chapter four

CLEARING THE UNDERBRUSH: MOVING BEYOND FESTINGER TO A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE STUDY OF FAILED PROPHECY

Lorne L. Dawson

The terms “prophet” and “prophecy” have an archaic ring these days. Per- haps that is why there is no phenomenology of prophecy in the con- temporary study of religion. It is a curious omission, given the obvi- ous role played by prophecy in the development of Judaism, Christian- ity, Islam, and many other religions. Prophecy continues, moreover, to be a primary source of religious innovation and transformation. In the modern context, one needs only think of such conspicuous examples as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventism, Jehovah’sWitnesses, Theosophy, Pentecostalism, the Unification Church, The Children of God/The Family, and much of the New Age Movement. The historical literature on millennialist beliefs and movements is exten- sive. But we lack a sufficiently social scientific understanding of how and why prophecies are made, gain attention, are deemed successful or for- gotten. We lack a systematic sociology of prophecy, its functions and con- sequences. Indirectly, however, some of the foundations are being laid for such an enterprise in the study of why people so commonly and counter- intuitively retain their faith in the face of the failure of prophecy. In this limited way social scientists have kept attention focused on the neglected functions of prophecy, but the research is too fragmentary and episodic. There is a litany of case studies of groups that have experienced a failure of prophecy, examining how they responded to a failure and whether they survived. But, with a few key exceptions, insufficient attention has been given to sustained comparative analysis of the full range of cases. Some important insights have been provided, however, in the work of Joseph Zygmunt (1972), Lorne Dawson (1999, 2011; Dein and Dawson 2008), and Jon Stone (2000, 2009). Each of these studies presses home the need to move beyond seizing on new instances of failed prophecy to retest the validity of the theory of cognitive dissonance first advanced in Leon 70 lorne l. dawson

Festinger, Henry Reicken and Stanley Schacter’s When Prophecy Fails (1956). This psychological theory has cast a long shadow over the study of failed prophecy, and the authors of these theoretical essays stress the need for a more sociological understanding of the processes influencing the precise nature and the relative success of the different responses to prophetic disconfirmation. Their insights and recommendations differ, but they share much as well. In this chapter I offer a synthetic analysis of these perceptive cri- tiques of the case literature, with an eye to summarizing what we have learned so far and how best to proceed. But first I attempt to sort out the confused legacy of When Prophecy Fails (1956), correcting some per- sistent misunderstandings, and establishing the reasons for organizing our research in a new manner. This entails delineating some basic con- ceptual and methodological problems in a more thorough manner than has been attempted to date. Then I offer a new approach, one focused on the systematic study of the four primary social processes shaping the nature and success of the dissonance management strategies groups implement in the face of failed prophecies: (1) the socialization of mem- bers to prophecy and its expectations; (2) the preparations made for a prophetic event; (3) the way leaders respond to a failed prophecy; and (4) the nature and degree of in-group social support. This approach grew out my research on two classic cases of failed prophecy: the messianic move- ment among the Lubavitch (Dein and Dawson 2008) and the Church Universal and Triumphant (in this volume). This approach provides a generic framework for detecting and linking the many factors influenc- ing how, and how well, groups respond to failures, as identified in the empirical and theoretical literature. It simplifies matters productively by providing convenient categories for breaking down, itemizing and inves- tigating the pertinent processes and sub-processes, without losing sight of the more complex whole. In doing so it counters the episodic char- acterofthecasestudyliteraturebysystematicallyencouraginginvesti- gators to treat instances of failed prophecy sequentially as part of two wider social processes and hence explanatory contexts: the social dynam- ics of prophecy in general and the overall development of groups making prophecies. The theoretical analyses examined all encourage considera- tion of the two latter points.1

1 To date only one study, by Chris Bader (1999), has sought to develop a true explana- tory alternative to cognitive dissonance theory. He does so by reverting to propositions