpable concepts to be drawn from tionality of the sign user and its address to the sign interpreter. them rather than the bodily interactions that they might enter The ethical implications of reflexivity are brought home by into. By contrast, the Romanian villagers focus less on what P. F. Strawson (1974), who writes, “if someone treads on my the icon looks like than on the fact that it can be carried, hand accidentally . . . the pain may be no less acute than if that it can pass over one’s own body, that it can be stroked he treads on it in contemptuous disregard of my existence. and kissed. Nor do the priests deny these properties. Theo- . . . But I shall generally feel in the second case a kind and logically, they ought not to denigrate the physicality of the degree of resentment that I shall not feel in the first” (5). icon or the relic altogether. But they should insist that the That is, the objective causes and painful consequences might faithful not stop there. be exactly the same in both cases regardless of whether the act is accidental or intentional. What differs is the ethical import, the understanding that only in the latter case has one Intentions and Ethical Life been treated contemptuously. To grasp that an action is in- tentional requires that one distinguish between the physical The debates among clerics, commissars, and their imagined action and that which it is or is not a sign of. The full ethical overhearers in the village are, of course, about many things. effect hinges on a double reflexivity: in Strawson’s example, Certainly they include struggles over the relative authority of the feeling of resentment toward another person requires that clerics and commissars as well as of texts and practices; they I recognize both her intentions (to step on my hand) and her may encompass differences over class conflict, economic re- recognition of my feelings (that I will be insulted). In other sources, pedagogical strategies, the salvation of souls, com- words, the dialectic of recognition depends on being able to munity identities, eschatology, and the nature of reality itself. take some elements of one’s experience and not others as But they play out over the question of one’s stance toward signifying both the intentions of an agent and the fact that material things and their status as signs, a problem of semiotic some of those intentions are directed toward oneself. It is on ideology. The intensity and persistence of the debates suggest the basis of this double reflexivity that people come to know that differences over semiotic ideology are not just esoteric themselves as having a value (negative or positive) for others. questions. In order to grasp what might be at stake, I want The taking of signs as signs is crucial to what gives to social to stress a key semiotic concept: “A sign does not function interaction its ethical character, being something more than, as a sign unless it be understood as a sign” (Peirce MS 599: say, a means of accomplishing a task. 32, quoted in Parmentier 1994:4). Here I want to develop one aspect of this point, which we can call second-order re- flexivity, as an alternative to the view that popular practices Ethical Saturation surrounding relics and icons are best understood as merely instrumental and selfish. The ability to be correct about the real nature of intentional The second-order reflexivity involved in semiotic phenom- signs and the true locus of the agency behind them and to ena makes it possible for people to take their experiences of distinguish them from, say, mechanical causality is an im- things and events as evidence of a hidden agent with inten- portant part of what characterizes accusations of fetishism or tions. As I will suggest, intentions, unlike mechanical causes magical thinking. Let me bring this back to relics and icons. and effects, can be construed in ethical terms, as value laden. One the one hand, the learned accuse the illiterate peasants Experience would, in this case, be replete with signs of actions of misunderstanding the true nature of material things. The that might be good or bad, friendly or hostile, divine or position of the commissar is perhaps the most straightfor- Keane Materiality and Its Ethical Affordances S319 ward: the peasant is a fetishist who imputes agency to what any moment it holds at least the potential for an ethically is in reality a world of merely material causes and effects. The significant event. priest is in a somewhat more complicated situation. The error As Herzfeld suggests, the way that the agency of icons of the peasant is perhaps in seeing the thing itself as having grounds them in specific locations in the physical world in- agency rather than the divine prototype—the saint and be- terpellates villagers into specific locations in an ethical uni- yond the saint, God. (The basic position was laid out in the verse. Recall that signs of intentions reveal not only the agent defense of images in the Second Nicaean Council of 787, who stands behind them, as it were; they also place the ob- which held that icons themselves were not worthy of ven- server in the field of play. Intentional signs, at their most eration, only their prototypes.) But the priest cannot deny pertinent, are meant for me. Thus, the villagers are not only the role that material relics and icons play as embodiments acting as if the material universe is full of intentions and of divine agency. The distinction is subtle, but it rests on the agency; by their interactions with icons they are also insisting status of the sign: the peasant fails to take the icon or relic that they themselves are significant agents within and for that as a sign of its prototype, or if taking it as such, overempha- universe. Perhaps we could even go so far as to say this: in sizes its consubstantiality with that prototype at the expense the face of a hierarchy that would subordinate the ignorant of its subordination to it. Thus, Luehrmann (2010) reports villager to forces that lie beyond his or her knowledge and of Marii El that, “it is important to the contemporary Or- agency, the peasant who tries to get results from relics or thodox clergy to impress on believers the correct understand- icons by treating them as persons, in an ethics of reciprocity, ing of this semiotic relationship, an understanding that they is insisting on taking at its strongest implications the theo- often find lacking among their parishioners” (57). So in some logical assertion that humans are created in the image of God. cases, the more comfortable accusation is that of selfish ends: This doctrinal principle seems to be well known, at least the peasant is animated by this-world desires for immediate among the Greek villagers studied by Charles Stewart (1991). and personal gain rather than focusing on salvation or on So consider again the three positions. To the extent that their obligations to the church. the commissar treats the icon and the relic as signs, they But does the priest fully understand the peasant? Perhaps— indicate the intentional practiced by the church and certainly I am in no better position of authority to speak through the agency of the clerics. This is not to say the com- on behalf of our silent interlocutor. But consider some further missar lacks an ethics; a sense of obligation to peasants, party, materials from the broader world of Orthodox icons. Eth- and Bolshevik state may be precisely what animates his rev- nographers of Greek Orthodoxy report common themes in olutionary passions. But as a matter of principle, the realm the stories villagers tell about icons. of merely material objects, such as icons and relics, must lie beyond the range of ethical evaluations. For the bishop, the We hear no account of visual details even in stories about primary ethical mandate is that which binds the peasant to miraculous discovery, usually either through the sighting of the church, the community, and God. To lay too great an a flame at the location of the icon or through its discovery emphasis on the relic in its materiality is a matter of degree, by a stray flock animal. . . . Such stories, which are ordinarily a display of excessive zeal, but perhaps not of complete on- aetiological explanations of the association of a particular tological error. saint’s cult with the village, emphasize the icon’s relation to But the peasant is perhaps the one who, by extending the a specific set of characters, time, and location, and virtually range of experiences that can be judged as intentional beyond ignore its iconographic properties. (Herzfeld 1990:114) the limits of what either the commissar or the bishop would The origin stories of particular icons make clear that icons recognize, most insists on the ethical saturation of his or her have agency. They want to be found and take a hand in it, world. To the extent that icons and relics might turn up emitting light from under ground or casting themselves up anywhere, the immanence of divinity in creation (a good, on shore or into fishermen’s nets (Danforth 1989; Dubish orthodox theological position) takes on immediate material 1995; Stewart 1991). In Russia, too, both icons and the bodies reality. As a result, there are no accidents, and no neutral of heretofore unknown saints revealed themselves to rural causality, and any event or thing might turn out to be a sign peasants, sometimes over the objections of church officials of an agent (and most significantly when they are divine or (Levin 2003; Shevzov 2003). satanic), something subject to ethical evaluation. To the extent Icons, in this perspective, manifest the active stance of di- this approaches at least one common stance in the village (for vinity toward each ordinary person. By treating relics or icons as Hanganu makes clear, there are several), it may be more as having agency in themselves, villagers are insisting on the than just the selfish desire for immediate, magical outcomes: saturation of life with ethical implications. That is, the pos- it may equally express that insistence that everyday life is full sibility of social interaction with divine actors is everywhere, of ethical import. The semiotic ideology embedded in ap- and social interaction can always be construed as having eth- parently magical or fetishistic practices takes things to be signs ical import. Because divinity might crop up anywhere and in of intentions and agents, and therefore as ethically conse- all sorts of ways, people face a world that is not neutral; at quential. S320 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Conclusion: What Shapes Christian History Scriptures’ objectified status as texts (see Silverstein and Ur- ban 1996) gives them a distinctive place in this triad, endow- To conclude, let me briefly return to a remark I made at the ing them with certain qualities of persistence over long beginning of this essay. I suggested that any community is stretches of time and a potential to cross contexts independent likely to give rise to deep conflicts about people’s ontological of either those institutions or popular practices that might assumptions and the semiotic ideologies they encourage. In claim them for themselves. This is an important flyweight, as the history of institutionalized religions with a relatively stable it were, and one more element among those contending forces set of scriptural texts, we should expect to see certain large- that make religious history more than just a political struggle order patterns in these conflicts. At any given moment, I want between self-interested factions, an unfolding of conceptual to suggest, the conflicts within a Christian community will structures, or an expression of personal psychological states. be the outcome of three more or less independent kinds of forces interacting with one another. As a shorthand, we might call them institutions (such as priesthoods, councils, liturgies, Acknowledgments laws), popular practices (which can including anything from quietist piety to carnivalesque celebrations, from the use of A version of this paper was given as the seventeenth annual amulets to pilgrimages, from visionary upwelling to private William T. Mulloy Lecture at the University of Wyoming. I magic), and scriptures. The conflicted status of Orthodox relics am grateful to my hosts there, especially Pamela Innes and and icons is one example of how these forces can share the Ruth Toulson. Thanks as well to Joel Robbins for organizing same objects, rituals, and spaces and even acknowledge the the Anthropology of Christianity conference at Sintra, to all same social authority yet still give rise to different outcomes the participants there, to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for operating along different temporalities and on the basis of its generous support, and to two anonymous reviewers for different premises. very thoughtful criticisms, not all of which I have had time Ecclesiastical institutions are prone to making things ex- or space to deal with here. Conversations with Val Kivelson plicit (often producing textual artifacts such as doctrines, got me started on this project, to which Robert Greene, Alaina rules, legal findings, commentaries, sermons, pedagogies, and Lemon, Sonja Luehrmann, and Adela Pinch contributed in- juridical procedures). Their regulatory efforts are typically valuable comments. I also received helpful responses from directed both internally (institutions must govern themselves) audiences at Stanford, Toulouse, Tu¨bingen, and the Fraker and outwardly, especially in response to the force of popular Graduate Student Conference in Ann Arbor. practices. Faced with the inventions and passions of popular practices, institutional agents will try to suppress, constrain, References Cited or take advantage of their energies. People immersed in pop- Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of religion: discipline and reasons of power in ular practices, for their part, are also compelled to respond Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. to the efforts of the institutions, whether through malingering, Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The dialogic imagination: four essays. Michael Holquist, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, trans. Austin: University of Texas full-fledged rebellion, enthusiastic embrace of one institu- Press. tional party and dogma or another, dutiful routines, or simply Bandak, Andreas. 2014. Of refrains and rhythms in contemporary Damascus: keeping their heads down. Popular practices are not neces- urban space and Christian-Muslim coexistence. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S248–S261. sarily mute, but whether they come to be rendered explicit Bernstein, Anya. 2011. The post-Soviet treasure hunt: time, space, and nec- as explanations, justifications, instructions, doctrines, and so ropolitics in Siberian Buddhism. Comparative Studies in Society and History forth is very much a matter of the press of circumstances. 53(3):623–653. Bialecki, Jon. 2014. After the denominozoic: evolution, differentiation, de- Often enough those circumstances occur in their encounter nominationalism. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S193–S204. with the institutions, such as when people, accused of heresy, Cassaniti, Julia L., and Tanya Marie Luhrmann. 2014. The cultural kindling are forced to justify themselves to clerics (see the classic ex- of spiritual experiences. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S333–S343. Crapanzano, Vincent. 2000. Serving the Word: literalism in America from the plorations by Ginzburg 1992; Ladurie 1978). pulpit to the bench. New York: New Press. And then there are scriptures. They never speak for them- Danforth, Loring. 1989. Firewalking and religious healing: the Anastenaria of Greece and the American firewalking movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton selves, but their authority often depends on people taking University Press. them to be doing so and from the fact that other people seem Dubish, Jill. 1995. In a different place: pilgrimage, gender, and politics at a Greek to agree that they are all reading the same text—even when island shrine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Eagleton, Terry. 1991. Ideology: an introduction. London: Verso. they are not. Texts are notoriously open to diverse readings— Engelke, Matthew. 2007. A problem of presence: beyond scripture in an African even when people insist on their univocality (Crapanzano church. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2000; Malley 2004). If the Devil may quote scripture, so too Gibson, James J. 1977. The theory of affordances. In Perceiving, acting, and knowing: toward an ecological psychology. R. Shaw and J. Bransford, eds. Pp. can bishops, peasants, and even commissars. Although some- 67–82. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. what in the background in the debate with which we started, Ginzburg, Carlo. 1992. The cheese and the worms: the cosmos of a sixteenth- they remain a shadow presence, for the debates presuppose century miller. John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi, trans. 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Handman, Courtney. 2014. Becoming the body of Christ: sacrificing the speak- Malley, Brian. 2004. How the Bible works: an anthropological study of evangelical ing subject in the making of the colonial Lutheran church in New Guinea. Biblicism. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S205–S215. Marshall, Ruth. 2014. Christianity, anthropology, politics. Current Anthropol- Hanganu, Gabriel. 2010. Eastern Christians and religious objects: personal ogy 55(suppl. 10):S344–S356. and material biographies entangled. In Eastern Christians in anthropological Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The invention of world religions; or, how European perspective. Christopher M. Hann and Hermann Goltz, eds. Pp. 33–55. universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism. Chicago: University Berkeley: University of California Press. of Chicago Press. Hann, Christopher M., and Hermann Goltz. 2010. Introduction: the other Mayblin, Maya. 2014. People like us: intimacy, distance, and the gender of Christianity? In Eastern Christians in anthropological perspective. Christopher saints. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S271–S280. M. Hann and Hermann Goltz, eds. Pp. 1–19. Berkeley: University of Cal- Meyer, Birgit, and Dick Houtman, eds. 2012. Things: religion and the question ifornia Press. of materiality. New York: Fordham University Press. Harkness, Nicholas. 2014. Songs of Seoul: an ethnography of voice and voicing Morgan, David. 2010. Religion and material culture: the matter of belief. Lon- in Christian South Korea. Berkeley: University of California Press. don: Routledge. Herzfeld, Michael. 1990. Religious orthodoxy and social practice in rural Crete. Ouspensky, Leonid, and . 1982. The meaning of icons. Crest- Anthropological Quarterly 63(3):109–121. wood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Hoskins, Janet Alison. 2014. An unjealous God? Christian elements in a Viet- Parmentier, Richard J. 1994. 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Letting the people into church: reflections on orthodoxy stance. Anthropological Theory 14(1):3–26. and community in late imperial Russia. In Orthodox Russia: belief and Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. 1978. Montaillou: the promised land of error. practice under the tsars. Valerie A. Kivelson and Robert H. Greene, eds. Pp. Barbara Bray, trans. New York: Braziller. 59–77. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Lemon, Alaina. 2008. Hermeneutic algebra: solving for love, time/space, and Silverstein, Michael, and Greg Urban. 1996. Natural histories of discourse. value in Putin-era personal ads. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18(2): Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 236–267. Stewart, Charles. 1991. Demons and the Devil: moral imagination in modern Levin, Eve. 2003. From corpse to cult in early modern Russia. In Orthodox Greek culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Russia: belief and practice under the tsars. Valerie A. Kivelson and Robert Strawson, P. F. 1974. 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S322 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Culture and Self The Different “Gifts” Amerindians Receive from Catholics and Evangelicals

by Aparecida Vilac¸a

In this paper I discuss the continuity-versus-change dichotomy by comparing the actions of Catholic and funda- mentalist Evangelical missionaries working simultaneously among a number of native Amazonian groups. While Evangelical action shows strong continuity in its emphasis on the development of an inner self among the natives, effectively constituting the seat of their relation with God, the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) has shifted emphasis away from transforming and civilizing the Indians toward preserving indigenous culture. My interest here resides in analyzing how the natives experience these different perspectives and adapt them to their own projects of continuity and change.

The history of Christianity has involved parallel and indis- In this paper I intend to explore the dichotomy between sociable processes of continuity and change (Cannel 2006; continuity and change by focusing on the relation between Robbins 2007; Wood 1993) not just related to what it defines Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism, specifically on the as its outside, such as Judaism in post-second-century Chris- perspectives of the missionaries from each of these Christian tianity, but also internally through successive differentiations, churches, and contrasting them with the perspective of the both large and small, among which we can highlight the Prot- Wari’, an indigenous group of around 3,000 people speaking estant Reformation. a Txapakura language and living in the southwest of Brazilian As studies in the anthropology of Christianity have shown, Amazonia. The Wari’ are particularly interesting in terms of in addition to the relevance of the historical moment we select this topic because they have lived from the start of the 1960s and the interlocutors we privilege, the emphasis on continuity with Catholic missionaries and with Evangelicals from the 1 or change varies radically depending on the objects on which New Tribes Mission (NTM). we focus. Hence, for example, a people’s patterns of social By comparing Wari’ ethnography with the ethnography of organization may remain the same after Christianization while other Amazonian peoples and also turning to other ethno- graphic regions, I wish to show first that their initial rela- the moral system and ritual life may change radically. tionship with Christianity was determined by the interest of As some authors have already pointed out, anthropologists these peoples in alterity, their “openness to the Other” (Le´vi- very often have difficulties analyzing in a satisfactory way the Strauss 1992), which means that Christianization involved relation between continuity and change intrinsic to any pro- from the start a clear mixture of change and continuity. But cess of Christianization. Faced with a religion that seems ex- there is a difference in how it is perceived: those indigenous cessively familiar to them and motivated by the generalized peoples who became Christian centuries ago tend to have interest in the exotic characteristic of our discipline, they end incorporated Christian ideas and rituals as part of their tra- up privileging continuity, failing to take seriously the claims dition. For the new Christians, however, such as the Wari’ made by their indigenous interlocutors concerning the radical and various other Amazonian peoples, the conversion to break represented by Christianity (Barker 1993, 2010; Meyer Christianity, especially Evangelicalism, is usually compre- 1998; Robbins 2004, 2007, 2010). In some cases, the outcome hended as change. This sense of a break with the past is described is that of a hybrid culture where Christianity is experienced, even though conversion occurs, in continuity restricted to form and emptied of content. with traditional forms of cultural reproduction that involve continuous transformations enabled by the appropriation of Aparecida Vilac¸a is Associate Professor at the Programa de Po´s- items of external origin. Graduac¸a˜o em Antropologia Social, Museu Nacional of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Quinta da Boa Vista, Sa˜o 1. I emphasize that by referring here to Catholics and Evangelicals, I Cristo´va˜o, Rio de Janeiro 20940-040, Brazil [aparecida.vilaca am not discussing abstract groups but specific sets of missionaries who @terra.com.br]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 9 VII have lived with the Wari’ for more than 50 years. While I venture a few 14, and electronically published 19 XI 14. generalizations, I look to retain my focus on the ethnographic setting.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0017$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678118 Vilac¸a Culture and Self S323

My lengthy research experience among the Wari’, spanning Moreover, this culture does not comprise a set of fixed 30 years, has enabled me to analyze a change of another kind, attributes but a base for an incessant process of differ- associated with a second phase of relations with Christianity entiation (see n. 13; also see Viveiros de Castro 1998; Wag- and related to the experiences of the second generation of ner 1975). Here, culture is immediately “acculturation” Christians (Cannell 2006; Maxwell 2007; Robbins 2004, 2007). (Carneiro da Cunha 2009:361; Viveiros de Castro 1998, This is not a case of Christianity being incorporated as part 2002). of tradition, because the Wari’ still emphasize the rupture I shall conclude with some hypotheses concerning the ef- with the pagan culture, but of the transformation of indig- fects of the introduction of this new notion of culture by the enous notions of self and culture. Catholics, a notion that Carneiro da Cunha (2009) has called Although the choice of the notion of self to think about “culture in quote marks,” and the analogies between these change is immediately evident given the centrality of this effects and those stemming from the Evangelical emphasis on notion in anthropological studies of Christianity, from the the constitution of an inner self as the locus for an “intimate” classic texts of Mauss (1999), Weber (1987), Dumont relation with God. We begin with an analysis of the simul- (1983) and Leenhardt (1971 [1947]) to more recent works taneous movements toward continuity and change involved (Robbins 2004), the choice of the concept of culture, less in the acceptance of the missionaries. obvious, requires some explanation. It constitutes a key concept in the dispute between Catholic and Evangelical Becoming Other missionaries working in Amazonia.2 The former perceive their actions to be split into two radically different mo- In The Story of Lynx, a book describing the first encounters ments: a past phase marked by a “disdain” for indigenous between Indians and whites in the Americas, Le´vi-Strauss culture, and the present, after the Second Vatican Council (1992) explored the indigenous interest in alterity through (1962–1965), involving “respect” for the culture and a con- the notion of an “openness to the Other.” Le´vi-Strauss shows sequent investment in its “preservation” (Orta 2004). Like us how the fateful consequences of these encounters were the earlier Catholics, the Evangelicals are openly in favor largely determined by the distinct ways of conceiving and of promoting radical cultural changes among indigenous responding to difference. While the Europeans valued identity peoples, although these are secondary to religious conver- and were interested in the Indians because of their underlying sion itself because they conceive the abandonment of “bad or potential similarity, which could be revealed through a customs” (Viveiros de Castro 1992, 2002) as a natural out- process of civilization or catechism, the indigenous interest come of faith in God and the consciousness of sin. Al- in the Europeans was based on completely different premises: though these differences are perceived by the actors them- they liked precisely what was different about them.4 The per- selves as radically opposite, we shall see that both petuation of this opposition today is explicitly formulated by approaches to missionization possess clear underlying con- the Yanomami shaman and leader, Davi Kopenawa. tinuities with a conception of culture shared by past and present-day Catholics and Evangelicals alike, a conception [The whites] when asleep see in their dreams merely what that differs entirely from those of Amazonian Indians surrounds them during the day....Forsure,theypossess themselves.3 While for missionaries as a whole, culture many antennae and radios in their towns, but these are used comprises a set of traits that confer identity—a result of solely to listen to themselves. . . . The words of the shamans human agency—culture for Amazonian Indians is an in- are different. They come from very far away and evoke nate attribute. By this I mean that diverse Amazonian things unknown to common people.” (Kopenawa and Al- groups do not think of culture as a set of ideas and prac- bert 2010:497) tices resulting from human action but as something that The first Brazilian letter written by Father Manuel da No´- always existed and that is shared by all kinds of beings. brega illustrates the immediate fascination caused by the Eu- ropeans, referring specifically to the Christian rituals. 2. As in other regions of the world, the Catholic presence among They say that they want to be like us. . . . If they hear the indigenous peoples in Brazil and Latin America as a whole is much older than the Protestant presence, dating from the arrival of the Jesuits in the bells for mass, they come running, and whatever we do, sixteenth century. The arrival of Protestants intending to work among they do: they kneel, beat their chests, raise their hands to indigenous peoples dates from the start of the twentieth century. In terms the heavens; and one of their leaders is already learning to of Evangelicals, the work among indigenous groups is almost entirely read and taking lessons everyday with great diligence, and controlled by U.S.-based missions led by the Wycliffe Bible Translators/ in two days knew the entire alphabet, and we taught him Summer Institute of Linguistics (Stoll 1982) and the NTM. 3. It is worth noting the relatively low number of Pentecostal Evan- to bless, absorbing everything with a huge gusto. He says gelicals working among Brazilian Indians, especially given the rapid growth of these denominations in urban Brazil and indeed globally. For 4. As we know, the interest in the stranger is not exclusive to Am- a few exceptions, see Capiberibe (2007) on the Palikur, Wiik (2004) on erindians. See Sahlins (1985), Rafael (1988), and Rutherford (2006) on the Xokleng, Veiga (2004) on the Kaingang, and Vietta and Brand (2004) the Pacific region and Cannell (2006) for comments. See also Meyer and Pereira (2004) on the Guarani Kaiowa´. (1999) on Africa and Sahlins (2010) for a general model. S324 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

he wants to be a Christian. (Manuel da No´brega 1549:i, iii, own traditional “religion.”6 (See Hanson 1989 on the same in Viveiros de Castro 2002:196) kind of forgetting among the Maori.) Focused precisely on the relation with the outside, among This appropriation—which the missionaries attributed from many Amazonian groups, made up the primary the outset to the lack of culture of the Indians, who did not means of appropriating the novelty represented by Christian- have “faith, law or king” (Viveiros de Castro 1992, 2002), as ity. Writing about the Guarani of Paraguay, Chamorro com- well as to the attributes of truth and power intrinsic to Chris- ments that in the mission of San Ignacio de Ipaumbucu´, 5 tianity (and their God) —ended up thwarting any expectation centuries ago, the leader and shaman Miguel de Atiguaje, of rapid conversion because the Indians soon reverted to their described by Father Montoya as a “true minister of the de- old practices. They were not adopting Christianity as a religion mon,” “pretended to be a priest” and or as a new culture, as the missionaries wished, but were simulated celebrating mass. He placed some cloths over a instead selecting some of its aspects as a means of reproducing table and on them a manioc cake and a vase, heavily painted, themselves in the traditional way. with maize wine and, speaking between his teeth, performed For many native Amazonian groups, this reproduction oc- many ceremonies, displayed the cake and the wine in the curs through continuous transformations effected through the same way as the priests, and finally ate and drank everything. appropriation of rites, songs, myths, names, ideas, and objects As a result his vassals revered him as though he were a from the outside, whether from enemies, animal spirits, or priest. (Montoya 1985:57, in Chamorro 1998:63) whites. This explains the high value given to strangers, as The same occurred in other regions of America, as Lau- Taylor (1981) observed in her analysis of the Christianization grand (1997) has shown in his analysis of the Christian- of the Jivaroan Achuar of Ecuadorian Amazonia: “A crucial ization of the Inuit (Canada), whose shamans also appro- aspect of trade relations among the Achuar is the tremendous priated attributes of the missionaries as a form of value attached to goods from ‘outside’: . . . the more ‘exotic’ differentiation and empowerment. The problem, it was the more highly valued. Moreover, the prestige attributed to clear, was not one of belief (Pouillon 1993; Robbins 2007; ‘foreignness’ applies equally to material and symbolic values” Vilac¸a 1997). The existence of the new divinities was not (Taylor 1981:656). questioned, and the focus was on learning how to interact The Wari’ emphasize the external origin of some of their with them in order to obtain specific results, such as im- most central cultural practices, such as the production of mortality, understood as the end of illness and death (Viv- maize beer and the funeral song, which, through myth, they eiros de Castro 1992, 2002). It should be stressed that this attribute to the apprenticeship of a Wari’ girl during her time appropriation was a two-way process, because the priests, spent living among an enemy group. The same occurs in perceiving the power of the shamans, began to imitate relation to Christianity, where they insist on emphasizing its them, though not with the aim of achieving their own new and unusual quality, especially relating to divine creation. transformation but that of the natives (Laugrand 1997). As one woman told me, “Nobody knew before that God had Wagner’s (1975) formulation on the same type of diver- created everything. We joined the whites and came to know. gence in the ways of dealing with difference is of particular For the ancients, there was no explanation for why the animals interest here. According to Wagner (1975), the opposition were here. The animals existed for no reason, they thought” involves the distinction between conventionalizing and dif- (Orowao Karaxu, personal communication). ferentiating cultures. Although not the case among the Wari’, as I noted above, If Americans and other Westerns create the incidental world the exterior origin may be unmarked or even forgotten with by constantly trying to predict, rationalize and order it, then the passing of time. Among the Yanesha of Peruvian Ama- tribal, religious and peasant peoples create their universe of zonia, for example, the Euro-American origin of some cultural innate convention by constantly trying to change, readjust goods is contested, subverting the power relations of the and impinge upon it. Our concern is that of bringing things whites (Santos-Granero 2009). The case of the Guarani, whose into an ordered and consistent relation...andwecall the Christian influence dates back to the sixteenth-century Jesuit summation of our efforts Culture. Their concern might be missions, is particularly interesting. As Fausto (2007:82) thought of as an effort to “knock the conventional off bal- shows, the ideology of predation that organizes the thought ance.” (87–88) and action of the Tupi-Guarani groups was masked in this We can turn then to the equivocations involved in the en- case by an ideology of love centered on the figure of a sky- counter between these different relations to alterity deter- dwelling creator with the Christian influence of this new con- figuration unmarked by the Indians, who presented it as their 6. According to a hypothesis suggested by Gow (1993), even the ay- ahuasca ritual (based around consumption of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine), closely associated with shamanism across an extensive area of west- 5. Thereby making them the opposite of the Chinese, with whom the ern Amazonia and assumed to be traditionally indigenous, originated in Jesuits would enter into contact shortly after (see Gernet 1982). the region’s Christian missions. Vilac¸a Culture and Self S325 mined by distinct notions of culture, humanity, and person- blood for beer, for example. There was nothing like a “self” hood. We begin with the Wari’. identity to be possessed because this identity was contextual, produced on the basis of a relationship and determined from Culture, Humanity, and the “Outer Self” the outside. In the words of Taylor (1996), “Subjectivity . . . is primarily a matter of refraction: it takes its source in the Just like many other Amazonian peoples, the Wari’ concept sense one has of others’ perceptions of self” (206; see Robbins, of humanity is much broader than our (urban Euro-Amer- Schieffelin, and Vilac¸a 2014 for a broader discussion). ican) own, including diverse kinds of animals. The animals see themselves as humans (wari), meaning that they live in The Wari’ Meet the Missionaries houses with their families, perform rituals, hunt, cook, and above all are capable of acting as predators by perceiving the At the start of the 1950s, the situation in the small town of Wari’ in the same way as they are perceived by the latter: as Guajara´-Mirim in southwestern Amazonia was chaotic, with prey to be killed. The difference in Wari’ and animal percep- the rubber bosses interested in Wari’ lands organizing armed tions of the world results from their distinct bodies, consti- expeditions that killed entire villages. In revenge the Indians tuted not only by substances but also by memory and affects. would kill the whites (usually at a much smaller scale) and Different bodies imply distinct worlds. This is a phenomenon eat them. As these enemies were associated with animal prey, widespread in Amazonia, described by Viveiros de Castro karawa, warfare could not be attributed to the desire for (1998) as Amerindian perspectivism, a “somatic multinatu- revenge only; rather, it constituted part of the incessant efforts ralism” in opposition to our “cultural ,” a system of the Wari’ to stabilize themselves as humans. of thought that conceives the existence of a single culture— However, the intensification of warfare placed the Wari’ in shared by Indians and animals alike—and multiple natures. a disadvantageous position: dying in large numbers, they had Thus, if both the jaguar and the Wari’ drink beer, what is effectively become the prey of the whites and decided to accept beer for the jaguar the Wari’ see as blood. contact with the pacification expeditions organized by the The consequence of falling prey to an animal is undesired Brazilian government with the aim of defusing the state of metamorphosis, a process that contrasts with the voluntary war in the region. These expeditions included, albeit sepa- alteration of shamans and killers, related, as we have seen, to rately, American missionaries from the NTM, recently arrived the controlled appropriation of the exterior. Perceived by the in Brazil, and the Catholic Church, represented by a single Wari’ victims as illness, predation leads to the person’s trans- priest, Roberto Arruda, who later became a bishop. formation into an animal, temporary when reversed by a Like the other contact expeditions undertaken during this shamanic cure or definitive when death occurs: the person period, they all involved approaching the indigenous villages, began to see the animals as humans and to be seen by the around which were left various kinds of presents, especially other Wari’ as an animal. Consequently, the subjectification metal tools and pans. A Wari’ group peacefully approached of the animals results in a constant fear of undesired trans- the house of the Protestant missionaries for the first time in formations, which primarily threaten their children. One of 1956 (Vilac¸a 2010). the modes of resolving the problem is through the process The wealth of the whites, their apparent generosity, and of making kin (Vilac¸a 2002a, 2005), which is a means of their quickly evident capacity to cure diseases—of extreme stabilizing bodies, differentiating a collective human identity importance during the epidemics that succeeded contact— out of a generalized humanity of which animals form part, made the Wari’ immediately interested in them. The mimetic by sharing food, bodily substances, care, memories, and af- behavior observed by the missionaries was in every aspect fects. This amounts to a continuous investment, therefore, similar to that described during the first encounters between that must necessarily be shared by everyone. Tupi-Guarani groups and Jesuit missionaries, showing clearly The body vitality attributed to the proper functioning of that they saw bodily transformation as the means to access the heart, the locus of thought and affects for the Wari’, was the perspective and powers of the enemies. In the words of traditionally conceived as a sign or a guarantee of nontrans- the NTM missionary, the late Royal Taylor, formation, registering the person’s stability. People who are when someone saw the Indians arriving, he would shout: without an appetite, lazy, and sad could be suffering from a here come the Indians! They would run across the open process of transformation that needed to be reversed. This field. They took the clothing and dishes. So when they explains everyone’s constant monitoring of the signs of vi- caught sight of the Indians, they [the missionaries] ran to tality/morality in everyone else, especially close kin, which are gather up everything [their goods]. . . . The Indians, of their expressed not only in bodily form (fat, movement) but also own accord, wore clothing when they arrived at the post: in speech and the capacity to listen. People in transformation they liked to imitate the civilized. (Royal Taylor 1994, per- are unable to hear: they are deaf precisely because they hear sonal communication) only the voices of others, who call these victims to join them. Another important sign is refusing food, which reveals that The impressions of the missionary Friedrich Scharf on the they are seeing the food of other beings as true food; mistaking occasion of his first visit to the Wari’ indicate the same: “While S326 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 we were on the river shore washing, the Indians were on the “They Were Not Innocents in the bank watching us and trying to imitate our gestures” (F. Experience of Conversion” Scharf, unpublished manuscript, “Sim Deus e´ fiel: Um relato According to both the missionaries and the Wari’ themselves, de como Deus cumpriu as promessas dadas a mim”). their conversion to Christianity occurred in a “wave” around Soon after the first contacts, the Catholic and Evangelical 1969, when groups of people went to the missionaries to say missionary activities began to diverge. The Evangelicals—by that they believed (howa; to trust) in God.8 In the 1970s much collaborating closely with government agents, offering health of the population attended church services and showed an care to the Indians, and transporting government employees interest in every aspect of the missionaries’ teachings (in- to the city—were able to establish themselves definitively in cluding literacy classes). various areas of the Wari’ territory, with larger villages even- When asked directly what interested them about Chris- tually forming around the missionaries’ houses. The Catho- tianity, the Evangelical Wari’ usually pick out two elements: lics—diocesan priests linked to the prelacy of Guajara´- they were able to eat everything without becoming ill, and Mirim—were unable to maintain any close contact with the the fights between affines were over because everyone began Wari’ until they managed to establish an agricultural colony, to treat each other as brothers and sisters. Both are directly Sagarana, in 1965. Located outside the traditional territory, related to solving the problem of unstable humanity because this is where they took the sick being treated by the priests they suggest the end of predation by animals and by affines, as well as various orphans under the wardship of the prelacy. who could act as enemies by killing them through sorcery. While the Evangelicals lived alongside the traditional Wari’ We can begin with the former. family houses and strove to learn their language in order to The possibility of preventing humanized animals from start the work of catechism as soon as possible, in the Catholic preying on them, thereby causing death and undesired meta- village the aim was to transform the Indians into “citizens” morphosis, was glimpsed by the Wari’ when they learned in a short time span. The emphasis was on changing customs about the history of creation narrated in the book of Genesis, rather than religious proselytism; indeed, the priests never one of the first texts to be translated into their language. Even resided there, and everything was left under the charge of a today they are fascinated by this book and paste sections of young Bolivian, a lay officer appointed by the priests. it on the walls of their churches. The Indians were forced to work full time on the large Aside from the power of their numerous objects and the plantations and in other enterprises, eating in the collective effectiveness of their medicines, the missionaries offered the refectory, always appearing clean and well dressed, and obey- Wari’ a new ontology in which animals appeared merely as ing all orders (Von Graeve 1989). Dances, songs, and other prey, lacking any capacity for agency. As in Genesis 1:28 (King traditional manifestations as well as and other misde- James Bible), “And God blessed them, and God said unto meanors were disciplined with jets of cold water or more them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and severe punishments, including being sent to a “prison,” a hole subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and dug in the ground and sealed by a door locked from the over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that outside. moveth upon the earth.” According to the Wari’, masses were held sporadically, and By objectifying animals, divine creation fixes the Wari’ in only in Portuguese, when the priests visited. In contrast to the position of predators and therefore of humans. As one other ethnographic areas, especially where Jesuits, Capuchins, man observed, and Salesians worked, the priests in contact with the Wari’ People used to avoid armadillos and coati. When we ap- never learned their language.7 proached the whites, the believers told us to eat everything When after about five years, around 1970, the inhabitants because it was God who had made them. They didn’t cause of Sagarana resumed contact with their kin from other vil- disease. Pregnant women ate armadillos, hawks. This animal lages, the latter already declared themselves converted, saying became a true bird (prey) for us. People ate electric eel and that they “believed” (howa) in God. However, the Wari’ of nothing happened. Why? “I created the animals,” said God. Sagarana showed no interest in Iri’ Jam, “true invisible spirit,” “Wow, so that’s how it is,” we said. (Paleto´, personal com- the form in which “God” was translated in the Wari’ language munication) (among other reasons because of the difficulty in locating an As I have tried to show elsewhere (Vilac¸a 2009), “conversion,” equivalent figure in the indigenous cosmology). What, then, as a change in worldview, had already been conceived by the had interested the other Wari’? Wari’ in one of their myths. In the latter, the ancestors fed only on lizards, because they saw all the other animals as 7. Except for the late bishop D. Roberto Arruda, who had learned jaguars and fled from them in terror. It was a boy of enemy some of the Wari’ language by the end of his life, when he decided to origin, captured and adopted by the Wari’, who taught them live in Sagarana. On Catholic missionaries and indigenous languages, see Taylor (1981) on the Ecuadorian Achuar, Durston (2007) on the Peruvian Quechua, Orta (2004) on the Bolivian Aymara, and Rafael (1988) on the 8. The expression “They were not innocents in the experience of con- Tagalogs of the Philippines. version” is taken from Gershon (2006:147). Vilac¸a Culture and Self S327 to see the animals as they are seen today. By differentiating the Christian cosmology through the figure of the devil.9 In them among themselves and from the jaguar, the Wari’ were his memoirs, the missionary F. Scharf (unpublished manu- able to make them their prey. The similarity between the stray script, “Sim Deus e´ fiel: Um relato de como Deus cumpriu aspect of the missionaries without families (who usually came as promessas dadas a mim”) describes at length the fears of alone or as couples) and that of the captured boy as well as the Wari’: “Who could free them of these errors and fears? the attitudes of the Wari’ toward both become vividly ap- Of those demons and malign spirits who forced them to live parent when we compare the myth to the Wari’ narratives on in this way and to suffer?” the initial period of contact with the missionaries. In order Like the Catholics before the Second Vatican Council, the to share the new ontology, the Wari’ had to adopt the view- Evangelicals considered indigenous culture “to be an op- point of the boy, or of the missionaries, by identifying their pressive system that maintains the natives themselves in a own bodies with theirs through adoption, which involves care state of permanent spiritual terror” (Taylor 1981:66). In the and especially commensality. words of an NTM missionary, the author of the manual of Turning to the second advantage identified by the Wari’ catechism that guides the work of these missionaries all over with the conversion to Christianity, adopting the missionaries the world, “There is just one historical and real religion, and as kin allowed them not only to share their view of creation that is the religion of the Bible. . . . All the other religions but also to become similar as children of God. The generalized are false and the deceitful work of Satan” (McIlwain 2003:39; fraternity proposed by Christianity and performed in rites of also see Almeida 2002). In contrast to the Catholic view, commensality enabled them to mitigate another aspect of however, the native culture did not pose an obstacle to their predation, namely, the harm caused by affines through fights transformation, whether into citizens or into believers, be- and sorcery. By eclipsing affinity, the Wari’ momentarily re- cause it was subsumed under faith, or under the relation with lieved themselves of this danger (Vilac¸a 1997). Because it God. involved kinship, Christianity was necessarily a collective ex- Conversing with me in 1994, the late NTM missionary perience (see Gow 2006), distant from the individual con- Royal Taylor made explicit the subsumption of “culture” un- versions expected by the missionaries. der “faith”: “We were not that interested in their development Clearly things did not turn out quite as they wished. Not in terms of civilization. What we wanted was to learn the only because the affines made up a necessary evil, as we know, language so we could transmit the word of God” (Royal Tay- and every so often would revert to acting in an avaricious lor, personal communication, 1994). On that occasion, Taylor and angry way, but also because the animals insisted on acting very clearly saw where the problem lay. Commenting on the like humans, now subjectivized by the devil, who entered their movements of deconversion of the Wari’, he concluded, bodies like the Biblical serpent (see Vilac¸a 2011). With the They were not converted in spirit but only in mental per- fights between affines and the caused by sorcery and suasion. Belief for them was just a change in their way of animal attacks, the Wari’ deconverted, “abandoning God” and life, but belief involves an intimate relationship with God, the Christian rituals, until another moment, especially when which they had not known before. . . . However much I they began to fear the end of the world and the possibility explained that it is Christ’s spirit that brings salvation, they of going to hell (where they would become eternal prey still link salvation to their conduct. (Royal Taylor, personal roasted on open fires), when they once again converted. The communication, 1994) alternation between Christian and pagan phases, always col- Taylor knew that what the Wari’ were missing was not just lective, characterized the Christian experience of the Wari’ “faith, law or king” but an inner self without which an “in- until 2001, when a revival followed the September 11 attacks timate” relation with God would be impossible. in the United States, scenes of which they were able to watch Like his missionary colleagues, he also knew that for this on the communal television. They became afraid that the inner self to be constituted, the timeworn “technologies of world would come to an end and that Jesus would come back the self” (Foucault 1990; 1997; Robbins 2004) typical to Chris- to take the saved with him, leaving non-Christians to the big tian practice had to be introduced. Among the Wari’, these predators left on earth or taking them to hell. This movement included above all confession and literacy, which allowed di- was limited to the villages with a long-term Protestant influ- rect access to the divine word, as well as individualized com- ence and did not affect the sole Catholic village. Since then, mercial exchanges with the missionaries themselves, and rites churches have been built in all these villages, and a substantial of commensality, which reinforced the generalized consan- part of the Wari’ population declares itself Evangelical. guinity in quotidian life (see Vilac¸a 2012). Along with the new rituals, the Wari’ adoption of the divine Evangelicalism: The Inner Self perspective through the missionaries ended up reducing the scope of those whom the Wari’ could see as human (see Vilac¸a It is important to emphasize that the Evangelical missionaries shared with the Wari’ the idea of the concrete existence of 9. See Meyer (1999) on the notion of the devil among the African animal spirits, thereby reserving a captive place for them in Ewe. S328 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

2013). The “strength” of God led to the devil losing the ca- the underlying similarities believed to exist between indige- pacity to subjectivize animals, meaning he began to act ex- nous culture and Christian conventions. As Cabalzar (1999) clusively in the moral sphere of the relations of affinity. Evil observed concerning the recent activities of the Salesians no longer comes from outside (because the animals became among the Tukano, they never ceased to want to make Chris- simple objects) and is associated exclusively with affines. The tians out of the Indians, although now they no longer wished shamans ceased to be active because their role lost its function. them to cease being Indians. This same kind of narrowing was identified by Leenhardt In the words of the late bishop Dom Roberto, “Wari’ my- (1971 [1947]), in Do Kamo, as essential to the Kanak un- thology contains many things of great Christian value. We derstanding of Christianity, associating the rupture of “mythic must recapitulate. Respect their tradition for the catechism. participation” with the emergence of the “psychological self.” If we merely present our doctrine without reflecting on their In his words, with Christianity the person “detaches itself mythology, if we disdain this mythology, as believers we have finally from the socio-mythic domain where it had been to start from zero, and from zero nobody goes anywhere” trapped. . . . The psychological self that had been seen wan- (Dom Roberto, personal communication, 1993). dering everywhere, far from the body, is finally fixed” (264).10 As Shapiro (1981:143) observed, the missionaries estab- One of the visible effects of this process of interiorization lished a difference between faith and religion. Faith is uni- among the Wari’ is the transformation of the notion of heart, versal, transcending cultural differences, but it needs to be which is in the process of becoming hypertrophized, inte- “incarnated” in a concrete religion. Religion—which merges riorized, and disconnected from the body as the necessary with culture, and in this sense the Indians “transpired relig- locus for its expression. Following the Christian revival that iosity from every pore” (Viveiros de Castro 1992:25)—is the took place in 2001, the Wari’ began to use expressions then institutional apparatus through which faith is expressed in unknown to me, such as “he knows with his own heart” to particular societies, and if this culture is destroyed, expression refer to someone’s secret intimacy in situations that went of faith becomes impossible. The missionaries therefore ad- beyond the Christian context per se. The idea of the individ- vocated a sacred respect for the indigenous culture understood ual, which the Wari’ knew to be an indissociable part of the through their own concepts (Shapiro 1981:146; Vilac¸a 2002b). Christian message by inventing a sky inhabited by people who The repercussions of the Second Vatican Council led in lived in individual houses without any contact with each other, 1970 to the expulsion of the Bolivian agent in charge of Sa- seems to have begun to come down to earth (Dumont 1983). garana village and the transfer of its administration to lay Let us examine the relation between this effect and the one missionaries from the indigenist missionary council produced by Catholic action. This is represented by the mis- (Conselho Indigenista Missiona´rio [CIMI]), directly linked to sionaries as completely different from its Evangelical coun- the Brazilian bishopric (Confereˆncia Nacional dos Bispos do terpart. Brasil). Following the church guidelines, and as we can deduce from Dom Roberto’s dialogue, they avoided direct religious proselytism (which they had not been doing anyway), al- Catholics: Guilty Culture though they looked wherever possible to make explicit con- Following the Second Vatican Council, the work of the Cath- nections between Christian stories and morality and the Wari’ 11 olic Church underwent, from its own point of view, a radical mythology, which generated a whole series of equivocations. change in approach, beginning a “second” phase of “new For instance, at a Christmas mass held in the village in 1993 evangelization.” After conducting a severe self-critique of its where I was present, Dom Roberto was reading the Gospel work (Orta 2004:73, 82; Rufino 2002:147), especially after the on the birth of Jesus and the arrival of the Three Magi in Second Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Med- Portuguese, when he asked a Wari’ man to tell a similar story. ellin in 1968, the church established that marginalized peo- The man stood up and narrated a myth about a baby killed ples, including indigenous communities, were actually closer by his paternal grandmother (i.e., his mother’s mother-in- to Christian ideals than Euro-Americans. The Indians were law), which led to the killing of the old woman by the mother’s transformed from barbarian humans into Christian exem- brothers. Cut into small pieces, only the clitoris remained, plars, and missionary activity began to be based on the prin- which they then hid in various different places to laugh at ciple of “incarnatio” or “inculturation”: as Jesus had done, the killers and provoke them. The filial relationship in the the missionary should live like the Indians and in this way Gospel was transformed into affinity (mother-in-law/daugh- spread the “good news” (Orta 2004; Rufino 2002:134, 149; ter-in-law) in the Wari’ translation (Vilac¸a 2002b; on the no- Shapiro 1981; Viveiros de Castro 1992, 2002). Just like the tion of translative equivocity, see Viveiros de Castro 2004). imitation of shamans by some missionaries cited earlier, this Given that from the Catholic viewpoint, the church’s past is a very different movement from the differentiation prac- actions were in great part responsible for indigenous “culture ticed by the Indians: here it consists of a means of revealing loss,” one of CIMI’s explicit actions involves recovering it,

10. See Clifford (1992:78) and Vilac¸a (2013) for comments on this 11. See Taylor (1981) on the effects of this kind of syncretism among text; see also Strathern (1988:268–271) and Taylor (1996). the Jivaroan Achuar. Vilac¸a Culture and Self S329 because they depend on culture to transmit the Christian although they seek to act out a version of Christianity that message.12 This brusque turnabout in the direction of Catholic focuses on good (visible or hidden in all persons and cultures), missionary work was experienced by the native peoples of their apprehension of the representatives of the state— Portuguese and Spanish America as a whole, and their puz- whether they are government employees, legislators, politi- zlement was intensified by the fact that such different actions cians, and so on—bears an impressive similarity to the Evan- were undertaken by the same institution and sometimes by gelical version of the devil. They are always pretending to be the same people (Orta 2004). This is what the Salesians did kind and correct people to trick the Indians, tempting them in relation to the Bororo: in the past the priests destroyed the with generous offers but poised to attack them unexpectedly. men’s house, while today they encourage the Indians to build it; in the past they stored Western clothes so that they did Conclusions not get them dirty, while today they store the feather adorn- ments so that they do not sell them (Novaes 1999:351). Ac- The above analyses allow us to conclude that the dialectic cording to Jackson (1995), the same occurred among the between continuity and rupture can be apprehended from Tukano: in 1970 a priest justified the destruction of the com- various perspectives: in the relation between the Wari’ Chris- munal houses, claiming that they were “temples of demon- tian experience and the pre-Christian universe, in the work worship and encouragements to promiscuity.” In 1991, of Catholic and Evangelical missionaries, and in terms of though, a Catholic newspaper published a photo of the com- Catholic action itself over the years. Returning to the initial munal house with the caption, “our longhouses are also tem- proposal of this article—that is, comparing the effects of dif- ples of God” (Jackson 1995:10; see also Cabalzar 1999). ferent forms of missionary work among the Wari’—we are Today it is the lack of “culture” that is punished, albeit prompted to ask, can we establish a relation between the implicitly. A man from Sagarana told me in 2005 that one of effects of the “conversion to community” (Pollock 1993) or the lay missionaries had told him that he would no longer the conversion to “culture” achieved by the Catholics and the enter the Wari’ houses because they no longer build them Evangelical conversion focused on the constitution of the 14 from straw and wood but from bricks and asbestos tiles. As self? Carneiro da Cunha (2009) observed in her analysis of the In relation specifically to individualism, the works of Pol- invention of intellectual property legislation, it does not occur lock (1993:189) and Taylor (1981:652) comparing the si- to legislators (or to missionaries) that “entire peoples . . . may multaneous activities of Catholic missionaries and Evangelical think of their culture as exogenous, obtained from others” missionaries from the Summer Institute of Linguistics among (329; also see 361).13 the Amazonian Culina and Achuar, respectively, show that Destroying or preserving are variations on the same theme, both kinds of missionaries base their work on clearly indi- although we cannot deny their distinct effects on the Indians. vidualist conceptions recognized by the Indians as such, While in the past they probably did not understand of what whether adopting or rejecting them. The most important dif- they were guilty, today they feel guilty about abandoning their ference according to the authors resides in the fact that the “culture.” As a Wari’ man from Sagarana told me, in Por- individualizing premises are made explicit by the Evangelicals tuguese, when we were talking about the idea of animal spirits while they remain implicit in Catholic practice. Among the causing diseases, “Perhaps I disdain my own culture a bit, Achuar, the Evangelicals laud routinized physical work and but I don’t believe it.” For their part, the Wari’ from Sagarana relate success in accumulating capital to divine assistance, condemn this disdain on the part of the Evangelical Wari’, while the Catholics created a cooperative system ruled by a as one Wari’ woman complained, “they only want to know notion of property alien to the Indians (Taylor 1981:669). The about religion. That isn’t good. You have to value the things cooperative created among the Culina is also the example of the ancient ones. You have to know about the past, not chosen by Pollock (1993) to illustrate what seems to be an just the present.” The “sacralization” of culture by the mis- important equivocation made by the Catholics. The removal sionaries makes its transgression a kind of sin. of goods for sale was related to a notion of individual pro- Just as guilt emerges amid culture, so the devil returns, this ductivity that, as for the Wari’ involved in the Sagarana co- time associated with the state. It is precisely in the arena of operative that I was able to see operating in the 1990s, was political struggles in favor of indigenous rights—central to not traditionally valued. According to Pollock (1993:183) the the work of the Catholics—that they chose to enact the op- system—based on the idea that social relations could be mea- position between good and evil and that the Evangelical Chris- sured by individually owned goods—violated the Culina view tians objectify in the figures of God and the devil. Hence, of sociability, which led them to reject the missionary projects and thus Christianity. 12. On the relation between “culture,” “property,” and “recovery,” see However, although we lack in-depth studies on the theme, Carneiro da Cunha (2009:317, 364). 13. Considering that I am affirming that culture is innate, I have to 14. On the association between “community/collectivity” and “cul- clarify here that from the Indians’ point of view (at least from the point ture,” see Carneiro da Cunha (2009:327). Given the limits of the present of view of the Wari’), they are not “obtaining culture” but making their paper, I have decided not to mention here the extensive literature on bodies different. “culture,” or kastom, especially rich in the Melanesian context. S330 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 the effects of the different forms of catechizing for many conceived by the Evangelical Wari’ to arise from an ancient Amazonian groups are apparently highly distinct, because alimentary question: when Moses descended from the moun- with the new Catholicism, many resumed—sometimes after tain and saw the people worshipping stone idols, he trans- many years of abandonment—some of their rituals and par- formed the statues into dust, mixed them into a drink, and ticularly shamanism (see Opas 2008) in which complex, re- made them drink it; consequently, the Catholics today wor- lationalist (Robbins 2004), dividual (Mosko 2010; Strathern ship stone images. “Culture” is translated as food or body.16 1988), and differentiating (Wagner 1975) notions of person This suggests that the Wari’ concept of culture does not fit and culture are involved. Among those in simultaneous con- exactly with the anthropological notion involved in Carneiro tact with both variants of Christianity—as in the case of the da Cunha’s model. As I commented above, we call “culture” Paumari (Bonilla 2009) and the Piro/Yine (Opas 2008), a set of rules and models for action that are translated by among others—the Catholics are seen by the Evangelicals as several Amazonian peoples as “body,” which is what differ- those who possess the “culture” of the ancient ones. Among entiates persons and whole groups (including animal spirits). these groups, some have made use of this opposition to ac- So, the new concept of culture introduced by the Catholic tualize their own dichotomies, as in the case of the Kaingang missionaries does not relate to the traditional one as a kind (Veiga 2004), the Piro/Yine (Opas 2008), and the Baniwa of contextual transformation, involving instead a whole new (Wright 1999), who began to express the distinctions between idea. Instead of innate attributes that are shared by all human social groups through their different conversions to one or beings, who act them out differently because of their different the other church (for a similar case in Africa, see Meyer 1999). bodies, culture became a set of things, which includes rituals, The resumption of traditional practices through the con- myths, songs, and objects. cept of “culture” brought by Catholic missionaries (as well According to Wagner’s (1975) model, which locates the as by members of NGOs, government workers, and anthro- difference between modern and tribal peoples in their distinct pologists) suggests, as Carneiro da Cunha argued (2009:355– views of invention, the conception of culture as the result of 363), the possibility of coexistence between this objectified conventionalizing human agency is characteristic of modern culture and the notion of traditional culture, each being en- Euro-Americans, while tribal peoples (among others) take acted in a different relational context: the former in the “in- culture as a given and work on “unpredicting” (Wagner 1975: terethnic” context, and the latter in the properly indigenous 145) it through a constant work of differentiation, which, for context (Carneiro da Cunha 2009:359). According to Carneiro those Amazonians mentioned here, means body differentia- da Cunha, the native interest in maintaining these notions in tion. However, there is one interesting point in Wagner’s ar- separate systems can be observed in the fact that they do not gument that could help us sustain the argument of Carneiro look to translate this term, always using foreign words (Car- da Cunha (2009) on the coexistence of the two kinds of neiro da Cunha 2009:369).15 concepts: cultures that differentiate can occasionally delib- There are a few problems with this statement regarding the erately invert the direction of their inventive movement to Wari’. Although they talk about their “culture” (which did make conventions, occasions that we name “ritual,” reserving not occur until recently in Evangelical villages), the people in for it a special place and time. I suggest that “culture in quote Sagarana do not perform traditional rituals but rather festivals marks,” also enacted in a specific space and relational context in the style of their Makurap (Tupi) neighbors, from whom (the “interethnic” one), could be associated with ritual as an they have imported manioc beer. Neither are there shamans, occasion for making conventions. As in the dialectical play and people speak in Portuguese much more fluently than in between invention and convention (Wagner 1975:116), these the Evangelical villages, a consequence of the monolingualism two models do not coexist within a hierarchical frame but of the priests and collaborators as well as the presence, albeit alternate, which is consistent with the way these people enact small, of Indians from other ethnic groups with whom they the process of Other becoming, as we saw above. converse in Portuguese. Understandably, in contrast to what Coming back to the notion of self—although, as we have happens among other indigenous groups in contact with the seen, a concept of inner self is coming to life among Evan- two Christian denominations, the Evangelicals do not asso- gelicals—we may still see the functioning of this alternating ciate the Catholics with practitioners of culture. Indeed, they model through the analysis of how Christian concepts have fear for the posthumous fate of their kin, whose drinking, been translated into the Wari’ language. The traditional notion marital betrayals, lies, and thieving will lead them directly to of personhood is preserved through the permanence of the hell, where a process of endless roasting will turn them into original meaning of the words, such as the one for spirit/ prey for eternity. double, which points to a dividual and relational person even The differences between Protestants and Catholics, which have led to wars and killings elsewhere in the world, are 16. I should make clear that in contrast to what happens among other Catholic groups, especially in Brazilian urban and rural environments (see Mayblin 2014), and even among some Catholic indigenous groups, 15. For an analogous example of the coexistence between distinct sys- where saint festivals are commemorated, saints were never worshipped tems in separate contexts, see Barker (1993) on the Christian experience in Wari’ Catholicism. The observation cited here applies especially to of the Maisin. Catholic priests. 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If God were a jaguar: cannibalism and Christianity parents and grandparents some years ago. In December 2012, among the Guarani (16th–20th centuries). In Time and memory in indig- one of these teachers, my Wari’ brother, Abra˜o, brought me enous Amazonia: anthropological perspectives. Carlos Fausto and Michael as a gift some charming drawings made by children in his Heckenberger, eds. Pp. 74–105. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Foucault, Michel. 1990. The use of pleasure. Robert Hurley, trans. New York: classroom to illustrate the myths. A clear representation of Vintage. the human-animal character of one of these mythic figures, ———. 1997. Ethics: subjectivity and truth, vol. 1. New York: New Press. shown in the drawing of a jaguar (copacao) recently made by Gernet, Jacques. 1982. Chine et Christianisme: la premie`re confrontation. Paris: Gallimard. a 15-year-old girl, lead me to imagine that the learning of Gershon, Ilana. 2006. Converting meanings and the meanings of conversion “culture” by this new generation of Evangelicals has become in Samoan moral economies. In The limits of meaning. Matthew Engelke a way of recapturing the innate world’s mixture of human and Matt Tomlinson, eds. Pp. 147–164. New York: Berghahn. and animal, albeit now domesticated by its confinement to Gow, Peter. 1993. Gringos and wild Indians: images of history in western Amazonian cultures. L’Homme 126/128:327–347. myth. ———. 2006. Forgetting conversion: the Summer Institute of Linguistic Mis- sion in the Piro lived world. In The anthropology of Christianity. Fenella Cannell, ed. Pp. 211–239. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hanson, Allan. 1989. The making of the Maori: culture invention and its logic. American Anthropologist 91(4):890–902. Jackson, Jean. 1995. Culture genuine and spurious: the politics of Indianness Acknowledgments in the Vaupe´s, Colombia. American Ethnologist 22(1):3–27. Kelly, Jose´ A. 2011. State healthcare and Yanomami transformations: a sym- Fieldwork among the Wari’ was funded by the Wenner-Gren metrical ethnography. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Fun- Kopenawa, Davi, and Bruce Albert. 2010. La chute du ciel: paroles d’un chaman dac¸a˜o de Amparo a` Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Yanomami. Paris: Plon. Laugrand, Fe´de´ric. 1997. “Ni vanqueurs, ni vaincus”: les premie`res rencontres and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientı´fico e Tec- entre les chamanes Inuit (angakkuit) et les missionaires dans trois re´gions nolo´gico and Fundac¸a˜o de Amparo a`Pesquisa do Estado do de l’Arctique canadien. Anthropologie et Socie´te´s 21(2/3):99–123. Rio de Janeiro. My special thanks go to Joel Robbins for his Leenhardt, Maurice. 1971 (1947). Do Kamo: la personne et le mythe dans le comments as well as for conceiving and organizing, along monde me´lane´sien. Paris: Gallimard. Le´vi-Strauss, Claude. 1992. Histo´ria de Lince. Barcelona: Anagrama. with Leslie Aiello and Laurie Obbink, the Anthropology of Mauss, Marcel. 1999. Une cate´gorie de l’esprit humain: la notion de personne, Christianity symposium. I also thank Naomi Haynes and the celle de “moi.” In Sociologie et Anthropologie. Pp. 333–362. Paris: PUF. other participants for their comments on the first version of Maxwell, David. 2007. “Comments” to Joel Robbins “Continuity thinking and Christian culture.” Current Anthropology 48(1):25–26. the paper as well as the anonymous reviewers for their careful Mayblin, Maya. 2014. People like us: intimacy, distance, and the gender of and insightful reading. saints. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. 10):S271–S280. S332 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

McIlwain, Trevor. 2003. Alicerces firmes: da criac¸a˜o ate´Cristo. Adriana Lima Cultural transformations and ethnicity in modern Equador. Norman Whitten Colac¸o Melgarejo, trans. Ana´polis: Missa˜o Novas Tribos do Brasil. Jr., ed. Pp. 647–676. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Meyer, Birgit. 1998. “Make a complete break with the past”: memory and ———. 1996. The soul’s body and its states: an Amazonian perspective on postcolonial modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostal discourse. In Memory and the nature of being human. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the postcolony: African anthropology and the critique of power. Richard Werb- n.s., 2:201–215. ner, ed. Pp. 182–208. London: Zed. Veiga, Juracilda. 2004. As religio˜es crista˜s entre os Kaingang: mudanc¸a e per- ———. 1999. Translating the devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in maneˆncia. In Igrejas Evange´licas, Pentecostais e neo-Pentecostais entre os povos Ghana. 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The Cultural Kindling of Spiritual Experiences

by Julia L. Cassaniti and Tanya Marie Luhrmann

Online enhancement: appendix PDF file.

In this paper we suggest that it is important for the anthropology of Christianity and the anthropology of religion more generally to develop a comparative phenomenology of spiritual experience. Our method is to distinguish between a named phenomenon without fixed mental or bodily events (phenomena that have specific local terms but are recognized by individuals by a broad and almost indiscriminate range of physical events); bodily affordances (events of the body that happen in social settings but are only identified as religious in those social settings when they afford, or make available, an interpretation that makes sense in that setting); and striking anomalous events. We demonstrate that local cultural practices shift the pattern of spiritual experiences, even those such as sleep paralysis and out-of-body experiences that might be imagined in some ways as culture free, but that the more the spiritual experience is constrained by a specific physiology, the more the frequency of the event will be constrained by an individual’s vulnerability to those experiences. We will call this the “cultural kindling” of spiritual experience.

One person feels a damp coldness and says that a demon is tance of comparison in understanding spiritual experience present. Another person starts shaking uncontrollably and because, as we will argue, direct comparison actually experiences the shaking as the Holy Spirit. A third feels light, strengthens the case that the social gets under the skin. If almost as if he were floating. That is what happens when he we reject comparison, we leave the field to the increasingly meditates. Anthropologists of religion have been sharply popular argument that at least some kinds of spiritual phe- aware that such bodily events are not only given different nomena are organic, hardwired, universal. Neuroscientists meanings in different spiritual traditions but that the meaning emphasize the universal biology of peak experiences in in some sense creates the bodily event. “In modern ways of order to make the point that there are fundamental brain thinking about culture and psychology,” the historian Robert phenomena that may give rise to what people have called Orsi (2012) says, “there is no ‘out of’ history and culture, no the awareness of God (Newberg, D’Aquili, and Rouse place antecedent or outside of social circumstances, relation- 2001). They have demonstrated that phenomena some- ships and ways of thinking about and imagining the world” times taken to be spiritual or supernatural—out-of-body (97). Neither bodies nor categories of the spiritual are ever experiences, for example—can be generated under labo- free of their social context. As Talad Asad (2012) remarks, ratory conditions (Blanke et al. 2002). Anthropologists “Defining is a historical act and when the definition is de- should be part of this conversation because our methods ployed, it does different things at different times and in dif- give us the kind of data we can use to demonstrate the way social context and cultural expectation shape these ferent circumstances and responds to different questions, events. needs and pressures” (39). We might use the analogy of psychiatric illness. When an- We nevertheless want to make the case for the impor- thropologists refuse to consider whether madness in Ghana can be compared with madness in New York, we in effect Julia L. Cassaniti is Assistant Professor of Psychological and Medical cede the ground to the biomedical psychiatrist to define mad- Anthropology at Washington State University (Pullman, Washington ness as driven solely by internal biological causes: what has 99164, U.S.A. [[email protected]]). Tanya Marie Luhrmann is been called the “bio bio bio” model of psychiatric illness— the Watkins University Professor in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University (Stanford, California 94305, U.S.A. genetic cause, brain lesion, pharmacological treatment (Luhr- [[email protected]]) Both have contributed equally to this mann 2012a). When anthropologists, alongside social epi- article and share joint first authorship. This paper was submitted 4 demiologists, are able to demonstrate that people experience XII 13, accepted 19 VI 14, and electronically published 19 XI 14. psychiatric illnesses in differently patterned ways in different

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0018$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677881 S334 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 social settings, we are able to make not only the deconstructive (particularly, anomalous events) are “deemed religious” or argument that psychiatric categories have been used in racist special in many different settings and that these events often ways but also the demonstrative argument that racism drives have a neuroscientific description. She urges us to ask what people mad.1 patterns of events are associated with them in different settings Moreover, we are, in any event, always implicitly compar- and under what conditions they are “deemed religious.” She ing. The project of making sense of another’s experience in- calls this a “building blocks” approach to the study of religious volves altering the categories of experience from one subjec- experiences. tively positioned linguistic, cultural, historical tradition to We take from this work and from our own the observations another and (in American anthropology) publishing findings that in any local spiritual tradition, names may be associated in English words, limited by the particular historical meanings with various phenomenological experiences (the word “vi- of those words. This is not a matter of language alone; making sion” may include a range of actual bodily or mental events); sense of a neighbor is an imperfect exercise whether or not that ordinary bodily or mental events may or may not be that neighbor speaks English, and always the sense making is identified as religious (dreams are religious experiences in laden with the dynamics of power. Sidestepping explicit com- some settings but not others, and perhaps only some kinds parison can leave the inequalities and ambiguities of implicit of dreams); and that anomalous experiences are often deemed comparison unquestioned, and anthropologists of religion religious. may use their own categories to make sense of others’ ex- With these observations in mind, we set out here a first perience without explicitly recognizing that they do so. iteration of a field guide to identify spiritual experiences across But how to compare? Anthropologists have been increas- traditions and cultures. We suggest that there are at least three ingly interested in phenomenology in recent years (Csordas different kinds of phenomena that might be compared: 1994; Desjarlais and Throop 2011), and in fact there are many 1. Named phenomena without fixed mental or bodily events. research projects that focus on (and thus implicitly or ex- These are phenomena that have specific local terms but are plicitly compare) specific phenomena, such as dreams (Loh- recognized by individuals by a broad and almost indiscrim- mann 2003; Mittermaier 2010), visions (Obeyesekere 2012), inate range of physical events: goose bumps, tingling, warmth, or ghosts (Kwon 2008). Sometimes scholars work explicitly temperature change, emotions such as fear or joy or a sudden with scare quotes because they recognize that they compare sense of peace. An example might be the presence of God for psychologically dissimilar events that they still describe as charismatic evangelical Christians. In such churches, people similar. William Christian and Gabor Klaniczay (2008) titled learn to recognize when God is present, but different indi- their collection The “Vision Thing” and included work on viduals often report different specific signs—this person feels dreams, awake sensory experiences of the immaterial, and goose bumps, that person feels cold, another feels hot. Neg- powerful inner images because all these are taken (at times) ative spiritual presences are recognized across many cultures to be direct visual evidence of the divine or supernatural and and given varied theological interpretations, but they are called visions. Rebecca Seligman and Laurence Kirmayer rarely recognized by specific physiological constellations of indicators. Ghosts, or people who are dead but somehow are (2008) compare anthropological understandings of possession still present, are recognized many different ways. For example, and psychiatric understandings of dissociation by committing English ghosts were usually identified as looking like actual to a definition accepted in the psychiatric literature—“func- people before the Victorian era, when they became transparent tional alterations of memory, perception and identity as well (McCorristine 2010). as the psychophysiological processes presumed to underlie the 2. Bodily affordances. These are events in the body that phenomena” (32)—and then working through why anthro- happen: shaking, adrenaline rushes, fainting, crying. We use pological and psychiatric accounts differ. The biologist Alister the term “affordance” (Gibson 1986) to suggest that these are Hardy (1979) famously asked the British public to send him events of the body that happen in many social settings but descriptions of their experience of God and organized the are only identified as religious in those social settings when thousands of responses by sensory element and setting. The they afford, or make available, an interpretation that makes religious historian Ann Taves is acutely aware of the complex sense in a specific religious tradition. Everyone cries, but only resonance of terms such as “experience.” Nonetheless, she in settings when strong emotion makes sense as an experience reads deeply in the neuroscience literature. “In my view,” she of divinity will crying be “deemed religious.” writes, “it is better to construct rough and ready bridges [be- 3. Striking anomalous events. These are specific patterns of tween the humanities and the sciences] than to wait for the events, often (but not always) identified as associated with construction of a perfect bridge that will stand for all time” the spiritual or supernatural, that are sometimes also called (Taves 2009:xiii). She sees that some mental or bodily events “unusual experiences”: they are outside the range of everyday experience. Classic examples include hallucinations or sensory 1. This work is summarized in Luhrmann (2012a); for an anthro- pological account of the factors leading to an increased rate of illness for overrides, de´ja` vu, mystical experiences, out-of-body expe- immigrant Africans, see Eliacin (2013) and Hopper (2004) for an over- riences, near death experiences, and sleep paralysis. These view. events are often treated as specific neurological events in the Cassaniti and Luhrmann Cultural Kindling S335 scientific literature even if there are debates about what that how often it happened; would they call that experience re- neurological structure is, and many are reported both in the ligious or spiritual and why—and then moved on to spiritual scientific literature and in folklore. experiences taken from the classics in Christian spirituality, This is a structure that helps us to begin to develop some above all William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience clarity about what we are comparing. Are we comparing (1999 [1902]), and the best recent compendium of unusual events in the body that most people have but that are only experiences, Carden˜a, Lynn, and Krippner’s The Varieties of deemed religious in some settings? Or are we comparing Anomalous Experiences (2000). Naturally, the questions used “presence of God” moments, which are unlikely to be found Christian categories, but when those categories were typically as such outside of Christian contexts? Or are we comparing associated with specific phenomenological experiences, we rare events with a complex physiology, which we know to asked about those events first. The “Holy Spirit” experience, occur to some but not all people, such as sleep paralysis? With for example, is a concept often used to describe an event in this structure, we can ask how the presence of a specific cul- which someone feelings an intense surge of power sweeping tural name for a mental or bodily event affects that event’s through their body like electricity, or what we would call the salience within a specific social world. We will argue that local bodily affordance of an adrenaline rush. We used the term cultural practices shift the pattern of spiritual experiences, “Holy Spirit,” but we led the questions with the presumed even those such as sleep paralysis and out-of-body experiences phenomenological description of the event. that might be imagined as in some ways culture free, but that Here we discuss the questions that project asked of 33 the more the spiritual experience is constrained by a specific members of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship about their physiology, the more the frequency of the event will be con- specific spiritual experiences. We have removed questions strained by an individual’s vulnerability to those experiences. about frequency and concomitant drug use. The whole in- We will call this the “cultural kindling” of spiritual experience. terview typically lasted an hour or more. Demonic presence. Have you ever been certain, from the What We Did: Our Method way that you felt in your body, that there was a demonic presence near at hand? Cataplexy. Have you ever had an experience of uncon- The original impulse for our comparison came out of Tanya trollable trembling or shaking or an experience in which you Marie Luhrmann’s ethnographic and experimental work on felt that a spiritual power pushed you down (some people a charismatic evangelical church, which represents the major call this being “slain in the Spirit”)? demographic shift in the religious practice of the United States Adrenaline rush. Have you ever had an experience in which since 1965 toward spiritualities more focused on an intimate you felt this intense rush of power through your body, as if and present experience of God (e.g., Miller 1997; Pew 2006). some great force were running through your body? Perhaps In these congregations, reports of the direct spiritual expe- your mouth was dry and your palms were sweaty (some peo- rience of God is welcomed though not required or presumed.2 ple call this a “Holy Spirit” experience)? The interview for the work began with open-ended discussion Overwhelming emotion. Have you ever had an experience (“Would you say that you hear from God? How?” “What has of intense, overwhelming emotion, perhaps with uncontrol- been your most memorable spiritual experience?”) and then lable weeping or uncontrollable laughing or , that felt turned to a series of questions about unusual sensory expe- like a spiritual experience? riences—whether people had heard a voice when alone, or Sleep paralysis. Have you ever have an experience of being seen something others might not see; what that was like and awake but unable to move? When Julia Cassaniti came to do her postdoctoral work at 2. This work is discussed more fully in When God Talks Back (Luhr- Stanford, we became interested in whether these categories mann 2012b). For the study discussed here, Tanya included interviews of spiritual experiences would be recognizable in other set- with 33 members of the Vineyard church people. In this group, 25 were female and 8 male. The average age was 49. Twenty-five were white, three tings. After all, although in his descriptions of religious ex- were African American, three were Asian, and one was “other.” Twenty- periences William James draws from a long history of Chris- one had a BA degree or better (here data were missing on six). They tianity, he writes about spiritual phenomena as if they are were recruited through an advertisement seeking people “interested in features of a pan-human psychology that are shaped by the- spiritual transformation and the Christian spiritual disciplines,” primarily ology and congregational understanding, which he calls “over- through notices placed in church bulletins in four charismatic evangelical 3 congregations on the San Francisco peninsula (two were Vineyard belief.” churches and two were churches similar to the Vineyard, the denomi- nation in which Tanya had done her ethnographic work). None had been 3. “It would never do for us to place ourselves offhand at the position hospitalized for psychotic illness. Before randomizing people into dif- of a particular theology, the Christian theology, and proceed immediately ferent experimental wings of the study (the aim was to compare the to define the ‘more’ [the more than human] as Jehovah, and the ‘union’ practice of imagination-rich prayer with a nonprayer condition), subjects as his imputation to us of the righteousness of Christ” (James 1999 [1902]: were interviewed in depth about their prayer life and their spiritual 555). The Varieties of Anomalous Experience (Carden˜a, Lynn, and Krippner experience. All interviews were transcribed by a commercial firm and 2000) is written as if culture and theology are almost completely irrel- corrected by Rachael Morgain for word-for-word accuracy. evant. S336 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Thai Buddhism offers a significant contrast to American Julia skipped the follow-up questions, but if there was any Christianity not only in language and social setting but in the sense that the person had more to say, she asked follow-up very absence of a God. In 2011 Julia returned to the small questions. valley community in Northern Thailand where she has been We did not do statistical analyses with our data because doing ethnographic fieldwork since 2002 (see Cassaniti 2006, they are not systematic enough, and our subject numbers are 2009, 2012). The Thai community with which she works is not numerous enough to allow us to speak of findings quan- made up of people with spiritual lineages that slightly differ titatively. Yet the data are rich enough and the patterns clear from each other but that those in the community group under enough to suggest some illuminating treads and (we think) the umbrella of Therava¯da Thai Buddhism. People in this a quite interesting hypothesis. community are middle- and lower-class farmers and small business owners. They follow Buddhist teachings that em- What We Found: Our Results phasize the lessening of suffering through acts of merit making and following the dhamma, regularly attending wat (mon- The results of our interview are found in table 1. The Amer- astery) events where they practice these acts and support or- icans were more likely than the Thai to report cataplexy, dained monks. We were curious about whether these phe- adrenaline rushes, and overwhelming emotion as spiritual ex- nomenological events would be recognized in such a different periences, and they were more likely to report everyday en- religiosity. counters with demons. But the Thai were more likely to report Julia interviewed 20 people who were actively involved in sleep paralysis. (Both groups reported hallucination-like Buddhist practice.4 She translated and back-translated the events, which are salient in both religious traditions, at the questions that Tanya asked of people in her Christian sample. same rate. This suggests that they were not answering at ran- While some ideas were more difficult to translate into Thai dom.) than others, for the most part Julia felt that the questions she We think that there are three broad reasons for these dif- asked were similar to the ones asked in the American project. ferences. First, if your experience has a specific name in the The exceptions were these: rather than asking about demonic local religion, it is more likely to be reported. Cataplexy (“slain presence, she asked, “Do you ever feel like a bad spirit(s) in the Spirit”) and adrenaline rushes (“the Holy Spirit ex- comes near you?” She did not use the term “Holy Spirit” or perience”) and “demons” are specific named events for many “slain in the Spirit,” and rather than asking about “God” she evangelical Christians, and these Americans report them more asked about “spirits” or the “spiritual.”5 As in Tanya’s sample, often than the Thai Buddhists. Sleep paralysis has a specific each question was begun as stated but often somewhat elab- name among the Thai, but not among the Americans, and orated for clarification. As Tanya did in her sample, if the the Thai report it more often. person asked gave a definitive no at the beginning of a probe, Second, the different religions value different kinds of ex- periences. Buddhism has no divinity, no omniscient presence for which one longs. The goal for a Thai Buddhist is to detach 4. All lived within two miles of each other. Eleven of them were male, and feel untethered from the cycle of suffering. One seeks nine were female. Their average age was 52. Six were traditional, typical Thai Buddhists who attended weekly events at their neighborhood mon- upa¯da¯na, detachment. Julia found that in speaking about spir- asteries; eight were typical modern Thai Buddhists who went to mon- itual experiences, her Thai subjects were more likely to use astery events but also learned from books and from the Internet; and six an idiom of “weight” in which feelings of lightness were as- had more specialized practices: a forest monk, two “spirit doctors,” a sociated with calm, positive spirituality and heaviness with spirit medium, a follower of the Japanese Buddhist sect Yo Re, and a negative spirituality. They commonly reported feelings of follower of the Thai Buddhist sect Santi Asoke. Seven had BA degrees or more; two had attended Buddhist monastery school. Eleven worked calmness, lightness, of feeling empty, weightless, suspended in business or administration, three worked in farming, four worked as in the air, or even flying, often in connection with medita- religious specialists, and two were retired. All of them lived (and most tion—even though we did not ask directly about lightness came from) the same small town where the research was conducted. Julia and calm. A mind that is concentrated (as it should be in knew 10 of them well, five somewhat, and five were new to her. All but meditation) is a mind and body that is light. An unconcen- two were interviewed in Thai. 5. She used จติ วญิ ญร (Jit-winyan) to talk about spirituality. Jit-winyan trated mind, which one feels when one is frightened or half is a compound word that means most directly “mind/heart/thoughts- soul/spirit.” It can also be translated as “psyche.” The term is understood to refer to the souls that migrate and are reborn, and as such it can be Table 1. Percentage of interviewed subjects who experi- understood to incorporate Buddhist and “spirit” kinds of spirituality. She enced phenomena used the term พลัง (Pa-lang) to talk about the energy of spiritualness or supernaturalness. “Energy” is probably the best translation, but it can Phenomena Thai Buddhist US Vineyard also be translated as “strength” or “power.” She used the term ควบคุม Demonic 20 70 (Khuap-khum) to refer to control, and she used it in questions referring Cataplexy 25 40 to experiences where someone feels that he or she does not have control Adrenaline 15 52 of body or mind. It can also mean “to command or govern,” and is a Overwhelming emotion 10 64 compound word coming from khuap (to combine, merge, couple) and Sleep paralysis 55 33 khum (to take care of, watch, oversee). Cassaniti and Luhrmann Cultural Kindling S337 asleep or troubled, is a mind that is considered vulnerable to seriously: in the Gospels, Jesus spends quite a bit of time unwanted supernatural intrusion. Spiritual force manifests as identifying them, interacting with them, and casting them out. pressure or lightness: a lightness, almost buoyancy, is reported Most evangelicals will say that demons exist. Yet people vary to occur in moments of positive spiritual attainment, but considerably in whether demons are salient to their lives.6 slight pressure on the skin is understood to represent negative, Many of the congregants Tanya met hesitated to talk spon- sometimes ghostly, energy. Ghostly energy is felt inside or taneously as if demons played a role in their lives. And yet outside the body. This may be why sleep paralysis becomes nearly three quarters of the subjects in this sample reported so meaningful to these Thai. The physiological experience in experiences with demons and described the experiences in sleep paralysis is one of pressure. some detail. In these accounts there are no specific bodily By contrast, charismatic evangelical spirituality is all about experiences associated with the identification of demons. Peo- seeking a specific intentional being, a humanlike God that ple are pushed, or they feel icy, or they feel odd. For the thinks and responds. God’s presence is the whole point of Christians, for an experience to be identified as demon caused, evangelical Christianity, particularly in the more charismatic subjects must experience something physically different, the sort of evangelical Christianity in which people yearn to ex- experience must be bad or odd, and prayer should help. The perience God personally, intimately, and immediately. And so following are questions and some representative responses. the human body strains to hear and see and feel the super- natural one. Unusual sensation is interpreted as evidence of Have you ever been certain, from the way you felt in your an external agent who has made itself known in and through body, that there was a demonic presence close to hand? the body and mind. Overwhelming emotions that feel un- Subject 33 [F, 47, white]. I went through a period of controlled become signs of that divine being because the con- time where I would start in worship in church and I would trolling agency is attributed to God. get these horrible pains in my back, and I was so aware that Third, there are pervasive differences in the way people it was Satan trying to distract me and I would just like grab value experience more generally in these two different cultures my friend and put her hand on my back and go “Pray for (here, distinguishing between the local culture and the religion me, I’m being attacked.” And she would pray for me and is hard because the cultures have been so shaped by their it would stop . . . I figure there are only two sources of respective religions). The American Christians value intense, stuff, and it wouldn’t be God so it had to be a demon. robust, and memorable moments of physiological arousal as Subject 40 [M, 59, white]. The way I choose to interpret experience of God. Americans in general value aroused, ex- it is that the Lord was telling us to get out of there. We cited feelings; Asians are more likely to prefer calm. The psy- were . . . out in twos—out in twos going door to door, chologist Jeanne Tsai describes this as a difference in “ideal talking about the church, you know, inviting people to affect” (Tsai, Knutson, and Fung 2006; Tsai, Miao, and Seppala church and so on...Andwehadjust spent some time 2007). In a study comparing Chinese and Japanese best-selling talking to someone and we got up to this door, we knocked children’s picture books with their American counterparts, on the door, and it was all dark and all black and both of she found that the smiles drawn in the Asian books were us felt this icy, icy wind blowing, and we both looked at significantly less excited (Tsai et al. 2007). Our American each other and said “Do you feel that?” And he said “Yes.” Christians were much more likely to report overwhelming So, we walked away. So we walked away. It felt—we felt emotion as a spiritual experience. really uncomfortable. Chilled. Yet these differences do not explain why the pattern of responses is lopsided and not absolutely different. If pressure Thailand is a Buddhist country teeming with supernatural 7 is salient for the Thai and irrelevant for the Americans, why beings. There are ghosts (pi), souls (winyan), hungry ghosts do a third of our American subjects still report sleep paralysis? (preˆt), gods (thewada), and many other entities. The Thai see To explore these questions, we present in more detail our their supernatural life as abundant. As one woman remarked findings about phenomena in the three different categories to Julia, “Ghosts here are not like in America, where there’s we describe above. ‘zombies’ and like that, just a few. In Thailand there are In the appendix (available online as a PDF), we present many.” Such encounters are also an everyday part of the some phenomena not discussed in the text of the article and give more examples of the responses to the sleep paralysis 6. The leadership in the Vineyard church seemed conflicted about how to think about demons. The founder, John Wimber, actually established question. the church because the senior pastor of the church he was originally affiliated with took affront at the eagerness with which Wimber identified and cast out demons from committed Christians. Vineyard leaders have Named Phenomena without Fixed Mental or argued that the church’s identity rests on the willingness to speak of Bodily Events: Demons demons; and they have also argued that to talk openly about demons makes the church look foolish to non-Christians who might otherwise Christians know what demons are even if they have never convert. encountered them. Those who approach the Bible as literally 7. For background reading on the supernatural landscape in Thailand, or near-literally true, as evangelicals do, must take demons see Rajadhon (1961), Tambiah (1970), and Textor (1973). S338 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 phenomenological landscape of spirituality in the community. Cataplexy: Have you ever had an experience of uncontrollable But while they are spoken about as eerie or unusual, they are trembling or shaking, or an experience in which you felt that rarely described as wholly negative. Julia felt that for the most a spiritual power pushed you down (some people call this being part, people were confused by a question about “bad spirits.” “slain in the Spirit”)? They floundered a bit in answering it, even though when she Subject 60 [M, 44, white]. It was as if heaven opened had once before asked about ghosts without indicating a up and I heard a voice of the Lord as clearly as you’re hearing moral valence, people had spoken comfortably and extensively me, and he said, “But I love you.” And I just started crying. about the way they had sensed the presence of ghosts (Cass- And I’m like, “What is that?” And he said it again, he said aniti and Luhrmann 2011). In this case, when the ghost or it: “But I love you.” So I fell down to the ground and I just entity was marked as unambiguously negative, the question started crying and crying and crying, and he said it a third elicited few responses and little elaboration (only 20% said time, “But I love you.” And I spoke out audibly, “Stop it. yes). Moreover, there is no specific physiological experience I can’t handle it anymore.” And it was quiet. But I looked that they identify independent of the name. We believe that up and four or five people . . . had walked over to me and this is why these subjects struggle to come up with something were praying for me. Putting their hands on me and praying to say. Here are two typical responses when Julia asked, “Do for me. And I sort of gathered myself and I’m—you know, you ever feel like a bad spirit comes near you?” snot ran down my nose and my eyes are teary and I look out at the pastor playing guitar, and he just looked at me Subject 11 [M, 75]. Before I meditate . . . I will forbid and winked like, “He [God] got you, didn’t he?” the mara (bad demon), the ghosts that will come and dis- Subject 64 [F, 53, white]. The first time I ever got slain tract. in the Spirit I was at some house group, and I thought, Subject 16 [M, 70]. Yes. I feel like goose bumps, like in “Man, I really want to know what that is,” and I went up the night that the tree was shaking. for prayer, and this man just prayed over me. He put his hand up like a wave. It felt like this wave of love, but it was like a tidal wave, so it felt like water but it felt like love at Bodily Affordances: Cataplexy, Adrenaline Surge, the same time. It was good on the inside and cool and kind Emotional Surge of wet on the outside. These three phenomena—cataplexy, or the loss of muscle Adrenaline surge: Have you ever had an experience in which control; adrenaline surge, as if electricity is shooting through you felt this intense rush of power through your body, as if the body; and emotional surge, when someone experiences some great force were running through your body? Perhaps intense, overwhelming emotion—are examples of physiolog- your mouth was dry and your palms were sweaty (some people ical phenomena that are common to all human bodies but call this a “Holy Spirit” experience)? unusual enough so that people can remember the moment Subject 48 [F, 49, white]. I was reading something about independent of a specific label. (For example, “That moment God—and I kind of got knocked off my chair—and I was when I opened the letter and I had an intense rush of feeling on the floor and I was tingling all over—it was the strangest I could never forget.”) At the same time, they are not rare feeling I’ve ever—but I knew that it was the Holy Spirit. and strikingly unusual in the way that out-of-body experi- You know, I mean, nothing—I’ve never—you know they’ll ences are. Both the Vineyard congregants and the Thai Bud- pray for me because I need to fall down to Jesus. But this— dhists seemed to recognize what the questions were asking I was totally alone. You know, but I did—and it was like about. But for the most part, the Vineyard congregants wel- an electrifying kind of tingling. It was intense. For just a comed these experiences as evidence of a positive good, while few minutes again. And I didn’t know what that was about. the Thai Buddhists did not. At that time. Over 80% of the American congregants reported at least Subject 76 [F, 50, white]. I’ve had adrenaline rushes in one of these experiences as spiritual events—only six of the prayer or with . . . Like for example I was praying in a 33 who answered all three questions said that they had never group setting and I was so kind of removed from these experienced such things. Moreover, when these experiences people. It was almost like I was alone and I could just feel are reported, they are almost always pleasant. They are not the spirit entering me and just giving me the words when universally pleasant: a few people reported experiences they I was praying there. I was just so sure that this was the spirit interpreted as the presence of evil. But almost always, these of God coming through me at that moment. congregants identify such moments as the presence of God Emotional surge: Have you ever had an experience of intense, in some form. New charismatic evangelical churches such as overwhelming emotion, perhaps with uncontrollable weeping the Vineyard emphasize the humanlike dimension of God, or uncontrollable laughing or rapture, that felt like a spiritual and they emphasize the need to interact with God. Experience experience? that feels uncontrolled, then, may be welcomed as a sign that Subject 40 [M, 59, white]. I’ll share the first one with God is truly present. Here are some representative responses. you certainly. I mean, this one brought me to my knees and Cassaniti and Luhrmann Cultural Kindling S339

brought me to a period of—of great tears. And it was Paul’s Subject 2[F, 39]. That is the power of the dark side of sort of feeling of—of you know, pleading with—with God mind which I told you before. Or you could say it was chao the fact that he wanted this—this affliction taken away from kam nai wen (the spirits of your karma). Sometimes they him. And God’s response was “My power is made perfect will make me have a very bad headache with no causes. To in—in weakness.” In weakness. I couldn’t think of the word. solve this, I have to pray for forgiveness (Phae Metta) and And then that is, you know that really sort of hit—hit home make merit for them and it will get better. ...Itbrought me to my knees and I was crying. Subject 10 [M, 45]. I almost drowned over here [points Subject 49 [F, 42, white]. I’ve had some uncontrollable to the river] once. It’s about the concentration [meditation]. laughing. Yes both [laughing and weeping]. Yeah, yeah they At first I couldn’t really swim out around the dam. I think are definitely [spiritual moments], the laughing is, was— that I am a good person and this dam I participated in and I only did that one once but it was pretty funny. And building it also, like build the water, forest, and something he’s like, she’s just laughing because the Lord is on her. like that. I could swim off from the dam, it might be some Yeah. Yeah. I cry a lot. I mean, I mean, during worship— kind of spirits. In that area, the water was like circling and yeah. All the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah [in the presence I couldn’t really swim out. At that day I felt like some power of God]. helped me and then I got out of that area. When I think about it, um ...itwasabout our mind or not? Or what? People in the Thai community understood those kinds of I wondered how could I get out of there. I don’t know, experiences quite differently. For a start, they were half as don’t really know, but I think it might be my courage and common. Only 40% of the Thai subjects reported this kind mind. Because I almost drowned twice or three times there. of experience as a spiritual event. A quarter of them said that People tried to help me by throwing the rope to me. I almost they had experienced something like cataplexy; a fifth, some- died over there. After that I got out of that place. I was thing like an emotional surge; and only three out of the 20 thinking about it but I don’t really know what it was. It’s said that they had experienced a surge of adrenaline. Only about the heart and mind. Energy came out. Maybe it’s one of them gave a name to the experience, Phi Am, the name energy from me. I thought I would die there. of a spirit who takes control. Moreover, when they described those experiences, they were mostly bad or ambivalent, in Emotional surge: Have you ever had an experience of intense stark contrast to the Christian context. In fact, in only one emotion such as crying or laughing in a spiritual way? case did a subject unambiguously associate the experience Subject 2[F, 39]. When I make merit without expec- with something good. This may be because the object of their tation, at these times my mind feels happiness, very joyful. spiritual experience is not external to them. They have no It’s like a big bubble and it gets bigger and bigger. But freestanding intentional being who might be considered actually if you feel like that too much it’s not good. equivalent to the Christian God. The goal of religious practice Subject 14 [F, 45]. When I was possessed, I don’t know. is to cultivate calm. These bodily affordances, then, do not Some people told me I wasn’t myself at all. suggest positive spiritual experience. When the Thai respon- dents experienced high arousal events, most found the mo- Striking Anomalous Events: Sleep Paralysis ment to be uncomfortable, and their responses were short and few. Here are some typical Thai responses to the questions Sleep paralysis has been recognized in folklore for centuries, Julia asked. but it has only recently been clearly identified within the psychiatric literature (the clinical documentation of sleep phe- Cataplexy: Have you ever had the experience where you cannot nomena is relatively recent).8 It is a state in which someone control your body, like your body was shaking/quivering/trem- experiences themselves as awake but unable to move, accom- bling, as if some kind of spiritual energy was shaking you? Subject 14 [F, 45]. When I disobey the spirits it happens. 8. See Adler (2011), Davies (2003), and Hufford (1982). For the re- Not anymore, because I do what the spirits say. lationship between sleep paralysis and posttraumatic stress disorder Subject 19 [F, 40]. I have . . . I have . . . when I was among Cambodian refugees, see Hinton, Hufford, and Kirmayer (2005). meditating, and then my body was shaking and I felt like David Hufford’s The Terror that Comes in the Night (1982) made famous not only the condition but a folklore method for understanding whether I was circling. It was a long time ago when I went to meditate a folk story had roots in a physiology. He collected a wide variety of at the [Dhammakaya] temple. They told me that it is the folkloric examples, quantified them, categorized them, interviewed living condition that happens when our mind concentrates so hard people with similar experience, and consulted the scientific literature on on something. It’s like I was trying to collect my mind or sleep physiology. He concluded that the Old Hag syndrome and medieval and early modern European stories of incubi and succubi were ultimately something like that. It was like circling and shaking like in rooted in a physiological phenomenon but that cultural factors heavily a circle. determined the ways in which the experience was described and inter- preted (Hufford 1982:245). More recently, Shelley Adler (2011) has doc- Adrenaline surge: Have you ever had an experience where umented the “nocebo” effect of sleep paralysis, particularly among the you felt an intense spiritual energy rushing through your body, Hmong, who interpret the experience as a precursor of death and some- maybe your mouth was dry or your palms sweaty? times indeed appear to die as a result of the experience. S340 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 panied with intense fear, pressure on the chest, and difficulty Buddhist thing, you know when you experience some spir- breathing. They also often report a “presence” that is some- itual energy in some certain way . . . they might come and times seen and heard. It is reasonably well studied. About a tell me that it’s the time to make merit and go to the temple quarter to a third of Americans typically report that they have and do something for them. experienced it (Adler 2011). It is easy to ask about: people Subject 9[M, 70]. I have sometimes, if we call that the who have had sleep paralysis recognize it readily and, if they dream, it’s not like that though, not a dream, it was like recognize it, go on to describe the event in a way that fits the Phi Am. I can’t move. But I saw it but I cannot talk, I cannot standard clinical account. call anybody. There was one time, there was one person who Our Americans reported sleep paralysis at the standard rate. died at the school. And then he came to the house. He came In general, they did not name it, did not associate it with a to tell me that his things were over there, that thing is over supernatural presence (although one or two mentioned evil, here. When I was sleeping, sleep but not sleep. And then I and their accounts are longer), and did not give it much was like “ah . . . that person is dead already and why did significance. In contrast, sleep paralysis is a common expe- he come to see me.” I think like that. I think about why he rience reported by people in the Thai sample (this has been came to me. I tried to get up and talk to him, but I cannot found elsewhere through Southeast Asia).9 Almost two thirds go. I cannot talk, cannot move, but my eyes see it . . . of the Thai subjects reported it, and most named it and talked because I saw him come to me. I saw him stand over there about it at some length. When they did, they called it an and telling me what is over there, what is over here. I wanted experience of Phi Am, the name of a spirit that causes it. Here to say something but I really could not. is the question we posed to the Americans and two repre- The accounts of sleep paralysis among the Thai subjects sentative responses. are much richer and longer than almost all the other Thai Did you ever have an experience of being awake but unable responses. Clearly the event is important to them in a way to move? that the other categories were not. But note that not all the Subject 49 [F, 42, white]. Yeah. But I think I was just Thai report sleep paralysis. Even though it is a highly salient overtired. It was pretty recent. No, no. I think I just overdid category, only 55% say that they have experienced it. And it, and I got home from the gym one day and I was like— even though sleep paralysis is not particularly salient for the you know, and I was like, I cannot move [laughs]. So it Americans, almost a third do report it. Something about bod- wasn’t anything spiritual. It was kind of trippy though. ily vulnerability also plays a role in limiting whether these Cause I couldn’t move. events occur. These observations are very interesting because 10 Subject 114 [F, 72, white]. Yeah. Like it was really, really one might assume, as sleep science has more or less assumed, heavy. Well, once or twice in a lifetime. I didn’t know [if it that sleep phenomena are culturally neutral. The much higher was a spiritual experience]. I just didn’t know. I thought, rate of sleep paralysis in Thailand does accord with other “This is interesting,” and I prayed about it so I could move. anthropological observations (Adler 2011) and begs for ex- Okay. And then you were able to move? planation. Yeah. Discussion: Cultural Kindling Julia posed the question to the Thai in the same way. Here is her question and some representative responses. Our theoretical goal in this paper is to introduce the concept of “cultural kindling” as a way to understand the different Have you ever had an experience where you’re awake but aren’t patterns of spiritual experience in different social contexts. able to move? The “kindling” hypothesis was first articulated by Emil Kra- Subject 1 [M, 38]. I was taking a nap, ...um...or epelin (1921), who observed that to the extent that actually maybe in the middle of the night, you know, I was like I demoralizing events—a job loss, a breakup, a bad relation- was kind of awake but I cannot move my body . . . and I ship—play a role in a first episode of depression, they play a was kind of hearing the voice, the voice was laughing, she less important role in later ones. Kenneth Kendler and his was a woman . . . like it was not like very clear laughing colleagues explain that this is due to “increased reliance on or anything, she was a women and she was kind of, she sat these patterns of processing [which] makes it easier for their on my shoulder and she was just laughing and I was so mad future activation to be achieved on the basis of increasingly at her. I was like go away and then like she just kept laughing, minimal cues ” (Kendler, Thornton, and Gardner 2000:1243; and then I prayed for my Buddha and God [Ganesh] and Segal et al. 1996; see also Monroe and Harkness 2005). If then she’s gone. And just then I felt my body again. Maybe someone has ever been clinically depressed, it takes less in some kind of spirit like tried to tease me or something . . .

maybe like some spirit came and tries to tell me that I should 10. A search for “culture” in all available years of Behavioral Sleep go to the temple and make merit or something . . . It’s a Medicine turns up no results; a similar search in the Journal of Sleep Research turns up research done outside of the United States but does 9. See n. 8. not indicate differences in sleep phenomena. Cassaniti and Luhrmann Cultural Kindling S341 terms of real life knocks to lead them into depression a second sory mode of attention,” Desjarlais and Throop (2011) called time. Becoming depressed becomes a habituated response. “modes of existence,” and the field of cognitive science more We suggest here that the local culture of a particular religion pragmatically takes as a foundational principle (Neisser 1976). serves a similar function in shaping the way people pay at- We suggest that fluctuations in phenomenological experience tention to what they sense and feel in search of evidence of are common and modulated below the level of awareness in the spiritual and lowering the threshold of its identification most daily experience, but when people attend to their mind through the body. The presence of a specific local term, such with more care and more interest in the supernatural, the as “Holy Spirit experience,” which draws someone’s attention partial perceptions and fleeting thoughts, the often unnoticed to a phenomenon such as intense emotion, whether the phe- shifts in awareness that get ignored in most daily life, are nomenon has meaning for a person’s actual experience (some allowed to flower into meaning. Of course, the way that a people are no doubt temperamentally more likely than others particular body experiences it will depend on the vulnera- to be comfortable having such rushes) and whether that ex- bilities of that particular body: its genetic inheritance and perience is recognized and valorized by the group (Episco- genetic expression, its personal history, its exposure to trauma, palians may know about Holy Spirit experiences, but they and its experience of love and care. certainly will not be rewarded for having one during the ser- Our model here is what psychiatric anthropologists have vice)—we think that all these features will interact with some- taught us about the shaping of psychiatric illness. They have one’s physiological responsiveness to influence the way they shown that local social context shapes the symptoms that pay attention to their own minds and bodies. That attentional someone who can be diagnosed with, say, depression will scrutiny may, we suggest, lower the threshold for identifying remember and report—and that as a result, in different social phenomena that indicate supernatural experiences. settings, those symptoms will be experienced more intensely Our presumption here is that people are constantly having than in other settings. To use Robert Levy’s (1984) useful a wide range of bodily experiences. We see, hear, smell, taste, terms, some symptoms (sadness, for Americans) may be “hy- and feel; we move and have feelings. We shake, feel heaviness percognized,” while others (joint pains) may be “hypocogni- and lightness, and experience coldness and heat. We sense zed.” Psychiatric anthropologists teach us that the difference stillness. These are what, following Gibson, we have called in cognitive attention leads not just to a difference in reporting “affordances,” features of the world that can seem significant but to a difference in experience. and imbued with meaning or that can be ignored. Most of We think that spiritual experience can be understood in a these “events” we interpret and label as natural phenomena. similar way, as generated out of a variety of factors, among But other times we identify a feeling, a heaviness, or a shudder them cultural expectation and the kind of behaviors encour- as strange and unusual. It feels otherworldly. Even a sharp aged in a local social setting. We have asked here whether pain in the stomach can be the sign of a dangerous spirit Christianity might “kindle” different kinds of spiritual ex- making its presence known rather than just a sign of a stom- periences than Buddhism. Anthropologists of Christianity ach ache. And then there are more uncanny phenomenolog- might ask whether different kinds of Christianity kindle dif- ical events: a glimpse when nothing material is there, a voice ferent kinds of spiritual phenomena—whether Catholicism, carried by the wind, a sudden powerful emotion that comes for instance, with its emphasis on images and icons, might out of the blue. produce more visions than Protestantism, which places so We already know that spiritual practices have an effect on much more emphasis on the word and on “hearing” God. spiritual experiences. This at any rate was what Tanya found Similarly, traditions that do not value spiritual experience at in her Spiritual Disciplines Project (Luhrmann 2012b;Luhr- all, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, might produce fewer people mann and Morgain 2012). Christians who were randomized who recognize signs of such experience in the body. into the prayer arm of the experiment, where they were asked What we add to ongoing discussion about comparative to spend 30 minutes a day for a month attending to inner phenomenology is the observation that not all kinds of mental prayer experience in search of God, were more likely to report and bodily events respond equally readily to cultural invita- unusual sensory experiences or hallucination-like experiences tion. If an experience is named (such as “demons”) and has as well as more meaningful unusual sensory experiences. no specific physiological markers, people in a society where Compared with those in the nonprayer condition, they were that experience is not named will likely not report it. On the also more likely to say that they felt the near-tangible sense other hand, if an experience involves a specific, complex pat- of God’s presence, an awareness of profound spiritual know- terns of unwilled bodily experience, such as sleep paralysis, ing, an overwhelming emotional experience of God, and other some people will experience it in societies in which it is neither unusual spiritual experiences. named nor salient; and even in societies where it is clearly We suggest that phenomenological experience is always the named and highly salient, not everyone will experience it. The result of the interaction between expectation, cultural invi- following, then, is our theory about the cultural kindling of tation, spiritual practice, and bodily responsiveness—what Ian spiritual experience. Hacking (1995) called “looping,” Seligman and Kirmayer 1. A phenomenological experience is an interaction between (2008) called “bio-looping,” Csordas (1993) called “the sen- cultural invitation and bodily physiology. By “cultural invi- S342 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 tation” we mean the implicit and explicit ways in which a Acknowledgments local social world gives significance and meaning to sensation, We are grateful for the contributions of Jocelyn Marrow (es- whether mental or bodily, and the behavioral practices (such pecially in relation to the conclusion on cultural kindling) as meditation) that may affect sensation. We imagine there is and Justin Van Elsberg (especially in relation to the histori- a range here, from what might be more properly called cul- cization of the categories of religious experience) along with tural encouragement to cultural demand. By “bodily physi- members of Tanya’s Culture and Mind Lab at Stanford Uni- ology” we mean the array of genetic and individual historical versity and of Julia’s Religion and the Body graduate seminar factors that shape the body’s responsiveness. at Washington State University. They have offered invaluable 2. When a local social community gives significance to suggestions for the framing of this project, as have Joel Rob- specific sensations, either fearing them or desiring them, sen- bins, two anonymous reviewers, and participants in the Wen- sitivity to having an experience of the supernatural increases, ner-Gren symposium on the anthropology of Christianity. requiring a lower threshold for such experiences, than in a community in which people do not have such supernatural experiences and in which such fears and desires are hypo- References Cited cognized or unelaborated.11 We expect that social interests Adler, Shelley. 2011. Sleep paralysis. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University here might rise and fall in intensity, for example, in moments Press. of rapid social change. Asad, Talal. 2012. Thinking about religion, belief and politics. In The Cam- 3. The more that the experience of the supernatural is bridge Companion to Religious Studies. Robert Orsi, ed. Pp. 36–57. Cam- associated with a specific physiology (e.g., sleep paralysis), the bridge: Cambridge University Press. Blanke, Olaf, Ste´phanie Ortique, Theodor Landis, and Margitta Seeck. 2002. more the frequency of the event will be constrained by an Stimulating illusory own body perceptions. Nature 419:269–270. individual’s vulnerability to these experiences. Conversely, the Carden˜a, Etzel, Steven Lynn, and Stanley Krippner. 2000. The varieties of less tied to specific physiology an experience is (e.g., the ex- anomalous experiences. Washington, DC: American Psychological Associa- tion. perience of demons), the more directly its frequency will re- Cassaniti, Julia. 2006. Toward a cultural psychology of impermanence in Thai- flect cultural interest in it. land. Ethos 34(1):58–88. In giving this account of the interaction between culture ———. 2009. Control in a world of change. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago. and spiritual experience, we believe that we are carrying out ———. 2012. Agency and the Other: the role of agency for the importance Ann Taves’s invitation to develop a “building block” approach of belief in Buddhist and Christian traditions. Ethos 40(3):297–316. to the study of religious experience, away from religious ex- Cassaniti, Julia, and Tanya Luhrmann. 2011. Encountering the supernatural. Religion and Society 2:37–53. perience imaged as a fixed and stable thing, to the processes Christian, William, and Gabor Klaniczay, eds. 2008. The “vision thing.” Col- through which people identify and attribute meaning to men- legium Budapest Workshop Series, no. 18. Budapest: Collegium Budapest. tal and bodily events. Csordas, Thomas. 1993. The somatic mode of attention. Cultural Anthropology 8:135–156. The connection between labeled, elaborated meanings and ———. 1994. The sacred self. Berkeley: University of California Press. the report of particular physiological occurrences is always Davies, Owen. 2003. The nightmare experience, sleep paralysis and witchcraft fraught with misunderstandings and ambiguities, and in the accusations. Folklore 114(2):181–203. Desjarlais, Robert, and C. Jason Throop. 2011. Phenomenological approaches realm of the spiritual this is especially so. Yet if we do not in anthropology. Annual Reviews in Anthropology 40:87–102. compare religious experiences cross-culturally, we imply that Eliacin, Johanne. 2013. Social capital, narratives of fragmentation, and schizo- labeled categories entirely determine experience—a solipsistic phrenia: an ethnographic exploration of factors shaping African-Caribbeans’ social capital and mental health in a North London community. Culture, argument of incommensurability that simply does not fit our Medicine and Psychiatry 37:465–487. knowledge. If we do not interrogate our own categories, we Gibson, James. 1986. The ecological approach to visual perception. New York: may mistakenly assume that our own cultural sensibilities are Psychology Press. Hacking, Ian. 1995. The looping effects of human kinds. In Causal cognition: simply expressed in different forms elsewhere. Comparative a interdisciplinary approach. D. Sperber, ed. Pp. 351–383. Oxford: Oxford phenomenology does not universalize; it show us how deeply University Press. cultural expectations shape intimate human experience. In Hardy, Alister. 1979. The spiritual nature of man. Oxford: Clarendon. the approach we have presented here, we offer a method that Hinton, Devon, David Hufford, and Laurence Kirmayer. 2005. Culture and sleep paralysis. Transcultural Psychiatry 42(1):5–10. helps us to disentangle phenomena defined by name, bodily Hopper, Kim. 2004. Interrogating the meaning of “culture” in the WHO affordance, or anomalous event. Such a perspective helps to international studies of schizophrenia. In Schizophrenia, culture and sub- orient such a range of phenomena within a larger comparative jectivity. Janis Jenkins and Robert Barrett, eds. Pp. 62–86. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. framework of felt religious experiences around the world Hufford, David. 1982. The terror that comes in the night. Philadelphia: Uni- while at the same time taking into account and emphasizing versity of Pennsylvania Press. the complex nature of attending to such phenomena in par- James, William. 1999 (1902). The varieties of religious experience. 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Kwon, Henrik. 2008. Ghosts of war in Vietnam. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- to Religious Studies. Robert Orsi, ed. Pp. 84–108. Cambridge: Cambridge versity Press. University Press. Levy, Robert. 1984. Emotion, knowing and culture. In Culture theory. Richard Pew Research Center. 2006. Spirit and power: a ten country survey of Pente- Shweder and Robert Levine, eds. Pp. 214–256. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- costals. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. versity Press. Rajadhon, Phaya Anuman. 1961. Life and ritual in old Siam: three studies of Lohmann, Roger, ed. 2003. Dream travelers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Thai life and custom. W. Gedney, ed. and trans. New Haven, CT: HRAF Luhrmann, Tanya Marie. 2012a. Beyond the brain. Wilson Quarterly Press. 2012(Summer):28–34. Segal, Z. V., J. M. Williams, J. D. Teasdale, and M. Gemor. 1966. A cognitive ———. 2012b. When God talks back: understanding the American Evangelical science perspective on Kindling and episode sensitization in recurrent af- relationship with God. New York: Knopf. fective disorder. Psychological Medicine 26:371–380. Luhrmann, Tanya Marie, and Rachael Morgain. 2012. Prayer as inner sense Seligman, Rebecca, and Laurence Kirmayer. 2008. Dissociative experience and cultivation. Ethos 40(4):359–389. cultural neuroscience. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 32(1):31–64. McCorristine, Shane. 2010. Spectres of the self. Cambridge: University of Cam- Tambiah, Stanley J. 1970. Buddhism and the spirit cults in northeast Thailand. bridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller, Donald. 1997. Reinventing American Protestantism. Berkeley: University Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious experience reconsidered. Princeton, NJ: Princeton of California. University Press. Mittermaier, Amira. 2010. Dreams that matter: Egyptian landscapes of the imag- ination. Berkeley: University of California Press. Textor, Robert. 1973. Roster of the gods: an ethnography of the supernatural in Monroe, S. M., and K. L. Harkness. 2005. Life stress, the “kindling” hypothesis, a Thai village. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files. and the recurrence of depression: considerations from a life stress per- Tsai, Jeanne, Brian Knutson, and Helene Fung. 2006. Cultural variations in spective. Psychological Review 112(2):417–445. affect valuation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90:288–307. Neisser, Ulrich. 1976. Cognition and reality. New York: W. H. Freeman. Tsai, Jeanne, Jennifer Louie, Eva Chen, and Yukiko Uchida. 2007. Learning Newberg, Andrew, Eugene D’Aquili, and Vince Rause. 2001. Why God won’t what feelings to desire: socialization of affect through children’s story books. go away. New York: Ballantine. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33:17–30. Obeyesekere, Gananath. 2012. The awakened ones. New York: Columbia Uni- Tsai, J. L., F. Miao, and E. Seppala. 2007. Good feelings in Christianity and versity. Buddhism: religious differences in ideal affect. Personality and Social Psy- Orsi, Robert. 2012. The problem of the holy. In The Cambridge Companion chology Bulletin 33:409–421. S344 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014

Christianity, Anthropology, Politics

by Ruth Marshall

In this article I engage with the conceptual difficulties that studying Christianity poses for anthropology, revisiting and expanding on the critical moves made in the development of the subfield, especially in debates among Robbins, Haynes, Cannell, Garriott, and O’Neill. In particular, I consider the theoretical challenges and the political implications involved in elaborating an adequate concept of Christianity or the Christian. I argue that studying Christianity as a “tradition” implicates the anthropologist in much more than the study of “a religion,” and while Asad’s approach to the study of Islam is methodologically sound, applying it to the case of Christianity involves specific challenges. I use my reading of these methodological and conceptual challenges to critically consider the ways in which anthropology engages with alterity as an epistemological or ethical ground and the political implications of this engagement. Finally, I offer some methodological insights drawn from my study of Pentecostal Christianity that might assist the researcher in studying these specific forms of Christian practice today.

What are the future prospects for an anthropology of Chris- tivate anthropologists to select an object of research and the tianity, and more specifically, of charismatic and Pentecostal methodological and analytical principles that guide the ex- Christianity? Extremely important work has been done in ploration of it. positioning the anthropological study of Christianity in a crit- In this paper, I want to take up the central issues that have ical relationship to anthropology more generally as well as arisen from the self-reflexive critique that anthropologists of creating a forum in which comparative work could be un- Christianity have already begun (Bialecki 2010, 2012; Bialecki, dertaken and reflection shared on specific analytical and Haynes, and Robbins 2008; Cannell 2005, 2006; Coleman methodological questions. I welcome the opportunity to par- 2000, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2012; Daswani 2012; Engelke 2010a, ticipate in critical reflection on the past and future of this 2010b; Engelke and Robbins 2010; Garriott and O’Neill 2008; growing subfield some 10 years after the first debates brought Klassen 2011; Meyer 2006, 2010; O’Neill 2009; Robbins 2003a, 1 the anthropological study of Christianity into critical relief. 2003b, 2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010). One of the The anthropological attention to Pentecostalism as a spe- ongoing challenges for the anthropology of Christianity might cific iteration of Christianity has been an extremely fruitful be to recognize the effect that the dominance of Pentecostal entry point for anthropologists to engage critically with their and charismatic Christianity has had on the development of discipline’s approach to the study of Christianity or lack the field (Bandak 2014; Hann 2014; Humphrey 2014; Mayblin thereof as well as with its broader epistemological assump- 2014). However, this paper does not have the scope to engage tions. If Christianity generally and Pentecostalism specifically with the great range of contemporary ethnographies of Chris- pose unique challenges to scholarly reflexivity, the difficulties tianity (see Bandak 2014; Hann 2007, 2014; Hoskins 2014; an anthropologist faces in constructing it as an object of study are not identical to those of the political scientist or the po- Humphrey 2014; Mayblin 2014). Rather, I will revisit the early litical theorist, nor are they those of the Pentecostal or char- exchanges in the subfield, focused largely on Pentecostalism, ismatic theologian, also specialists who reflect on their prac- with a view to presenting some critical perspectives on the tice. From my perspective as a scholar for whom political challenges that the study of Christianity poses to the discipline questions take precedence over cultural ones, Pentecostalism of anthropology more generally. Pentecostal and charismatic was an exciting object of research because of its revolutionary, Christianity may be a particularly polemical example of the evangelical, and decidedly political claims. I am thus partic- ularly interested in critically exploring the questions that mo- 1. I enter the debate on the anthropology of Christianity as a political scientist, yet as one whose central interlocutors have largely been an- thropologists, postcolonial theorists, and political philosophers. Empirical political scientists, on the rare occasions they have paid these forms of Ruth Marshall is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Christianity any mind, have largely proceeded on the bases of analyses Science and the Department for the Study of Religion at the that take for granted the very divisions between the religious and the University of Toronto (Jackman Humanities Building, Floor 3, 170 political as well as understandings of agency, power, and the subject that St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2M8, Canada [ruth Pentecostal practices appear to defy. The great merit of the relatively new [email protected]]). This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, field of anthropology of Christianity is that it has been considerably more accepted 3 VI 14, and electronically published 29 X 14. self-reflexive in its approach.

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0019$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677737 Marshall Christianity, Anthropology, Politics S345 difficulties and political stakes involved in thinking anthro- with the conceptual model Asad deploys for an “anthropology pologically about the Christian tradition and its multifarious of Islam,” where he argues, “If one wants to write an an- iterations—in particular, through its antagonistic relations to thropology of Islam one should begin, as Muslims do, from local cultures and traditions and its political illiberalism—but the concept of a discursive tradition that includes and relates it is not unique. From the perspective of my argument, its itself to the founding texts of the Qu’ran and . Islam differences as a Christian project are a question of degree is neither a distinctive social structure nor a heterogeneous rather than kind. In a decisive sense, Christianity is not merely collection of beliefs, artifacts, customs, and morals. It is a a religion and cannot be studied without an acute awareness tradition” (Asad 1986:14). They are careful to note that for of what its “tradition” entails politically. I am thus especially Asad, this does not mean measuring practices against some concerned to show that the methodological and analytical sort of ideal/typical “essential” Islam but rather “the way challenges that Christianity poses to anthropology’s episte- something understandable as ‘Islam’ emerges through debates mological assumptions and ethical stances are profoundly po- among Muslims (and their interlocutors) over the appropri- litical and need to be recognized as such. ateness of particular practices and beliefs. In this regard, the debate over the tradition is the tradition for Asad” (Garriott and O’Neill 2008:388). Asad’s point, inspired by Foucault, is Who and What Is a Christian? On the that concepts do not so much represent a field of practice as Problems of an Adequate Concept constitute an intervention into it. In this sense, all concepts can be understood, at least minimally, as prescriptive. Another way of putting this is that there are no “objects” as such— What we have come to confront, however, by way of the Christianity, Islam, the state, religion—but only objectifica- grammar of the concept of religion, is that Christianity has tions understood in purely relational and contingent terms yet to be recognized as a concept and to become the explicit insofar as they emerge from within a mobile field of relations object of such anthropological inquiry. Gil Anidjar (2009: of power and knowledge (Marshall 2009:6, 36). As Anidjar 388) (2009) points out, concepts are also always comparative, not only because they can be deployed over vast and varied fields Christianity or the Christian is the very thing—the thing of practice but also because a concept “itself designates a itself—that has to be thought. Jean-Luc Nancy (2008:140) specific distribution of power, an ‘order(ing) of things’” with Perhaps the most vexed aspect of the project of an anthro- its own “internal divisions according to which it functions,” pology of Christianity has been the difficulty of developing a and which it enacts and embodies (369–370). concept adequate for comparative inquiry that at once re- Asad’s interest in the genealogy of conceptualizations and spects diversity but provides grounds for grouping together his acute attention to the effects of their deployments in dif- an extremely diverse collection of discourses and practices. ferent times and places makes him a kindred spirit to many As Anidjar argues, citing and “Christianizing” Asad’s text on critical political theorists. From my own Foucauldian per- the anthropology of Islam (a text that has also informed de- spective, I approached Pentecostalism as a form of strategic bates within the field of the anthropology of Christianity), program, examining the ways it functioned as a prescriptive “the issue goes beyond being for or against the attempt to regime in postcolonial Nigeria. Specifically, because the Pen- generalize about Christianity. It is rather set ‘against the man- tecostal revival presented itself as a politically unorthodox ner in which the generalization is undertaken. Anyone work- form of insurrection claiming to effect a radical break with ing on the anthropology of [Christianity] will be aware that the past and bring about a new creation, both individual and there is considerable diversity in the beliefs and practices of collective, it required an approach that enabled me to take [Christians]. The first problem is therefore one of organizing this project at its word, attempting to understand nonred- this diversity in terms of an adequate concept’” (Anidjar 2009: uctively how it constituted itself as a force. This required 389, citing Asad 1986:4). rejecting preconceived ideas of the proper relation between Divergent concepts of Christianity are deployed today in a the religious and the political or of the meaning of terms such wide variety of discursive strategies, such as those of anthro- as “agency,” “rationality,” or “the subject.” If I can put it in pologists or political theorists and Christians themselves. The these terms, the inquiry privileged questions of “how” before agonistic nature of the ways in which these deployments in- questions of “what” or “who.” teract illustrates what Gil Anidjar means when he says for So for those concerned with getting the taxonomy right— Talal Asad, religion is a polemical concept: “the concept of are they charismatic? Pentecostal? neo-Pentecostal?—it is im- religion is performative. . . . Each time it is used or invoked, portant to remember that for Pentecostals and charismatics, it enables understanding, provides orientation, allocates the insistence that they are simply “Christians” is not always meaning; it gathers, defines, sustains and even dictates dis- meant as a gesture of ecumenism. It can just as often imply positions, practices and modes of behaviour” (Anidjar 2009: a polemical, indeed apocalyptic claim of the order of “we and 368). In their respective discussions of “what” and “who” is only we are Christians who know and enact the Truth,” or a Christian, Robbins, Cannell, Garriott, and O’Neill engage we, as Christians, are the only true vanguard against the “en- S346 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 emy,” the only force holding back the Antichrist. In their for him a decisive issue, namely, the manner in which Chris- accounts of the world and history, Pentecostals challenge the tians “almost wherever they are, appear at once too similar orderings of historians, anthropologists, political scientists, to anthropologists to be worthy of study and too meaningfully even other Christians, and anthropological or social scientific different to be easily made sense of by the use of standard explanations can also be the object of explicit protest by char- anthropological tools” (Robbins 2003b:192). On the point of ismatics and evangelicals. In my book I cited the South African difference, Robbins cites Susan Harding (1991, 2000), who Zionist who wrote with great impatience about the history of argues that American “fundamentalists” are threatening or South Africa as written by outsiders: “There is one enormous repugnant cultural others because “they challenge liberal ver- omission throughout the whole history that has been written sions of modernity of the kind most anthropologists subscribe by outsiders. The work of the Holy Spirit throughout our to” in a way that more “classic” sorts of anthropological ob- history has simply been left out. The events of our history jects, such as the traditional religion of the Urapmin of Papua have been recorded as if everything could be accounted for New Guinea, do not (Robbins 2003b:193). Clearly Robbins simply by sociology and anthropology. We would like to write thinks that being challenged on one’s own terms is a salutary our own history from the point of view of the Holy Spirit” thing but that it nonetheless may come into conflict with the (Ngada 1985:21). In these senses and others, Pentecostal and anthropologist’s sense-making practices as well as his own charismatic Christianity engages in an explicitly polemical values or the ethics of the discipline, which is to say the intervention into the field not only of local practices but also recognition and respect for difference or alterity. Robbins is through the elaboration of a world-historical mission of the not saying that Urapmin traditional religion is easier to un- meaning of history and of the world itself. One of the ways derstand for the anthropologist than Urapmin Pentecostalism. in which Pentecostalism defines itself is precisely through stag- However, the point is surely not that the Urapmin might not ing the problem of the proper concept publicly, debating and have, from a liberal’s perspective, politically or culturally re- even polemicizing about the question, “who is born-again?” pugnant ideas about or the relations between The problem of the adequate concept is more radical than people and groups. The point is rather that they do not seek that of simply “recognizing” that the discipline has ignored to impose these ideas on the liberal anthropologist—they do Christianity, accounting for the reasons of this neglect, and not “take a position” on the anthropologist’s own views of “getting over them” and “getting on with it” by assembling the world and the ways he makes sense of theirs—or at least a group of scholars now determined to make Christianity their if they do, they do not do so in such a way as to put the object (Garriott and O’Neill 2008; Robbins 2003b, 2007). Joel anthropological project (which we must read as part of a Robbins and his interlocutors such as O’Neill, Cannell, and hegemonic Western epistemology) in jeopardy. Pentecostals Klassen have engaged with this problem in a series of most certainly do take a position with regard to the ways in publications that have in different ways foregrounded the crit- which anthropologists conceive the world as well as the an- ical recognition that both anthropologists and their subjects thropological project’s claims of understanding. of study deploy concepts of religion, Christianity, and Pen- tecostalism in a polemical fashion. O’Neill and Garriott take up the apparent antagonism between Christian and anthro- The Problem of Alterity and the pological modes of understanding in a rich intervention in Repugnant Christian Other which they ask whether “incommensurability between Chris- tian and anthropological sense-making practices” is a nec- Robbins (2003b) argues, extending Harding’s observations, essary outcome (Garriott and O’Neill 2008:386). They (Gar- that rather than difference, “it is the closeness of Christianity riott and O’Neill 2008) argue for a dialogic approach that makes its otherness so potent: repugnance in this case (following Bakhtin) that makes the different ways that Chris- can be explained in classic anthropological terms as a response tianity is a problem both for anthropologists and Christians to an anomalous mixture of the similar and the different” “a matter of analytic and ethnographic investigation” and (193, referring to Douglas 1966). This formulation is reve- hence not simply a question “of internal disciplinary critique” latory of the difficulties anthropologists have with ways in (384). I see this as a fruitful move, and yet I caution that which evangelical Christians “make anthropologists recoil by focusing on how Christianity is a polemical object for Chris- unsettling the fundamental schemes by which the discipline tians may not necessarily fully resolve some the ways in which organizes the world into the familiar and the foreign” (Rob- Christianity does pose a problem to the discipline or address bins 2003b:193). One of the things Robbins perhaps means the full political implications of the important problems that is that until recently, social and cultural anthropology has Robbins raises. largely been a matter not simply of studying culture but of Robbins notes the peculiar difficulties that anthropologists studying different cultures and societies. Hence, Pentecostals, have in taking Pentecostals “on their own terms”—a meth- even when they are found in cultures other than the anthro- odological principle that is central to anthropology—while pologists’, are still too “familiar” for them to be allocated to maintaining an anthropological commitment to respect for the “foreign.” To put it in my terms, what makes them re- alterity. He explains this difficulty in terms of a general and pugnant is not their cultural difference but their political Marshall Christianity, Anthropology, Politics S347 difference. Pentecostalism emerges from within a Western of ontology is seen as a response to the ways in which culture Christian tradition while being seen as epitomizing the sorts has become “devalued” as a marker of difference under con- of Western political illiberalism and evangelical, conversionist ditions of globalization; ontological language could be met- cultural superiority that anthropologists struggle against. The aphorically understood as a return to “a gold standard” (Can- central issue I take Robbins to be flagging here, even if he dea et al. 2010:175). Fortunately, Robbins, along with most does not fully expand on it, is the problematic way in which anthropologists, would absolutely refuse this ontologization anthropology has made this distinction on the grounds of of culture, even for Viveiros de Castro’s “strategic reasons.” cultural alterity fundamental. In fact, as I will try to show Indeed, Robbins reminds us of anthropologists’ “suspicion of below, this distinction is inherently unstable and not without comparative projects more generally” because of the fear of risk insofar as there is no way of studying difference as such: essentializing (Robbins 2003b:193). there are only different configurations of difference realized This fear of essentialism is testimony to the fact that while through different modes of differentiation. In other words, there is an acute recognition of the ways in which positing people and their worldviews are always composed of various alterity poses an epistemological (as well as an ethico-political) and diverse elements; how these elements parse out in terms problem for anthropologists, there is also some desperation of difference in any given case is a question of how concepts in the face of the difficulty of resolving it. In other words, function as processes of differentiation, processes that are the ethical imperative of respect for the other in her otherness always embedded in relations of power. is absolutely correct, but its practice in anthropological writing Concepts are always already comparative, always already is much more fraught—Viveiros de Castro is right on that designating an order of things, of lines of inclusion and ex- point. Needless to say, I do not think using the language of clusion, such as the foreign and familiar, the same and the ontology as a means of grounding cultural difference, even other, the Christian and the anthropologist. Yet even if in the strategically, is the way out—we know where that can lead final instance, conceptualization refuses any essential ground politically. To say it even more plainly, what is most pernicious for this designation, even if it admits the contingency of all about the ontologization of culture is that the construction grounds for differentiation, it nonetheless puts into play such of lines of inclusion and exclusion in a given group or people a ground. As Robbins makes clear, much social and cultural or culture or collectivity by the anthropologist is an apolitical anthropology (though not all) puts into play a concept of process. The anthropologist must describe or represent these alterity as its (more or less) contingent epistemological lines as if they had some sort of reality, consistency, and ground, which finds its political or ethical expression in the endurance (being as enduring substance beyond the purely valorization of alterity and the respect for cultural difference ontic is what the word “ontology” means) rather than as (Bender and Klassen 2010). In Viveiros de Castro’s words, shifting divisions that are formed by the play of ongoing, anthropology is a form of cogitation that “assumes the virtual contingent, and politically charged processes of differentiation presence of Another as its condition, indeed, its precondition” among which are anthropological representations. No amount (Viveiros de Castro 2003:8). But what are the implications of of self-reflexivity will resolve this problem (see, e.g., Vilac¸a this privileging of alterity in capital letters, particularly when 2014). its expression is understood in terms of culture? How are we While the limits of reflexivity and cultural translation pose to recognize this other as Another, and not simply any old a problem for anthropology in general, not all anthropologists other, or, indeed, the same? If something called culture or want to claim that their discipline is a “political science in worldview is to do the work of grounding difference such the fullest sense.” Yet the ontological move paradoxically be- that the discipline’s ordering principles would not be unset- trays the very political commitment to respecting and sup- tled, this can only occur in a stable fashion if this something porting Another’s cultural and political integrity that lies be- is ontologized. Viveiros de Castro has no problem with this hind anthropology as “the science of the ontological and wants to reclaim the “language of ontology” for anthro- self-determination of the world’s peoples.” If the ground of pology.2 As Matei Candea puts it, the justification for the use the “ontological self-determination of the world’s peoples” is cultural, then some sort of cultural criteriology is required in 2. In his words, “The image of Being is obviously a dangerous analogic order for difference to be recognized or represented (both by soil for thinking about non-western conceptual imaginations, and the the peoples concerned and the anthropological observer). The notion of ontology is not without its own risks. . . . Nonetheless, I think the language of ontology is important for one specific and, let’s say, process of accounting for native practices entails an episte- tactical reason. It acts as a counter-measure to a derealizing trick fre- quently played against the native’s thinking, which turns this thought solve the problem of our access to the Real (see Lacan). With regard to into a kind of sustained phantasy, by reducing it to the dimensions of a its “strategic” deployment, Viveiros de Castro is not saying anything new form of knowledge or representation, that is to an ‘epistemology’ or a here; Gayatri Spivak (1987) proposed the idea of a strategic essentialism ‘worldview’. . . . I shall conclude by once more claiming that anthropology in 1987, endorsing a “strategic use of essentialism” only “in a scrupulously is the science of the ontological self-determination of the world’s peoples, visible political interest” (205) but later drew attention to the very real and that it is thus a political science in the fullest sense” (Viveiros de dangers of it becoming a master word or a mobilizing slogan, saying, “I Castro 2003:18). The first obvious objection is that all are have given up using it” (Spivak, Danius, and Jonsson 1993:36). Viveiros “sustained phantasies” of a sort, and ontologizing certainly will not re- de Castro displays considerably less reserve. S348 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 mological stance that depends on the fantasy of standing out- words, can only be an ineffable God; it cannot be secularized side culture or the social, a fantasy that thus enables the a without losing this support” (Brown 2004:297–298). For Ba- priori positing of cultural difference—“the virtual presence diou, while there is nothing inconsistent about Le´vinasian of Another as its precondition”—a metaphysical, ontotheo- ethics, what it demonstrates is that such an ethics “is a cat- logical image if there ever was one (Viveiros de Castro 2003: egory of pious discourse” (Badiou 2001:23). In its secularized 18). If anthropology wants to recognize itself as a funda- version, otherness can only be posited, which implies that mentally political discourse concerned with the self-deter- “the ineffable other is a product of my own thought and mination of peoples, then the only politically viable form of therefore not other at all” (Brown 2004:298). In adopting a ground, principle, or axiom is the a priori positing of equality, secularized version of this ethics of alterity, anthropology per- not difference. Moreover, even if it aims to let the peoples petually runs the risk of bringing the other into the category speak for themselves, the ontological turn cannot help reit- of the same and can do nothing definitive to guard against erating the epistemological privilege anthropology is accorded this risk. Anthropologists are acutely aware of this problem and accords itself in representing and translating other ways and constantly seek to critically come to terms with it. In of life. Some of these critiques are not specific to the onto- raising these questions, anthropology of Christianity thus logizers, who at least wear their essentializing on their sleeves. brings attention to an issue of broader interest to the discipline How much violence has been done in the name of liberal and prompts us to ask, why this will to cultural otherness? values of nonessentialism, tolerance, and respect for the other? Robbins, Bialecki, and Haynes highlight the “perils of con- As adapted by anthropology, the liberal project perpetuates tinuity thinking” in the study of Pentecostalism to draw our the illusion of political and ethical neutrality in ethnographic attention to the tendency of anthropologists to explain, or representation and anthropological interpretation as long as indeed, explain away as long-standing local cultural practices a rigorous and heartfelt ethico-epistemological examination what are in fact broadly shared attributes of Pentecostalism 3 of one’s own subject position is undertaken. everywhere it is found (Bielecki, Haynes, and 2008:1141; Rob- Even if we argue, as many anthropologists do today, that bins 2007; see also Daswani 2012). I take this to be a symptom one can no longer use alterity as an epistemological ground of this will to otherness. We could call this process the practice for understanding culture, adopting alterity as a fundamental of vernacularization, by which I do not mean the ways the principle guiding anthropology’s ethical stance to its objects novel may become integrated into a given local life world but still faces similar difficulties. The problem with an ethics of rather the ways in which anthropologists actively domesticate alterity is that in the absence of a guarantor of the relation the novel by translating it into the cultural language they between the other and the same, which is to say the Absolute consider to be idiomatic for the people in question (Marshall Other, there is no way of securely grounding the otherness 2009; Tonda 2002). Aside from the broader question of an- of the other. It might be objected that anthropologists do not thropology’s ongoing, though still largely disavowed, relations use God or any other metaphysical principle to ground what with Christian witness, another reason this will takes a tes- they mean by alterity. However, when they refuse such prin- timonial form is methodological. Despite extensive debates ciples yet nonetheless put alterity into play in either their on this question, anthropology is still largely a “you had to epistemological or ethical stances, this alterity can then only be there” sort of discipline (Bamford and Robbins 1997; Clif- be grounded by the anthropologist’s positing it and witnessing ford and Marcus 1986; Comaroff and Comaroff 2003; Fer- to it. guson and Gupta 1997). “Being there” implies that there is In his Ethics, political philosopher Alain Badiou takes on the liberal ethical discourse around the broadly Le´vinasian a place one could be, observe, participate in, and experience thematics of the “respect for the other.” Contrary to the gross for oneself and secondhand the experiences of others. misrepresentation in some postcolonial literature (Gandhi Indeed, Robbins puts experience at the very heart of the 2011) of Badiou as a sort of crypto-fascist who would deny project of understanding Pentecostalism, as Pentecostals also all respect for difference, Nicholas Brown makes it clear that do: “to claim, as anthropologists must, that Christians make “Badiou himself has the greatest respect for Le´vinas, and in sense in their own terms is at least to admit that it is possible fact offers no direct critique of Le´vinas’s ethics. He merely to argue in a reasonable way that anthropologists do not make demonstrates what Le´vinas would never deny, which is that sense in their own. Anyone who has been told in the course there is nothing that guarantees the essential otherness of the of fieldwork that to understand is to convert has a visceral other (whose relation to me or to a third might always bring sense of the force of such Christian challenges to the mod- us under the category of the Same) except the existence of ernist tradition” (Robbins 2003b:193). The force of this arises an Altogether Other who shines through the appearance of less from the drama of the impossibility of fully understanding the other. The foundation of an ethics of alterity, in other Pentecostalism without converting than the way it ruptures the eminently modernist fantasy of understanding the thing itself through the exercise of an individual consciousness. We 3. At times, this exercise of self-examination entails a shocking display of political self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and overwrought self-involve- can never have full access to any thing itself, be it a different ment—as in Pandian (2012). culture, another person, any other way of being, however Marshall Christianity, Anthropology, Politics S349 much we attempt to “bracket” our own experience of the book Spirits of Protestantism, we need to consider more care- world. fully the ways in which Christianity is partially constitutive But is experience of the world—ours, theirs—primarily of the discipline of anthropology per se and of the anthro- what is at stake in understanding for anthropologists? Given pology of Christianity in particular. Klassen argues that an- that Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity presents itself thropology seems to be facing a political “lack of nerve” and as an experiential, embodied, and ecstatic faith—as opposed “crisis of faith” (2011:xxi), a crisis connected to the disci- to, say, a faith enacted primarily through intellectual reflec- pline’s more or less agonistic complicities with mission Chris- tion, appeals to historical tradition, or liturgical participation tianity, colonialism, and colonial science. It is this history, the (see Bandak 2014; Barker 2014; Coleman 2014; Handman senses in which anthropologists understand it to be behind 2014; Hann 2014; Humphrey 2014)—there is perhaps an in- them, and the ways in which they struggle to keep it behind creased temptation to think that the only way to understand them that compel them to witness to the integrity of those it is to experience it, or failing that, that the best access we cultural forms that colonial power set out to Christianize and can have to it is accounts of converts’ experiences of it (Knibbe “civilize.” While this impulse is not at issue, it does not dis- and Versteeg 2008). While such experiences should not of pense us from ongoing attention to how this rather salvific course be discounted, it is not clear to me why they should or redemptive ethos plays itself out in anthropological prac- be privileged. Other recent work in the anthropology of Chris- tice. My open question is whether, in struggling against old tianity shows the evidential significance of institutional and modes of dominating, essentializing, and sublating difference, discursive forms, which cannot simply be accessed through a grounding assumption of political equality is not better than participant observation or participants’ accounts of them- a grounding assumption of cultural alterity. selves (Barker 2014; Handman 2014; Hann 2014; Humphrey We thus also need to ask whether the secularized, multi- 2014). What interested me in converts’ accounts was as much culturalist version of this ethics of alterity really entails the their form as their content insofar as their accounts were complete respect for this ethics that it claims to. And if so, forms of Christian witness, which is to say a discursive genre why are Pentecostals still considered by many liberals, in- that disciplined the subject to understand and recount her cluding some anthropologists, to be “repugnant others”? In experience in a particular way. For me the main challenge fact, Badiou claims that the only real difference this ethic was to inquire into the ways and means by which becoming respects is difference as such: “In its everyday form, without Pentecostal brought the subject to a new experience of the the support of the Altogether Other, the ethics of difference world, an approach that does not require accessing an indi- bifurcates as soon as it is put into play. Its attitude towards vidual consciousness of this experience. More specifically, I any rigorously sustained difference is entirely different from sought to inquire into the mechanisms that were in play such the attitude it itself to have towards difference as such. that she was compelled to give this account of herself in this A rigorously sustained religious difference? Fundamentalism. particular manner and the means of compulsion (Butler Rigorously sustained political difference? Extremism. Rigor- 2005). ously sustained cultural difference? Barbarism” (Brown 2004: Robbins gives us a hint of one way this will to otherness 298). As a matter of fact, “this celebrated ‘other’ is acceptable intervenes in evaluations of the “proper” anthropological ob- only if he is a good other—which is to say what, exactly, if ject when he cites Harding as she argues that Christian fun- not the same as us?” (Badiou 2001:24). This means that the damentalists in particular are “repugnant cultural other[s] discourse of the other is effectively a discourse of the Same, who, unlike those whose differences are constituted along “a cosmopolitan fantasy of liberal-democratic, free-market lines of race/sex/class/ethnicity/colonialism, are not suitable society: nothing other than the identity of a wealthy—albeit subjects of anthropological attention” (Harding 1991:375). visibly declining—‘West’” (Badiou 2001:24; in Brown 2004: Let me rephrase this last sentence; Christians are unlike those 298). who are or have been constituted by a racist, patriarchal, Anthropologists’ forms of witness can constitute a van- dominating, essentializing, universalizing, imperial, Christian guard against this ethic’s failure. Nonetheless, the ethical and power as both different and subaltern and as one through the political quandary of respecting difference without falling into other. Why are they not suitable? Because they are not the these traps remains. I should also point out here that this right sort of subaltern or the right sort of other. quandary is by no means a specifically anthropological prob- Thus, behind Robbins’s discussion of closeness and oth- lem. With regard to the ways in which it constructs religion erness is a larger issue, one that has to do with what Cannell and culture as the repugnant political other through its as- has rightly identified as the Christianity of anthropology sociation of religion, violence, and culture, liberal political (Cannell 2005: esp. 340). Pamela Klassen (2011) takes on science is no doubt a worse offender. And yet, I find the logic Cannell when she argues that it is not enough to charge of Badiou’s critique implacable. You cannot reverse the logic anthropology for assuming Christianity to mean a largely of the binary simply by asserting the subaltern term; you can Protestant and post-Enlightenment version of it, as Cannell only begin to deconstruct it. All the anthropologist can do does, or to focus on Christianity’s functions as a motor of then is attend to the ways in which their ethics might bifurcate secularization. Rather, following Klassen’s arguments in her as they are put into play and struggle against this. This is by S350 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 no means an easy task, because the risk is not only that inscribe oneself in a political and ideological space dominated otherness may be understood in terms of the same but also by Christianity, and therefore to engage in the obscure and that otherness may become unrecognizable altogether—either equivocal struggle in which the putatively ‘universal’ value of too radically other to be approached at all or on the other the concept of religion, even of , has in hand collapsed into a mere fantasy; in either case, this puts advance been appropriated into the space of a Christian se- the democratic ethos of this ethics in question. The argument mantics” (Derrida 2001:74; see also Boyarin 1994; Masuzawa that culture has ceased to work as the “gold standard” for 2005). And not only semantics, but also the very institution- marking difference is symptomatic of this confusion. Above alization of the hegemonic Christian sense of the term “uni- all it reminds us that the grounds of alterity must always be versal” today “as it dominates the philosophy of international held to be contingent, which implies for anthropologists that law and of human rights” and finds it expression in inter- culture by definition is inessential, emergent, open to change, national organizations such as the United Nations. This dom- to the new, which is also to say that it is vulnerable. I take inance also extends to current forms of teletechnology and this to be the critical thrust of Robbins’s problematization capitalization and the “televisual hegemony of the Christian even if he perhaps would not put it in these terms. religion” (Derrida 2001:59; see also de Vries and Weber 2001; Meyer and Moors 2006). “I am struck by the muffled and almost desperate struggle of the non-Christian religions when On a Concept of a Christian Tradition they attempt at the same time to Christianize themselves and to defend themselves against Christianity” Derrida writes; Once again, Klassen’s exciting work brings to my mind what “This holds no less for Islam than for Judaism. But at the I take to be the crux of the problem of the adequate concept same time that they seek to resist the fascination of emulation of a Christian tradition even if I have no way of resolving [fascination spe´culaire], these religions become ever more this problem here. In other words, the central problem not Christian in their form, in their discourse, in their manifes- explored systematically by Robbins, Cannell, or O’Neill and tation. They seek to be different and to resemble, to acquire Garriott in their discussion of Asad’s proposition to approach the global legitimacy of Christianity” (Derrida 2001:73–74). Islam “as Muslims do”—that is, as a tradition—is that in a I cannot help but be struck by the various ways this account decisive sense that is also the most difficult thing to think; resonates with a case like Nigeria, from the agonistic paral- the Christian tradition also includes anthropology and an- lelism in the rise of Pentecostalism and radical Islamic re- thropology’s historical entanglements with colonial Chris- formism as “religions of the subject” (Larkin and Meyer 2006; tianity, empire, and the West’s civilizational discourse. Indeed, Marshall 2009; see also Mahmood 2005; Roy 2006) to the it could be argued that from a certain perspective, this tra- spread of Islamic electronic media (Larkin 2008; see also Hir- dition includes all social science, philosophy, history, and our schkind 2006) and the growth of Muslim “revivals” where names today for the secular, for sovereignty, for media and one can come and “meet Allah” to the autoimmune violence mediation, for world, for globe, and for the very space and of as they suicide-bomb Christian services across movement of globalization. When we think about the “global” the Muslim north of a country that has become dramatically in a concept of global Christianity, we should thus also reflect Pentecostalized.4 on the ways in which the very term “world” is still a fun- Thinking about the ongoing power of Christianity also damentally Christian concept and how, as Derrida argues, means attending to the ways in which the secular emerges globalization—or globalatinization—still means “Christiani- from within it and how the supercessionist logic of a “self- zation”: “Christian discourse confusedly but surely informs deconstructing” Christianity enables the opposition between this doxa and all that it carries with it, beginning with the the religious and secular so central to political liberalism. world and the names for its ‘mundiality’, and its vague equiv- Indeed, in this now globally hegemonic understanding of alents globe, universe, earth, or cosmos (in its Pauline usage)” modern politics, religion comes to be designated, along with (Derrida 2005:54). its cognates and disseminations, as the violence that must be To be in the world today means moving within a space eliminated from the political field insofar as the hallmark of that is still Christian; studying Christianity as simply a religion, liberal thought is the evacuation of conflict and violence from as the anthropology of Christianity does, is no doubt the most the political and its replacement by the (Christian) values of problematic aspect of its project. Christianity is anything but tolerance, agreement, deliberation, communication, and con- simply a religion; the very name “religion” is itself Christian. sensus. As Wendy Brown (2008) argues, “the governmentality Approaching Christianity as an ensemble of religious insti- of tolerance as it circulates through civilizational discourse tutions, rituals, and discourses without problematizing the has, as part of its work, the containment of the (organicist, untranslatability of religion is a profoundly depoliticizing non-Western, nonliberal) Other. . . . Nonliberal societies and move (see Anidjar 2014; Derrida 2002). “What is a religion?” practices, especially those designated as fundamentalist, are Derrida asks. “To present oneself on the international stage, to claim the right to practice one’s ‘religion’, to construct 4. “Western education is forbidden”—“Boko” being a Hausa vernac- mosques where there were churches and synagogues is to ular of the English word “book”—or perhaps “Book”? Marshall Christianity, Anthropology, Politics S351 depicted not only as relentlessly and inherently intolerant but and fatal as it is impossible. . . . Only Christianity can do this as potentially intolerable for their putative rule by culture or work, that is, undo it while doing it. Dechristianization will religion and their concomitant devaluation of the autono- be a Christian victory. . . . [Christianity] will still make the mous individual—in short, their thwarting of individual au- sacrifice of its own self-deconstruction” (Derrida 2005:54). tonomy with religious or cultural commandments” (152). Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for critical thought Whether secularism is understood as a break with Christianity today is tracing an alternative path to the sorts of superces- or as its extension, its ongoing historical privilege as definitive sionist logics that dominate current thinking about the en- of the modern continues to determine the terms in which tanglements between the Christian and the secular. other religious forms or traditions position themselves with respect to modernity and democracy. The critical reappraisal of secularism from the perspective of such other traditions Beginning as Pentecostals Do from the has given rise to important recent work that anthropologists Perspective of a Political Theorist of Christianity cannot afford to ignore: Mandair (2009) on , Abeysekara (2008) on Buddhism, and Agrama It thus may be that Asad’s understanding of the Islamic tra- (2012) and Mas (2011, forthcoming) on Islam. dition is too restrictive a model for the specific problems that This work is all the more important insofar as the centrality treating Christianity as a tradition entails or for helping us of religion to many forms of postcolonial violence—indeed, elucidate the troubled relationship between anthropology and its rhetorical association with a primordial violence, dramat- this tradition. Yet I maintain that the methodological principle ically heightened since the events of 9/11—has served to behind Asad’s approach is still sound and can be usefully breathe new life into imperial conceptions of backwardness employed for an anthropology of Pentecostalism, indeed, any and barbarism and justify extremely violent politico-military form of Christianity. So if we should start as Pentecostal and interventions in the name of “civilization” and “democratic charismatic Christians do, this means firstly recognizing the values.” Asad’s (2003) book On Suicide Bombing is exemplary ways in which this form of Christianity constructs itself as an in its problematization of this issue. I underscore this because evangelical project. Against the vernacularizing tendency that when anthropologists consider the field of Christian practice privileges continuity with the past over rupture, many an- and ask, “who is a Christian?” there needs to be an acute thropologists of Christianity have recognized that Pentecostal awareness of the ways in which this question is increasingly and charismatic Christianity engages with local culture by politicized. For many today, the question “who is a Christian” polemically staging a break with it (Bialecki 2010; Casanova implies taking sides in an apocalyptic civilizational struggle 2001; Coleman 2000; Haynes 2012; Marshall 2009; Meyer of world-historical significance. One only need consider the 1998; O’Neill 2009; Robbins 2003a, 2007). Casanova (2001) evangelical and apocalyptic attitude of the Bush regime to the puts the ways in which local Pentecostalisms engage with their Islamic terrorist threat or the political import of the obser- own cultures in these terms: “It is an uprooted local culture vation that the West has multiple meanings at home but, as engaged in spiritual warfare with its own roots” (437). Asad observes, often only one abroad (Asad 2007). Similarly So while I take O’Neill and Garriott’s point that “anthro- the tenacity of Samuel Huntington’s essentializing “clash of pologists should turn their eye towards the kinds of problems civilizations” thesis (Huntington 1996) and the new American Christian communities themselves seem to be preoccupied “crusades”—military, political, and economic—that Derrida with” rather than debate Christianity’s “cultural logic” or has called “the other wars of religion” (Derrida 2002:63) tes- “cultural content” (Garriott and O’Neill 2008:388, citing Rob- tify to the political overbid of religion today. bins 2004a), I still think the only way to begin as Pentecostals In short, anthropologists of Christianity cannot go on treat- do is to have some sense of the various logics that might be ing Christianity merely as a religion. This may seem like an said to characterize their project at a general level. These logics incongruous claim to make in the context of an effort to do not need to be understood in an essentializing way, and construct a concept of Christianity that could serve a com- they just as often are “how” questions as “what” questions. parative anthropological project, but at the least, a continued This approach can further what I take to be one of the and acute attention to anthropology’s self-positioning within aims of the anthropology of evangelical charismatic and Pen- this “tradition” is essential to considering the ways forward tecostal Christianity going forward: to develop approaches for the discipline as a whole. This expanded view of the Chris- that might enable rigorous analysis of various ways in which tian tradition underlies Nancy’s claim that Christianity is the these forms of Christianity can be considered “global” or as very thing itself that has to be thought in order for something having global sociopolitical effects. In other words, to provide new to appear. Asad is aware of this, and it seems to me that the anthropology of Christianity hitherto focused principally he may be attempting to get at a thought of the Christian on local ethnographies with the means to respond robustly through the “back door” of an anthropology of the secular. to the somewhat reductive accounts offered by broad surveys Such philosophical or anthropological projects nonetheless of “global Christianity,” such as those of Philip Jenkins (2002, have their work cut out for them. As Derrida the “spoilsport” 2006), or those informed by popular understandings of the whispers back to Nancy, such a project may be “as necessary American culture wars. The need for some common ground S352 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 can be illustrated by the very divergent interpretations of the which may be, as Robbins points out, one of the difficulties politics of Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity in the anthropologists have with them. But I think it is very difficult postcolonial world.5 A comparative approach that bridges the to understand Pentecostalism’s effects both locally and glob- gap between local ethnographies and the global impact of the ally without thinking about the ways in which it functions as dramatic rise of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity— a prescriptive regime and positions itself with respect to com- the revolution that was not supposed to happen (Martin peting regimes. In this sense, political theology is extremely 2001)—requires the elaboration of a more theoretically am- useful for thinking comparatively about the ways in which bitious framework for thinking comparatively about their so- Pentecostalism intersects with local political formations as cial and political effects across a range of very different con- well as global ones. texts as well as the ways, if any, in which these Christians can For those worried about the term “theology,” we could say be understood as forming a global community. that Pentecostal political theology is to Pentecostal concep- Pentecostalism’s project is a universalizing one whose proj- tions of authority, legitimation, community, and freedom as ect of conversion—in its programmatic form, internal ratio- liberal political philosophy is to liberalism; a general concep- nalities, and general theological and specific doctrinal con- tualization of the ways in which power can and should be tent—is remarkably uniform across the globe (Marshall 2009: distributed, exercised, and legitimated, but one that can take 4). One of the things that makes Pentecostals and charismatics a variety of specific forms in practice. We could think about distinctive and so successful is their development of an ex- the ways in which Pentecostalism provides a model for the tremely robust paradigm for thinking globally, which is to say distribution of divine power in the world that differs from “global spiritual warfare.” Intimately associated with the proj- other forms of Christianity, such as, say, Catholicism, or from ect of global evangelism, it is increasingly enacted through “secular” forms, such as democracy or totalitarianism. The the growing phenomenon of reverse mission, as illustrated, dominant conception of sovereignty in the Western tradition for example, by the surprising success of Nigerian Pentecos- is a vertical and absolute one modeled on God the Father, as talism in the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere as a power greater than which none can be thought, such as we well as a mounting sense of global “manifest destiny” on the find in Hobbes (1982 [1660]) or elaborated by Carl Schmitt part of subaltern populations of the global south (Burgess, (2005) as a power beyond the law: “sovereign is he who Knibbe, and Quaas 2010; Kalu 2010). The spiritual warfare declares the state of exception” (5). The Pentecostal model Pentecostals engage in with their own uprooted cultural operates an inflection on this according to the model of the roots—attempting to make a complete break with the past— Holy Spirit’s descent at Pentecost, where the absolute tran- is the local manifestation of this universalizing project. So in scendent power of the Father takes the form of a horizontal, order to think comparatively about the ways in which this spectral, and immanent dissemination of the Spirit through warfare plays out in any given context, we need to have a language and diaspora—a tongue of fire on every head (Mar- sense of its programmatic form. Considering its program- shall 2010; Norton 2011:394). Understanding a political the- matic aspects does not mean saying the program goes ac- ology does not mean “doing” theology—using the conceptual cording to plan. On the contrary, as Foucault (2004) points tools of a political theorist and field methods of an anthro- out, its effects “can only be strategic or programmatic. It never pologist, I was able to develop my account of Pentecostal works. But it is with respect to a program that one can say political theology in Nigeria based on ethnographic material. it never works” (405). In this sense we should consider local This empirical research brought me to argue that Pentecos- Pentecostalisms as contingent effects of struggle, as so many talism there takes the form of a negative political theology, improvised variations on a program. which is to say that its conception of sovereignty did not In the context of elaborating what a minimal programmatic provide grounds for theocratic authority nor could it provide form might look like, one can, for example, analyze Pente- a stable basis for community. costal political theology and compare it, say, with that of This sort of approach can be extremely helpful in thinking Eastern Orthodoxy or liberal democratic theory without es- critically about the ways in which Pentecostal and charismatic sentializing. Political concepts are very often prescriptive, Christianity is said to be illiberal and what forms this might take in different contexts. One man’s illiberalism might be 5. A quick, nonexhaustive survey sees it variably characterized as con- another’s revolutionary struggle; given Pentecostalism’s po- servative or antidemocratic (Bastian 1993; Brouwer, Gifford, and Rose litical ambivalence, either interpretation or even others could 1996; Chesnut 1997; Gifford 1987, 1988; Jenkins 2002; 2006), a foun- dationalist (or indeed “fundamentalist”) reaction to late global capitalism be possible. A recent conversation in the South Atlantic Quar- (Comaroff 2009; Comaroff and Comaroff 2002), individualistic and terly among anthropologists of Pentecostalism and theolo- largely apolitical (Martin 2001; Steigenga 2001), largely pragmatist (Cleary gians engaging with Badiou’s and other continental philos- and Stewart-Gambino 1997), potentially fostering democratic culture or ophers’ fascination with St. Paul explored the working new forms of engaged citizenship (Austin-Broos 1997; Burdick 1993; premise that new forms of global charismatic Christianity Englund 2003; Freston 2001; O’Neill 2009; Stoll 1990), or fundamentally politically ambivalent, a failed caught between theocratic might offer new possibilities for global critique. And yet, in ambition and a powerful prophetic and quasi-democratic impulse (Mar- the absence of attention to the specific political aspects of this shall 2009, 2010). question, the global or universal aspect of both was rather Marshall Christianity, Anthropology, Politics S353 more posited than systematically problematized, references to Finally, while anthropologists may not principally be en- St. Paul and empire notwithstanding (Engelke and Robbins gaged in thinking about the politics of Pentecostalism, there 2010 with Bialecki 2010; Coleman 2010; Meyer 2010; Smith is one crucial sense in which the politics of its universalizing 2010). Mike Davis (2004) has argued in the New Left Review project intersects with their investigation of culture. As I said that the demographics of Pentecostalism make it potentially above, recognizing the inessential nature of culture means that a new revolutionary force, or if not, the best we have to work cultures are by definition vulnerable. Pentecostalism is a uni- with: “Indeed, for the moment at least, Marx has yielded the versalizing project that antagonistically engages with other historical stage to Mohammed and the Holy Ghost. If God cultural and religious forms, often violently, sometimes put- died in the cities of the industrial revolution, he has risen ting them in jeopardy. It is very difficult to see how this again in the postindustrial cities of the developing world” cultural vulnerability might be safeguarded or whether indeed (30). He credits reformist Islam and Pentecostalism with ar- it should be insofar as it begs the question of who wants to ticulating the most significant response to the process of “ur- protect these cultures, for what reasons, and on behalf of what ban involution” (labor’s self-overexploitation) that charac- principles. Insofar as anthropologists have an acute awareness terizes the third world megalopolis: “with the Left still largely of how these struggles play out locally, I would urge them to missing from the slum, the eschatology of Pentecostalism ad- engage in thinking about their political stakes more system- mirably refuses the inhuman destiny of the Third World city atically. that Slums warns about. It also sanctifies those who, in every As an engaged political theorist committed to democratic structural and existential sense, truly live in exile” (Davis 2004: forms of life and struggles for emancipation, I am less agnostic 34). This is a very bold and broad claim, one I am highly on these questions, but as my discussion should have made skeptical about yet that deserves greater investigation and clear, taking an engaged view on the politics of Pentecostalism reflection. In response to Davis’s optimism, it could be argued is a complex and risk-filled enterprise. At the very least, any that Pentecostalism constructs close affinities with neoliberal critical approach will require the deconstruction of the bi- finance capital as well as contemporary ideas of debt and naries that define political modernity’s self-conception: sec- prosperity and thus acts in many ways as a handmaiden of ular/religious, science/belief, knowledge/faith, reason/unrea- capital and empire rather than an antidote to it (Marshall son. Concerning the problem of the politics of engagement 2011; see also Coleman 2012; Hackett 1995; Haynes 2012; with and critical representation of our ethnographic subjects, O’Neill 2012). Nimi Wariboko, a Pentecostal theologian, spec- let me briefly reiterate in closing that I think the only political ulates that the spirit of Pentecostalism today may be nothing approach that could carry forward the fundamentally dem- more than the spirit of the latest stage of capitalism (Wariboko ocratic impulse behind the anthropologists’ and political the- 2011:154). orists’ concern to respect alterity is not one that posits plu- The paradigm of global spiritual warfare with its apoca- ralism but rather equality as its principle, or more precisely, lyptic visions, the violence of its language, and its obsession equality that emerges agonistically, polemically, from within with enemies also demands that we pay closer attention to multiplicity. Otherwise, we are caught between the horns of the politics of “who is a Christian” today. As Davis’s account a political dilemma. On the one hand, a liberal government- intimates, apocalyptic thought has long been and continues ality of tolerance does not respect difference, and an idealist to be a political weapon for the dispossessed. Apocalyptics logics of consensus, translation, and communicative ratio- say let the world go down, “I have no spiritual investment in nality do not resolve differences but rather police the lines of the world as it is” (Barber 2011; Taubes 2003:103). As Derrida who can speak. On the other hand, the catastrophic political (1992) argues, “the sort of fear mongering apocalyptic dis- logic of the radical heterogeneity of regimes of speech means course of politicians or religious mystagogues is not only des- that democratic politics becomes impossible, as Jacques Ran- tined to mislead the people in order to get to reactionary, cie`re (1997) argues, “because of some primal alterity or debt, backward-looking, conservative ends. On the contrary— because of a debt to the law of the Other that can never be nothing is less conservative than the apocalyptic genre” (29). repaid” (34). Following Rancie`re, I believe that pluralism does Apocalyptic discourse has also been, for a century or so, a not mean identifying this or that category within a population form of more or less playful despair among intellectuals. The that can be granted rights or that there are so many different themes of exhaustion, the “end,” the “late,” or the “post” are forms of culture that must be recognized and must recognize ubiquitous in contemporary theory today and when turned each other. This logic implies that the lines of inclusion and on religion often take the form of dire warnings against a exclusion are determined prior to true politics through or- redoubtable enemy: the autoimmune, schizophrenic constel- dering principles he calls “the police” (Rancie`re 1995). Rather lation of and capitalism run amok (Brown “effective pluralism means polemical pluralism, a pluralism 2006; Connolly 2008; Zizek 2010). Or, as Nancy baldly puts that creates instances of equality” (Rancie`re 1997:35). Differ- it, “hyperfascism” (Nancy 2008:5). A dialogue needs to be ence, as a political or ethical ground, is undecidable. It always established between those who theorize about the dangers of runs the risk of being recuperated in particularist struggles contemporary forms of religiosity at a global level and those that operate under the name of a universal. Recognizing this who study them closely. means acknowledging that our conceptualizations of religion, S354 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 of Christianity, of “who is a Christian” are always already -———. 2008. Regulating aversion: tolerance in the age of identity and empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. political. Burdick, John. 1993. Struggling against the devil: Pentecostalism and social movements in urban Brazil. In Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America. David Stoll and Virginia Garrard-Burnett, eds. Pp. 20–44. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Acknowledgments Burgess, R., K. Knibbe, and A. Quaas. 2010. Nigerian-initiated Pentecostal churches as a social force in Europe: the case of the Redeemed Christian I thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation for the invitation to Church of God. PentecoStudies 9(3):97–121. attend the symposium on the anthropology of Christianity as Butler, J. 2005. Giving an account of oneself. New York: Fordham University Press. well as all the participants for their helpful critiques. Thanks Candea, M., M. Carrithers, K. Sykes, M. Holbraad, and S. Venkatesan. 2010. to Pamela Klassen for her generous and ever-incisive criticism; Ontology is just another word for culture: motion tabled at the 2008 meeting Gil Anidjar for his careful reading and helpful correctives; my of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory, University of Man- chester. Critique of Anthropology 30(2):152–200. research assistants Alison Colpitts, Jackie Grossano, Helen Cannell, F. 2005. The Christianity of anthropology. Journal of the Royal An- Mo, Saliha Chattoo, and Basit Iqbal; the PhD students at our thropological Institute 11:335–356. anthropology of Christianity workshop for their insights; and ———, ed. 2006. The anthropology of Christianity. Durham, NC: Duke Uni- versity Press. the anonymous reviewers for Current Anthropology. I espe- Casanova, J. 2001. Religion, the new millennium, and globalization. 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Stoll, D. 1990. Is Latin America turning protestant? the politics of evangelical Viveiros de Castro, E. 2003. AND: after-dinner speech given at Anthropology growth. Berkeley: University of California Press. and Science, the 5th Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Taubes, J. 2003. The political theology of Paul. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth, 2003. Manchester Papers Press. in Social Anthropology, no. 7. Manchester: Department of Social Anthro- Tonda, J. 2002. La gue´rison divine en Afrique centrale (Congo, Gabon). Paris: pology, University of Manchester. Karthala. Wariboko, N. 2011. The Pentecostal principle: ethical methodology in the new Vilac¸a, Aparecida. 2014. Culture and self: the different “gifts” Amerindians spirit. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. receive from Catholics and Evangelicals. Current Anthropology 55(suppl. Zizek, S. 2010. Living in the end times. London: Verso. 10):S322–S332. Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 S357

Affordances and Audiences Finding the Difference Christianity Makes

by Naomi Haynes

The wide-ranging contributions to this special issue point to the extraordinary variety of Christian adherence around the world. In the light of this multiplicity, it has become increasingly important to develop frameworks that will allow us to conceptualize Christianity as a multifaceted, labile, but nevertheless identifiable object. Drawing together the concept of affordances, as used by Webb Keane in his contribution to this issue, as well as what I call “audiences,” this afterword outlines a comparative framework for the study of Christianity. This framework is focused on Christian adherence as a form of value creation, worked out in contested social space. I begin by applying this model to some of my own material from the Zambian Copperbelt, showing how Pentecostalism and the prosperity gospel afford claims on audiences that include God, the state, and the wider social world. I then turn my attention to the affordances and audiences that emerge in the articles collected in this special issue. I conclude by suggesting that the framework of affordances and audiences I have developed here helps to address one of the most vexing problems in the anthropology of Christianity, namely, how the subfield defines its object of study.

If, as Fenella Cannell has suggested, one of the central tasks approach (e.g., Csordas 1994; Luhrmann 2012) will obviously of the anthropology of Christianity is to determine what dif- yield different results than an approach grounded in cultural ference Christianity makes (Cannell 2006), a decade of re- anthropology (e.g., Robbins 2004). search toward this end has shown that there are many possible Like these earlier studies, the contributions to this special responses here. In some cases, anthropologists have argued issue also testify to Christianity’s multiplicity. As a result, while that Christianity makes a profound difference, as conversion the articles collected here certainly overlap around themes represents a “complete break” with what has gone before such as gender (Mayblin, Eriksen) or religious institutions (Meyer 1998; see also Robbins 2007). In others, it is main- (Bialecki, Barker, Handman), as well as types of Christianity, tained that Christianity does not make nearly as much dif- whether Protestant fundamentalism (Vilac¸a, Schieffelin) or ference as, for example, transnational economic or political Orthodoxy (Keane, Humphrey), the conceptual and ethno- networks (Hann 2007; Comaroff 2010). Christianity as such, graphic content spans such a range that pulling it together is it has alternately been offered, may only make a difference a daunting task. However, in asking what difference Chris- insofar as it provides material for the sorts of cultural in- tianity makes for migrants to Beijing (Huang) or for members novations that are always going on anywhere (Scott 2005). of Catholic or Orthodox churches living in a Muslim-majority The wide variety of differences that anthropologists have context like Syria (Bandak)—or, for that matter, for non- found Christianity to make has a great deal to do with the Christians like humanists (Engelke) or Caodaists (Hoskins)— kind of Christianity and the kind of anthropology one en- we can nevertheless reach some conclusions about what gages. From the earliest stages of the anthropology of Chris- Christianity is and about the way that it works. tianity (e.g., Howell 2003:235; see also Chua 2012), it has In the discussion that follows, I will explore the difference been clear that the particular form of this religion studied Christianity makes by first building on a concept that Keane will have a significant effect on conclusions about the differ- draws on in his contribution to this issue. Keane connects ence it makes; Pentecostalism makes a different difference semiotic and ontological disagreements in Christian com- than Ethiopian Orthodoxy or Anglicanism. As for the second munities to Christian “affordances” (see Gibson 1982), es- variable—that is, the kind of anthropology one does—a sim- pecially ecclesiastical institutions, popular practices, and scrip- ilar observation applies. A phenomenological or psychological tural texts. These affordances are, as he puts it, “invitations and provocations,” positions from which to make religious Naomi Haynes is Chancellor’s Fellow in the Department of Social claims. Keane emphasizes two things. First, Christian claims Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh (22 George Square, are made on contested ground. His analysis turns on the Edinburgh EH8 9LD, United Kingdom [[email protected]]). competing claims of a Russian Orthodox bishop, a Bolshevik This paper was submitted 4 XII 13, accepted 25 VII 14, and commissar, and a peasant (who is only part of the conver- electronically published 19 XI 14. sation in the others’ imagination) with regard to the remains

᭧ 2014 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2014/55S10-0020$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/678285 S358 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 of a saint. Each of these parties has a different point of view O’Neill 2008). Another element of the Christian audience is and, in the case of the two Christians involved, leverages their “the world” at large, including one’s non-Christian neighbors understanding of Christian tradition to support their per- and kin, the people one encounters on the street, and even— spectives. albeit on a more abstract level—the nation and planet as a The second characteristic of these claims in Keane’s ar- whole (e.g., O’Neill 2010). For Christians who emphasize gument is that, while they represent competing ideas, they evangelism, this particular type of audience is especially im- are nevertheless made in a shared cultural and epistemological portant, as one’s actions before nonbelievers are treated as a space. The bishop and the commissar are both concerned vital apologetic (e.g., Elisha 2011; Haynes 2012). Finally, we over what they perceive as ignorance on the part of the peas- should not lose sight of the fact that for Christians the most ant, and their shared position as educated elites serves as a important member of one’s audience is often God, who not common ground on which they make their competing claims only pronounces moral judgements about human behavior about what the peasant knows and ought to know. So too, but acts in history and in the lives of believers to bring about while the bishop and the peasant may disagree about the change (Bialecki 2014). nature and purpose of an icon, they share a common Christian David Graeber has suggested that a “potential audience” understanding that icons are an important part of religious of this type might be one of the best ways to define “society,” practice. In both instances, there is enough commonality in at least from the perspective of the actors involved. Society play for a disagreement to matter to all involved. This shared in this framing is “everyone whose opinion of you matters space shapes the form and content of claims made by the in some way”—the people for and before whom one makes various actors; for, as Keane points out, their different and certain claims and who have the power to accept or contest differing positions are “responses to one another.” 1 While Keane’s primary goal in laying out this framework those claims (Graeber 2001:76). For Graeber, the central aim is to get at the particular problems of semiotic ideology and of social life is value creation as it is defined locally. That is, ethical life, it is possible to apply his use of affordances and, social life is about production: of key situations (e.g., a certain more importantly, his understanding of shared, contested kind of exchange), desirable outcomes (e.g., marriages be- spaces—what I will be calling “audiences”—surrounding the tween certain kinds of people), or particular statuses (e.g., claims made possible by Christian adherence to a wider range buying a certain title). The role of society as audience, then, of issues. Doing so allows us to explore the difference Chris- is both recognition and comparison; in society we know what tianity makes in such a way as to make comparison possible is valued and how those things stack up against other valued even among widely varied ethnographic and conceptual forms things. such as those presented in this special issue. My aim in this The reason that the various audiences for Christian claims afterword is to bring these pieces into dialogue with one an- are important is because in providing spaces of recognition other and in so doing to bring the powerful comparative and comparison they help us see the difference Christianity potential of the anthropology of Christianity to the fore. Be- makes. Attention to the intended and accidental audiences fore going on to work with this material directly, however, I for Christian claims reveals the lines of contestation and con- must first expand on the notions of affordances and audi- sensus along which Christianity is leveraged. These claims may ences. I do so through a brief theoretical discussion, followed reflect intentional efforts to make a difference with and by an examination of ethnographic material from my own through Christianity, as in the example of Syrian Christians work among Pentecostals on the Zambian Copperbelt. that Bandak explores in this issue. Alternately, attention to the multiple audiences of Christian claims may point to in- Affordances and Audiences direct differences in ways that call to mind Weber’s classic in Theoretical Perspective analysis of Calvinism. So, for example, Pentecostal believers in Zambia are embedded in networks of exchange that extend beyond their churches thanks to an elective affinity between As Keane’s discussion of the contested and shared spheres of a religious imperative to display divine blessing and local Christian affordances has already suggested, one of the most expectations about display and the movement of wealth important steps in our efforts to understand the difference (Haynes 2012). In either case, to say that Christianity makes Christianity makes is determining who the claims that Chris- a difference is to posit its being worked out in a shared but tian adherence makes possible—that is, affords—are for. Who, in other words, is their intended audience? For Chris- contested social space, where lines of value are drawn but not tians, this audience may be made up of several different fixed. Before moving on to discuss the various contributions groups or actors. In part, it is comprised of other Christians, to this special issue in these terms, it will be helpful to examine who may or may not be members of one’s church or de- 1. For analysts like anthropologists, Graeber goes on, a different, com- nomination (e.g., Bielo 2011; Schram 2013) and, indeed, who plimentary definition of society applies. Here, society is the “total process” may or may not share the same definition of what counts as through which human activity is coordinated, the pattern of human Christian orthodoxy (e.g., Daswani 2013; see also Garriot and action (Graeber 2001:76). Haynes Finding the Difference Christianity Makes S359 an ethnographic example of Christian affordances and au- and, second, the influence of the Devil. Once a believer dem- diences in a bit more detail. onstrates that she knows what is rightfully hers, God is ef- fectively forced—that is, compelled (Wiegele 2005:9)—to give it to her (see Walton 2012:111–113). As my informants ex- Affordances and Audiences plained to me, if God does not do so he will be “shamed” in a “Christian Nation” (ukusebanya) before nonbelievers, something that he cannot Today, a century after the first missionaries arrived in what allow. was then Northern Rhodesia, the influence of Christianity in Although the prosperity gospel is not a uniquely Pentecostal Zambia is impossible to ignore.2 As in many African countries, phenomenon (e.g., Wiegele 2005), it has primarily been taken this comes through in popular culture, whether the gospel up within this form of Christianity, perhaps because of an music that crowds the radio waves or the biblical phrases affinity between its doctrines and practices and established emblazoned on minibuses and storefronts. In addition, Zam- Pentecostal ways of reading the Bible. Historically, Pentecos- bia is the only country on the continent to have made a tals have always emphasized the narrative portions of scripture constitutional declaration that it is a “Christian nation.”3 “The over the more didactic ones (Dayton 1987:23; Martin 1998: declaration,” as my informants call it, which was made in 130–131). The reason for this is that Pentecostals believe 1991, serves as a convenient benchmark for the beginning of themselves to be living out a continuation of the biblical story. Pentecostalism’s expansion in Zambia (Cheyeka 2008). While The things that happened to the apostles are still happening some classical Pentecostal denominations were already present today, as believers speak in tongues or witness divine healings in the country at this point, this form of Christianity did not and prophecy. Insofar as this is the case, there is no difference really begin to take off until it became associated with newer between them and the early church (nor is there usually un- theological influences with roots in the West. The most im- derstood to be much difference between contemporary Pen- portant of these was the prosperity or “health and wealth” tecostals and the Old Testament ). As Ruth Marshall gospel: a Christian movement that turns on the notion that puts it, “Through the proliferation of narratives, a dialogue it is God’s will for all believers to be rich, healthy, and suc- with the early church is initiated. This dialogue . . . transcribes cessful (see Hunt 2000). local histories into world history, particular into universal, The prosperity gospel introduced to Zambian Christianity connecting individuals across cultures, times, and spaces” a set of ideas about God and what believers should expect (2009:90). from him. Simply put, in the context of the prosperity gospel In light of this classic Pentecostal emphasis on narrative continuity between the past and the present, the Bible be- the means not only that Christians will comes an important affordance for followers of the prosperity receive eternal life after death but that all aspects of death gospel that allows them to make claims for which God is the that affect life on earth—poverty, sickness, barrenness, broken primary audience. Recall that the central problem of the pros- relationships—have also been undone. A believer should perity gospel is how to access the blessings that Jesus’s res- therefore not experience these things but should instead live urrection is supposed to have secured. Since the Bible is full a victorious life marked by success, prosperity, health, and of narratives that illustrate not only how God has worked in strong social ties. The only things keeping Christians from the past but also how he is working today, the biblical text these blessings are, first, their failure to actualize them by faith gives believers models they can emulate in their efforts to get 2. In the 2008 Zambia State of Governance National Survey, 95.6% God to intervene on their behalf. Understood in these terms, of Zambians self-identified as Christians (http://www.zamstats.gov.zm biblical stories are scripts with defined roles that Pentecostals /nada/index.php/catalog/50/variable/V697?ajaxp1&cssptrue&titlep can play in hopes of replicating the original results. That true; accessed November 8, 2012). There is clear evidence that Pente- scripture serves as a basis for claims of this kind is clear in costalism represents an important part of the Christian religious scene. the unique religious practices of the prosperity gospel, es- For example, among urban young people Pentecostals are second only to Catholics in terms of total adherence. The Multi-Round Survey of pecially seed offerings and positive confessions. Zambian Youth, conducted between December 2001 and December 2003, Seed offerings are exactly what they sound like: small gifts showed 24% of Lusaka young people aged 13–24 years identifying as (usually money) that, when given in faith, promise to yield Pentecostals, 26% as Catholics (Agha et al. 2006:552–553). As further a miraculously increased “harvest” for those who “sow” them. indication of the growth of Pentecostalism, Austin Cheyeka notes that In the context of the prosperity gospel, believers are encour- at the founding of the Independent Churches Organisation of Zambia in 2001 there were between 800 and 1,000 registered member churches aged to “do something special for God” (quoted in Ukah (Cheyeka 2008:147). Finally, Cheyeka (2006) has also commented on the 2005:262), giving more than they feel they can afford as a “Pentecostalization” of mainline churches, as the influence of this form means of demonstrating their faith that God will give back of Christianity has come to shape Christian practice more generally to them in “good measure.”4 As this biblical quotation sug- throughout Zambia. gests, the notion of seed offerings has been developed through 3. In 1996, the preamble to the newly amended Zambian constitution declared that “the Republic [will be] a Christian nation while upholding the right of every person to enjoy that person’s freedom of 4. Luke 6:38 (all biblical quotations are from the New International or religion.” Version). S360 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 a reading of scripture that emphasizes its role as a template. ifestation of supernatural power. In their eyes, the declaration This practice draws on the many references to reaping and of Zambia as a Christian nation is therefore a claim on God sowing in the Bible, the parables of the sower and of the that represents an intervention in state politics. By “[showing] mustard seed, and the story of the widow’s mites—a small the Lord” that the country is “really for him,” as former but sacrificial gift that Jesus turned into an example. President Chiluba put it when making the declaration (quoted Like seed offerings, positive confession is also a way for in Gifford 1998:370), Zambia ensures that God is fighting on believers to show their faith in God’s promises (Coleman the side of the nation against the powers of darkness re- 2004). In positive confession, believers state things that they sponsible for spiritual and social ills. The effects of this pos- hope will happen as though they were sure things. So, for itive confession are both anticipated and already realized. Ac- example, a woman who is trying to conceive will tell her cording to Copperbelt believers, the declaration means that friends that she will have a baby within the year. As with seed one day their country will witness an increase in both eco- offerings, when God is confronted with a believer’s faith, he nomic development and Christian morality—“fewer bars and will—indeed, must—respond by giving the thing they have more churches,” as some Pentecostal women put it (see confessed. Here again, scripture affords these claims. The Pen- Haynes 2012:129–131). Beyond these expected results, in the tecostal notion of positive confession follows from the ob- eyes of believers the declaration has already been effective in servations that humans are created in the image of a God ensuring Zambia’s political stability, and the country’s history who created the world through speech, that a mountain will of peace (mutende) follows from the fact that God has been move if one tells it to, and that “the tongue has the power put on the side of the nation. Here again, prosperity gospel 5 of life and death.” practice affords certain kinds of claims on God and on the In addition to these well-known practices, my informants state by providing believers with a grammar for acting in the also draw on the Bible to make claims on God in other ways. world. Not all Christians in Zambia view the declaration in When they pray for God to grant them children, Copperbelt such favorable light, however, and it remains a contested topic believers use the biblical text to shape their prayers, calling among members of different denominations (Hinfelaar 2011). on the “God of Sarah” and the “God of Elizabeth,” thereby Among Copperbelt Pentecostals, seed offerings produce putting themselves in the position of these barren women patterns of exchange in which “gifts to God” are simulta- who were miraculously allowed to conceive (see Haynes neously made to serve as “gifts to men” (Gregory 1980; see 2013b). They model their giving on Old Testament sacrifices, also Coleman 2004). Although at the level of official prosperity and they fast diligently not so much because the Bible com- gospel doctrine seed offerings are gifts to God and God alone, mands it but rather because they want to be delivered from on the Copperbelt, seed offerings are also mobilized in be- the occult and they know that stubborn demons “come out lievers’ social efforts, binding church leaders and laypeople only by prayer [and fasting].”6 Finally, when, as so often hap- together in the ongoing exchange of material gifts on the one pens, they do not receive what they are asking for, they ex- hand and spiritual services on the other (Haynes 2013a). amine and try to reconfigure their motives. For, as I was often These relationships in turn reflect the importance of “depen- told, the Bible says, “When you ask, you do not receive, dence” in southern Africa (Ferguson 2013), in this case by because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend connecting religiously superior pastors and prophets to the what you get on your pleasures.”7 believers who depend on them for access to spiritual re- While giving, prayer, and fasting are primarily aimed at sources. The practice of giving seed offerings therefore rep- getting God’s attention, these practices are also important to other audiences. Such demonstrations of piety may help a resents an affordance taken from a transnational Christian young man secure the affection of a devout girl, for example, movement and mobilized to produce locally valued types of or a position on a church leadership team. In turning our social relationships, making the connection to values espe- attention to the other audiences for Copperbelt Pentecostal cially clear in this case. claims, the role of religious practice as a mode of value pro- As we turn our attention to other examples offered in this duction becomes easier to see. For the sake of brevity, I take issue, we will continue to focus on the various elements two examples that I have treated in greater detail elsewhere, brought out in our discussion of Copperbelt Pentecostalism. which deal with positive confessions and seed offerings, re- What we will be watching for, in other words, are the af- spectively. fordances that Christian practices, texts, and institutions pro- Some of the most important claims that positive confession vide and how those are leveraged in and received by a broader affords for Zambian believers have to do with the state (see social milieu. Given that the authors featured here did not Haynes, forthcoming). Like other African Pentecostals, my produce their contributions with this framework in mind, informants believe that all earthly political power is a man- some of their arguments fit into it more easily than others. Some pieces deal more directly with affordances, while others are focused more on the audiences for the claims these af- 5. Prov. 18:21. 6. Mark 9:29. fordances make possible. As we continue our discussion along 7. James 4:3. these lines, we will keep our overarching goal—examining Haynes Finding the Difference Christianity Makes S361

Christianity comparatively in order to understand the differ- the interpretation of certain physiological experiences but, ence it makes—clearly in view. indeed, for these things to be experienced at all. In the Wari’ case that Vilac¸a examines, the foreignness of Christian Claims in Comparative Perspective Christianity as an external object represents an affordance for the production and realization of a key Amazonian value— I begin with the contributions to this issue that address the the incorporation of difference. In contrast to the models of different affordances that Christian doctrines and practices culture employed by Catholic and Evangelical missionaries, provide with regard to gender. Mayblin’s discussion of Cath- culture for the Wari’ is elemental, incorporating all kinds of olic gender “gymnastics” begins with Christian beliefs about beings. This means that humans must constantly distinguish the incarnation as a way of addressing the simultaneous prox- themselves from animals. It is here that new material, such imity and distance of the divine—the perennial Christian as Christianity, becomes important: by bringing in novel “problem of presence” (Engelke 2007). Mayblin shows that forms of power, the Wari’ gain leverage in their ongoing ef- the fact that saints, Jesus, and Mary have bodies allows them forts at differentiation. Similarly, Barker’s discussion of to be close to human experience, to identify with human church life among the Maisin of coastal Papua New Guinea suffering. Insofar as this is the case, holy bodies are gen- also highlights the relationship between Christianity—in this dered—Mary menstruated, bore a child. However, it is also case, Christian institutions—and local social and cultural life. important for these figures to maintain a certain distance from For example, Barker argues that the establishment of the the faithful, a distance that implies that saints and other holy church gave the Maisin a platform from which to launch figures are closer to God and therefore able to intercede on sorcery purges, as well as providing them with a source of Christians’ behalf. This separation often means a removal social unity. In both instances, the point was “to overcome from sexuality through celibacy or androgyny. Religious “gen- the social divisions and incessant gossip they saw as under- der bending” allows believers to negotiate the paradoxical idea mining success by forming an alliance with the mission.” that saints are at once separate and holy and at the same time Here, Christian institutions afford important social work. people “like us.” Here, Catholic ideas about gender and the In both the Wari’ and Maisin examples, missionaries and body represent spaces—that is, affordances—from which to mission staff did not fully understand the social and political make claims that articulate with other tensions in the Chris- ends to which Christian ideas and institutions were being tian faith. used. So too in Scheiffelin’s discussion of missionization Eriksen’s case is, in some ways, quite different, as on one among the Bosavi of highland Papua New Guinea, mission- level the Pentecostals she examines have inherited a Christian aries were not aware of the profound shifts that followed from gender binary that appears to leave little room for the sort their paradoxical emphasis on linguistic continuity and cul- of creative maneuvering that Mayblin describes. However, tural change. In a discussion that highlights the contributions innovations and inversions of this binary are possible, at least of linguistic anthropology to the anthropology of Christianity, in principle, in the ambiguous “charismatic space” of Pen- Scheiffelin shows that for the Bosavi, Christian ways of speak- tecostal practice. Here, texts like the biblical proclamation that ing have produced new possibilities for social demarcation. 8 in Christ there is no male nor female and practices like char- While Bosavi people have traditionally connected social iden- ismatic prayer open the possibility for counterclaims about tity to a particular place, Christianity instead requires these what gender is and does, even as the established framework sorts of identities to be worked out through metaphors of of the Christian gender binary continues to hold sway. space, particularly the notion of being inside or outside the Christian affordances are also at the heart of the analyses Christian fold. Such claims to new forms of religious mem- presented by Cassaniti and Luhrmann, Vilac¸a, Barker, and bership on the basis of a Christian binary between saved and Scheiffelin. Cassaniti and Luhrmann draw on differences in damned led to major changes in the way that Bosavi conceived religious and cultural context to explain the range of physi- of social membership—changes that, as she shows, were not ological experiences reported by charismatic Evangelicals in without conflict or controversy. The contested Bosavi social the United States and Theravada Buddhists in rural northwest space within which Christian claims were worked out there- Thailand. They argue that different religious orientations pro- fore helpfully turns our attention from affordances to audi- vide different kinds of cultural “kindling” that in turn en- ences. courage people to attend to and elaborate certain kinds of In several of the examples included in this special issue, occurrences rather than others. Here, the language of afford- the state represents an important member of the audience for ances is perhaps especially apt, as in this case religion serves the claims that Christian affordances make possible. The most as a means through which particular phenomena are “hy- striking of these are the Christians that Bandak describes in percognized,” to borrow Cassaniti and Luhrmann’s use of his discussion of prerevolution Syria. In this case, the public Levy’s (1984) term. That is, by flagging them as markers of spectacle of religious celebrations allows Christians to carve significant phenomena, religion opens the way not only for out space for themselves in Muslim-dominated Damascus. These celebrations blend easily with demonstrations of sup- 8. Gal. 3:28. port for the state, which serve as a further bid to secure a S362 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 position for the Christian minority. Both the non-Christians essarily make people Christians. This is clear in the examples in their community and the Syrian government recognize the of both the British humanists treated by Engelke and the claims being made, as they are framed in terms that are salient Caodaists treated by Hoskins. As a religion that takes its struc- with respect to both parties—through color, light, and sound ture from Christian ecclesiastical hierarchy, Caodaism rep- in the case of Muslim neighbors, and through flags, banners, resents an attempt to wrest Christian institutions and ideas and other symbols of state power in the case of the govern- from the distorting influences of Western colonialism, re- ment. Christian processionals, architecture, and music there- vealing their true character in the light of Eastern values. Here, fore provide affordances for social and political claims. In the historical hegemony of Christianity is acknowledged and contrast, for the Chinese Christians in Huang’s analysis, carv- rejected. As a result, Christianity is demoted and delegitimized ing out space in the city means keeping as low a profile as even as Caodaists draw on various aspects of the Christian possible with regard to the state, meeting in small groups and tradition in their own religious organization and practice. The private places so as not to attract attention. At the same time, Christian structures and narratives incorporated into Cao- these churches provide a platform from which migrants can daism therefore represent affordances that are used to make make other kinds of membership claims, especially on the explicitly non-Christian claims. For British humanists, Chris- city’s working class, which here represents an important au- tianity most obviously represents an affordance insofar as it dience (see also Premawardhana 2012; van Dijk 2009). serves as a foil: Christian belief is, for humanists, the coun- Other articles in this issue offer examples in which the terpoint to reason. Here again, Christianity serves as a basis primary audience before whom Christian claims are made are for its own negation in the nonreligious claims of the British fellow Christians. This is evident in the contributions from Humanist Association. Engelke underscores this idea when Bialecki, Handman, and Humphrey, which all address the he adds that the mere presence of Christian affordances in changing composition—in Bialecki’s model, “evolution”—of Western thought, including what is often called “the Chris- Christian groups. For the Old Believers in Humphrey’s anal- tianity of anthropology” (Cannell 2005), does not in itself ysis, church tradition affords particular kinds of claims about make the discipline or the academy Christian any more than what constitutes authentic and appropriate Christian practice. the mobilization of Christian institutions or ways of thinking These claims are made in opposition to the established church, makes Christians of Caodaists or humanists. which, in the eyes of Old Believers, has become corrupt and Finally, Coleman’s discussion of pilgrimage in contempo- therefore fallen into the realm of the Antichrist. In this way, rary Britain provides us with one additional point that help- Humphrey points out, Old Believers provide a helpful point fully returns our attention to the larger task at hand—that is, of contrast to the established trope of rupture in the anthro- to determining the difference Christianity makes. Coleman pology of Christianity; they are not breaking with the past highlights the multiple interpretive streams that pilgrimage but rather seek to preserve it in the face of religious change. incorporates, thereby moving past discussions of pilgrimage The anxious process of “repeated fission,” to use Hum- focused either on communitas or contestation. Pilgrimage phrey’s term, among Old Believers is also evident in the Guhu- means different things to different people—that is, it affords Samane example that Handman describes, where the initial a range of claims, only some of which are overtly religious break of charismatic Evangelical converts from the mission- in nature. Through an analysis of what he calls “ritual semi- ary-established Lutheran church has been followed by further engagement,” Coleman demonstrates that, for nonreligious schisms. As Handman explains, schism for Christians more people who occasionally participate in religious rituals, Chris- generally represents an effort to make the visible church and tianity serves as an affordance for a range of cultural practices, the invisible church match up—that is, to ensure that those including memory, affect, and family history. Coleman’s dis- connected to the institution of the church are true Christians. cussion demonstrates that even in those situations where Here again, practices, doctrines, and texts afford particular Christianity appears to make very little difference, it is wrong kinds of claims about what true Christianity means, and these to assume that it makes none whatsoever. claims are leveraged against other Christians to make a break. Clearly, we have in this issue been confronted yet again Bialecki’s evolutionary model offers a different picture of this with Christianity’s stubborn multiplicity. However, in the process, which he describes in terms of refinement, of lateral above discussion we have also begun to develop a way for- change and adoption, rather than a cycle of radical breaks. ward. Rather than “dissolve” it into an infinite number of Schism might just as often involve a change of degree as of particularities (Robbins 2003:193), the parallel concepts of kind. In all of these examples, Christians on both sides of a affordances and audiences that we have been working with divide rely on a common set of affordances to make their here have helped us develop a platform for comparison that competing claims, and it is the fact that the texts, traditions, accommodates even the “wealth of difference” (Bialecki 2012: and institutions that are employed to these ends are shared 297) that Christianity always presents. If we are to use this that invests these debates with such significance. model as a framework for comparison, we must spend a bit It is important to point out that it is not only Christians of time addressing the difficulty that Christianity presents as who draw on the affordances provided by Christianity—nor, an anthropological object, a topic that the remaining two for that matter, does the use of Christian affordances nec- contributions to this issue take up directly. Haynes Finding the Difference Christianity Makes S363

In Search of an “Adequate Concept” Marshall’s discussion is indebted to the work of Gil Anidjar (2009), whose argument about the anthropology of Chris- In an argument that builds on earlier critiques (Hann 2007, tianity is worth mentioning here. Through a careful reading 2012), Hann’s piece in this special issue argues that the sort of the work of Talal Asad, Anidjar highlights the fact that of microlevel analysis that typically characterizes anthropo- Christianity is a “concept”—that is, “an argument in the guise logical studies of Christianity reveals distinctions that, when of a category” (Klassen 2013:346; after Appadurai 1992:38). approached in the light of larger historical processes, take on On the basis of this observation, he argues that an anthro- 9 a very different meaning. Variations in religious practice are, pology of Christianity is both analytically important and po- in the case Hann examines, not so much attributable to re- litically necessary. What Anidjar does not provide, however, ligious forces as they are the result of macrolevel political is a clear sense of what the object of such an anthropology economic processes, in this case the comparative wealth and would be. As the contributions that we have just outlined resultant power of Western Christians to influence the reli- suggest, Anidjar is not alone in this respect. Indeed, in an gious practice of their Eastern neighbors. Hann argues that analysis that echoes the critiques of Hann and Marshall, Jon analysis of this sort represents an important part of any treat- Bialecki (2012) has recently pointed out that the anthropology ment of Christianity because it moves past the radical rupture of Christianity has so far refused (or perhaps failed) to define that has figured prominently in recent studies to examine its object of study. Bialecki connects this rather curious lacuna other forces that a focus on Christianity “per se” might oth- to a broader tendency toward in anthropology, erwise miss (Hann 2007). At issue, then, is what counts as a general reluctance or refusal in the discipline to speak in the object of study in the anthropology of Christianity. terms of abstract objects or universals. This same broad question also animates Ruth Marshall’s Against this nominalist trend, Bialecki suggests that we may contribution to this issue, though she addresses it in very find a way forward by treating Christianity as a virtual object different terms. To begin with, rather than try to move away in the Deleuzian sense. A virtual Christianity is multiple, pro- from Pentecostalism, which Hann and others argue has oc- cessual, and indeterminate. While actual Christianity—that cupied an unduly privileged position in anthropological study, is, actualizations of the virtual, or, to modify an old turn of Marshall positions her critique within an analysis of Pente- phrase, “actually existing Christianities”—appears to fix and costal “political theology.” The key thing to keep in mind constrain the potentiality of virtual Christianity, it does not when engaging Pentecostalism, according to Marshall, is that exhaust it; at the level of the virtual, the limitless possibilities it is “an evangelical project” and therefore a political inter- of Christianity remain unchanged. The concept of virtual vention. As Marshall has pointed out elsewhere, much of Christianity therefore serves to define it as a known entity, a Pentecostalism’s “radical success” can be attributed to its “re- certain kind of object, while at the same time avoiding re- conceptualization of the moral and political order,” more ductive definitions that would constrain Christianity’s emer- specifically to its “vision of citizenship in which the moral gent qualities. As Bialecki puts it, “Christianity may be many government of the self is linked to the power to influence the things—an unlimited number of things—but not everything conduct of others” (Marshall 2009:125). While in Pentecostal or anything” (2012:313). groups the political aspects of Christianity are especially easy As a theoretical intervention in the anthropology of Chris- to see, Marshall argues that if Pentecostals are different from tianity that addresses what is arguably its most vexing challenge, other Christians in this regard, it is a difference of degree Bialecki’s contribution is extremely important. However, while rather than kind. In other words, Christianity in any form is his article does a great deal of work, by his own admission it always already political because it is fundamentally concerned does not include much in the way of practical application of with differentiation—as the Pentecostal example makes clear, the concepts he develops. Rather, Bialecki simply sketches the with the relationship between self and other. What emerges contours of what this might look like, pointing to a sort of from Marshall’s analysis is therefore an appreciation for the two-tiered analysis that examines Christianity in both its virtual imbalance of power that comes with alterity. As such, she and actual forms. The task here is first to “[work] back from argues, the study of Christianity reveals a core problem in various actualized Christianities . . . attempting to intuit the anthropology more generally, namely, that insofar as the dis- virtual multiplicity that engendered that actuality” (Bialecki cipline is a comparative one it turns on a notion of difference 2012:312) and second to develop “a sense for the range and that cannot be separated from relations of power. Ultimately, complexity of actualized elements from [virtual Christianity], anthropology is as political, as polemical, as Christianity. so that we can grasp how these actualized elements themselves can be folded into larger assemblages” (Bialecki 2012:313). To- 9. Ultimately, both Hann’s and Marshall’s critiques (which I discuss ward these ends, it may be that the framework of affordances below) are aimed not just at the anthropology of Christianity but at and audiences that I have been working with here is particularly anthropology as a discipline, particularly (in Hann’s case at least) Amer- useful. If, as Bialecki argues, various Christianities are expres- ican cultural anthropology. This is not the forum to take up these broader criticisms, although it is worth noting that much of what they find prob- sions of the virtual as “assemblages,” might the myriad things lematic about the anthropology of Christianity can be traced to problems they express constitute the full range of what I have been calling they identify in the discipline more generally. Christian affordances? And if in actualizing Christianity at least S364 Current Anthropology Volume 55, Supplement 10, December 2014 part of what Christians are doing is folding it into still-larger work of affordances and audiences, might look like. Allow assemblages, then perhaps one of the best ways of getting at me to propose a few examples that may be particularly helpful this process is to examine the contested fields of value in which in these efforts, some of which have emerged from discussions Christian claims are made by attending to the different audi- in this issue. Included here would be the doctrine of the ences for those claims. incarnation—the idea that God became a human being—that Such an approach would take seriously the polemical, pro- Mayblin rightly points out has not figured prominently in grammatic aspects of Christianity that Marshall highlights. Re- anthropological discussions of Christianity (but see Cannell turning briefly to Graeber (who is following Terry Turner), 2006) but that affords a whole range of political and social claims about value, about how different values should relate to claims. So too, Christian ideas of love and submission open each other, and, indeed, about what constitutes value in the the way for various kinds of claims about the nature of human first place are the very stuff of politics (Graeber 2001:88). It is relationships (e.g., Street 2010), especially in the context of not difficult to see that most if not all of the claims that Chris- the family (e.g., Boylston 2013; van de Kamp 2012). Moving tianity affords, including those that Marshall draws on and from doctrines to institutions, we have seen in this issue how those that emerge from the Copperbelt material, fall into this both the church and the denomination serve as important category. It is in contested and overlapping arenas of value10 affordances for claims about proper social relations, partic- that we are able to see most clearly the difference Christianity ularly relations among Christians (e.g., Handman 2011). Fi- makes in the claims it affords about what value is and how it nally, as a corollary to the Pentecostal seed offerings described is realized. Attention to how Christian claims interact with local in the Zambian case, the practice of giving money has much notions of value therefore also gives plenty of space to the sort to teach us not only about Christian social life (e.g., Coleman of political economic and macrohistorical questions that Hann 2004; Schram 2010) but also about the way that believers insists must figure in our analysis of Christianity. For example, make claims to membership in a globalized labor economy in his work on Urapmin Christianity, Joel Robbins has offered (e.g., Premawardhana 2012). a sustained and careful reading of the contest of values intro- The approach I have outlined here builds on some of the duced by what could be called the polemical claims of a certain gains made in this special issue, for instance, by drawing kind of Protestantism (Robbins 2004). As Robbins shows, while attention to the role of Christian institutions as affordances Urapmin Christianity cannot be reduced to a response to the and by moving away from the individual Christian subject as community’s position in the regional economy or their expe- the primary object of study to explore the social, cultural, rience of colonialism, the particular conflict between different and political-economic aspects of Christian adherence. By en- frameworks of value cannot be properly understood without gaging Christianity in these terms, we are, I think, able to attention to these factors. solve some of the problems that arise when trying to define it in terms of doctrine, practice, or even history. More im- portantly, we come close in this approach to the way that So, What Difference Does Christianity Make? many Christians experience their religion, namely, as a set of As we look to the future, we have good reason to be wary of practices and ideas through which to act in and on the world. definitions or schemas that offer a picture of Christianity that is much more tightly defined than the one I have been working with here, however attractive they might appear. Too much Acknowledgments narrowing of our definition runs the risk of rendering Chris- tianity ethnographically uninteresting, resigning it to the fate My fieldwork in Zambia has been supported by a British of other globalizing forces (neoliberalism in particular comes Academy Small Research Grant, the Carnegie Trust for the to mind here), the effects of which easily come to form a Universities of Scotland, the Moray Endowment Fund at the predictable pattern, so much so that we already know what University of Edinburgh, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for we will find in a Christian community before we get there. Anthropological Research, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Disser- This is precisely the sort of intellectual straightjacket that the tation Research Abroad Grant, the Friends of the International anthropology of Christianity has aimed to leave behind. The Center, and the Institute for International, Comparative, and point of engaging Christianity as an ethnographic object, per- Area Studies at the University of California, San Diego. haps a virtual object, in all its multitudinous forms is to keep Thanks go to each of these organizations. Special thanks to its effects from becoming a foregone conclusion, as was the Joel Robbins for organizing the symposium from which this case in at least some earlier discussions, particularly those that special issue developed and for inviting me to participate. focused on (neo)colonialism. Thanks also to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for its support In closing, I would like to briefly reflect on what future and to Leslie Aiello for inviting me to write this afterword. work in the anthropology of Christianity, guided by a frame- This article has benefited from helpful comments from Jon Bialecki, Brian Howell, Magnus Course, Joel Robbins, and 10. 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