Introducing Anthropology of Religion Introducing Anthropology of Religion: Culture to the Ultimate is the ideal starting point for students beginning their studies of the anthropological study of religion. Jack David Eller, an experienced college teacher, introduces students to the key areas of the field and shows how to apply an anthropological approach to the study of contemporary world religions. This lively and readable survey covers all the traditional topics of anthropology of religion, including definitions and theories, beliefs, symbols and language, and ritual and myth, and combines analytic and conceptual discussion with up-to-date ethnography and theory. Using copious examples from religions from around the world—both familiar and unfamiliar—and two mini-case studies in each chapter, Eller also explores classic and contemporary anthropological contributions to important but often overlooked issues such as violence and fundamentalism, morality, secularization, religion in America, and new religious movements. Introducing Anthropology of Religion demonstrates that anthropology is both relevant and essential for understanding the world we inhabit today. Jack David Eller teaches anthropology at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. His previous publications include Violence and Culture: An Interdisciplinary and Cross- Cultural Approach (2005) and From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict: An Anthropological Perspective on International Ethnic Conflict (1999). Introducing Anthropology of Religion Culture to the Ultimate Jack David Eller First published 2007 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 Jack David Eller All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-94624-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–40895–4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–40896–2 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–94624–3 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–40895–0 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–40896–7 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–94624–4 (ebk) To Robert Hefner, who showed me how to be an anthropologist 1 2 3 4 5 Contents 6 7 8 9 0 11 12 13 List of case studies xi 14 Preface xiii 15 Acknowledgments xv 16 17 1 Studying Religion Anthropologically: Definitions and Theories 1 18 Studying religion “anthropologically” 2 19 Studying “religion” anthropologically 7 20 “Studying” religion anthropologically 12 21 Conclusion 28 22 23 2 Religious Entities and Concepts 29 24 The anthropology of belief 30 25 Religious entities: beings and forces 34 26 Religious conceptions: the universe and human existence 44 27 Conclusion 52 28 29 3 Religious Symbols and Specialists 54 30 The anthropology of symbolism 55 31 A world of religious “symbols” 65 32 Religious specialists 71 33 Conclusion 81 34 35 4 Religious Language 82 36 Myth as religious language 83 37 Types and themes of myth 86 38 The structural study of myth 91 39 Myth as oral literature 93 40 Religious language as performance 98 41 The power of words 104 42 Conclusion 107 43 44 viii Contents 5 Religious Behavior 109 The anthropology of ritual and ritualization 110 The diversity of religious ritual 116 Rites of passage: the structure of ritual 126 Ritual fields, ritual performances, and “social theater” 128 Conclusion 132 6 Religion, Morality, and Social Order 134 The anthropology of morality 135 The efficacy of religion: formation and transformation 141 Religion and the social order 147 Conclusion 159 7 Religious Change and New Religious Movements 160 The anthropology of religious change 161 Religion and revitalization: using religion to bring society back to life 172 Revitalization movements, traditional and modern 182 Conclusion 186 8 World Religions 188 The anthropology of the “great transformation” 189 “Conversion” to world religions 193 Conversion and the colonization of everyday life 198 World religions in the religious field 200 The diversity within world religions 204 Conclusion 216 9 Religious Violence 218 The anthropology of violence 219 Religion as explanation and justification for violence 225 The diversity of religious violence 229 Conclusion 246 10 Secularism and Irreligion 247 The anthropology of secularism 248 Western secularism, ancient and modern 254 Secularism and secularization in non-Western societies 263 The contemporary “secular movement” in the USA 269 Conclusion 273 11 Religious Fundamentalism 275 The anthropology of fundamentalism 276 Christian fundamentalisms 283 Fundamentalisms in cross-cultural perspective 291 Conclusion 301 Contents ix 12 Religion in the USA 302 Religion, American style 303 The evolution of religion in America 310 Religion and the courts 319 Religion in the public square 322 Conclusion 330 Bibliography 331 Index 346 Case studies 1.1 The problem of religious language 5 1.2 The “disease of language”: spirit 15 2.1 What is the “religion” of the !Kung? 38 2.2 The cosmology of a Thai Buddhist village 46 3.1 Symbols, public and personal 63 3.2 Ambiguous and multifunctional specialists 79 4.1 Representing speech: Zuni narrative 101 4.2 Power beyond understanding: the efficacy of words not understood—or even heard 107 5.1 An Ndembu ritual of affliction 119 5.2 Sherpa society, ritual, and consciousness 124 5.3 Return to paradise: the peyote hunt 129 6.1 Food, sex, and pollution among the Hua of Papua New Guinea 139 6.2 Legitimating the state in Japan 152 7.1 The Taipeng Rebellion 166 7.2 A messianic, millenarian, syncretic movement: the Ghost Dance 178 8.1 Can a traditional religion become a world religion? 192 8.2 Buddhism in two societies 205 9.1 Sacrifice in the Hawaiian kingdom 232 9.2 Religious conflict and “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia 242 10.1 A secular religion: the Hua of New Guinea 250 10.2 Secularization in Early Modern England 261 11.1 Fieldwork among fundamentalists: the “Southside Gospel Church” 286 11.2 Fundamentalists in control: the Taliban of Afghanistan 296 12.1 America’s “civil religion” 308 12.2 The women’s spirituality movement 317 Preface Anthropologist Pascal Boyer reports a conversation with a person whom he only identifies as a “prominent Catholic theologian” in which the person states, “This is what makes anthropology so fascinating and so difficult too. You have to explain how people can believe in such nonsense” (2001: 297). In one way the theologian was correct, and in another important way he was very wrong. Anthropology is fascinat- ing and difficult, and anthropologists do observe many unfamiliar things. However, anthropology does not attempt to “explain how people can believe” in anything, and we would or should never call the beliefs and behaviors of others “nonsense.” Anthropology may attempt to explain what a society believes, but it is not ours to ask “how they can believe it,” since such a prejudicial attitude presupposes that it is a thing that is hard—or bad—to believe. I, like most people and most anthropologists, am intrigued by religion. I have studied the subject for over thirty years and taught it for over fifteen. The current book emerged out of my teaching and research experiences and develops a number of themes that are crucial to understanding not only religion but the anthropological approach to religion. The first theme is the diversity between religions: There are many religions in the world, and they are different from each other in multiple and profound ways. Not all religions refer to gods, nor do all make morality a central issue, etc. No religion is “normal” or “typical” of all religions; the truth is in the diversity. Since anthropology is the study of the diversity of human thoughts and actions, this perspective is natural for us. A second theme, less obvious, is the diversity within religions: Ordinarily we think of a religion as a single homogeneous set of beliefs and practices. The reality is quite otherwise: Within any religion there is a variety of beliefs and practices—and interpretations of those beliefs and practices— distributed throughout space and time. Within the so-called world religions this variety can be extensive and contentious, one or more variations regarded as “orthodox.” A third theme is the integration of religion with its surrounding culture. In anthropology, this is the familiar principle of holism or cultural integration—that all of the parts of a culture are interconnected and mutually influencing. Beyond simply being integrated, we will find that religion tends to be, as Mary Douglas expressed it, “consonant” with its culture and society as well. Each culture and society xiv Preface has a style, a feel, an ethos which religion tends to replicate, making the experience of culture—even the “bodily” experience—consistent and symmetric. A fourth theme is what we will call the “modularity” of religion: a religion is not even a single, monolithic “thing” but a composite of many elements or bits, virtually all of which have their nonreligious cognates. That is, there is religious ritual and there is nonreligious ritual; there is religious violence and there is nonreligious violence. Further, not all of the modules in a religion are necessarily “religious”; rather, religion may integrate nonreligious components like politics, economics, gender, technology, and popular culture.