Defining Religion

1
Defining Religion

• Or Wrestling Jello

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Qualities Worth Having

• Openness
• Honesty
• Critical Intelligence
• Careful Observing, Reading, Listening
• Critical Tolerance
• Imagination

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The Pursuit of Truth

• Self-awareness
• Consistent use of method
• Use of good evidence
• Valid arguments
• Willingness to admit failure

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Outsiders Perspective

• Presupposes no religious commitment
• Does presupposes commitment to academic standards
• Goal is neither to increase or decrease an
  individuals commitment to a tradition
• Although, this perspective can have profound
  consequences on individuals and groups

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Insider Perspective

• Presupposes religious commitment
• Increased understanding furthers religious
  commitment
• Allows for a more nuanced understanding of a
  tradition
• Promotes interest in and furthers the cause of a
  tradition

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The Outrageous Idea of Christian
ScholarshipGeorge Marsden

• While other defining elements of a scholar's
  identity, such as race or gender, are routinely
  taken into consideration and welcomed as
  providing new perspectives, the perspective of
  the believing Christian is dismissed as
  irrelevant or, worse, antithetical to the
  scholarly enterprise. Marsden demonstrates what
  the ancient relationship of faith and
  intellectual scholarship mean for the academy
  today. He argues forcefully that mainstream
  American higher education needs to be more open
  to explicit expressions of faith and to accept
  what faith means in an intellectual context.

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Early Roman Perceptions of Christianity

• Romans originally perceived Christians as sect
  of Jews. Originally, this was probably a correct
  perception.
• Jews, in fact, began to go to great lengths to
  demonstrate to Romans that Christians were not
  Jews. Both Christians and Jews were "atheistic"
  to Romans because of their insistence on
  monotheism - in rejecting all but one god, they
  were rejecting the very nature of greco-roman
  religious belief.

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Polemic

• A controversial argument, especially one refuting
  or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine.
• A person engaged in or inclined to controversy,
  argument, or refutation.

9
Minucius Felix, Octavius, R. E. Wallis, trans. in
The Ante-Nicene Fathers

• And now, as wickeder things advance more
  fruitfully, and abandoned manners creep on day by
  day, those abominable shrines of an impious
  assembly are maturing themselves throughout the
  whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought to
  be rooted out and execrated. They know one
  another by secret marks and insignia, and they
  love one another almost before they know one
  another everywhere also there is mingled among
  them a certain religion of lust, and they call
  one another promiscuously brothers and sisters,
  that even a not unusual debauchery may by the
  intervention of that sacred name become
  incestuous it is thus that their vain and
  senseless superstition glories in crimes.
• Nor, concerning these things, would intelligent
  report speak of things so great and various, and
  requiring to be prefaced by an apology, unless
  truth were at the bottom of it. I hear that they
  adore the head of an ass, that basest of
  creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly
  persuasion, a worthy and appropriate religion for
  such manners. Some say that they worship the
  genitals of their pontiff and priest, and adore
  the nature, as it were, of their common parent. I
  know not whether these things are false
  certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and
  nocturnal rites and he who explains their
  ceremonies by reference to a man punished by
  extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the
  deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting
  altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they
  may worship what they deserve.
• Now the story about the initiation of young
  novices is as much to be detested as it is well
  known. An infant covered over with meal, that it
  may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who
  is to be stained with their rites this infant is
  slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on
  as if to harmless blows on the surface of the
  meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily - O
  horror! they lick up its blood eagerly they
  divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged
  together with this consciousness of wickedness
  they are covenanted to mutual silence.

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Apologetics

• The branch of theology that is concerned with
  defending or proving the truth of Christian
  doctrines.
• Formal argumentation in defense of something,
  such as a position or system.

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Tertullian 145 - 220 A.D.
"Semen est sanguis Christianorum. The blood of
the martyrs is the seed of the Church
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Tertullian, The Apology

• We lay this before you as the first ground on
  which we urge that your hatred to the name of
  Christian is unjust. And the very reason which
  seems to excuse this injustice (I mean ignorance)
  at once aggravates and convicts it. For what is
  there more unfair than to hate a thing of which
  you know nothing, even though it deserve to be
  hated? Hatred is only merited when it is known to
  be merited. But without that knowledge, whence is
  its justice to be vindicated? for that is to be
  proved, not from the mere fact that an aversion
  exists, but from acquaintance with the subject.
  When men, then, give way to a dislike simply
  because they are entirely ignorant of the nature
  of the thing disliked, why may it not be
  precisely the very sort of thing they should not
  dislike? So we maintain that they are both
  ignorant while they hate us, and hate us
  unrighteously while they continue in ignorance,
  the one thing being the result of the other
  either way of it. The proof of their ignorance,
  at once condemning and excusing their injustice,
  is this, that those who once hated Christianity
  because they knew nothing about it, no sooner
  come to know it than they all lay down at once
  their enmity. From being its haters they become
  its disciples. By simply getting acquainted with
  it, they begin now to hate what they had formerly
  been, and to profess what they had formerly
  hated and their numbers are as great as are laid
  to our charge. The outcry is that the State is
  filled with Christians-that they are in the
  fields, in the citadels, in the islands they
  make lamentation, as for some calamity, that both
  sexes, every age and condition, even high rank,
  are passing over to the profession of the
  Christian faith and yet for all, their minds are
  not awakened to the thought of some good they
  have failed to notice in it. They must not allow
  any truer suspicions to cross their minds they
  have no desire to make closer trial. Here alone
  the curiosity of human nature slumbers. They like
  to be ignorant, though to others the knowledge
  has been bliss.

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Definitions

• Essentialism
• Substantive or Functional Definitions
• Cluster
• A set of traits that enables us to groups
  religions.

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William Alstons Definition

• Belief in supernatural beings (gods)
• Distinction between sacred and profane
• Ritual acts focused on sacred objects
• Moral code sanctioned by the gods
• Characteristically religious feelings
• Prayer (communication with gods)
• Worldview
• Total organization of individuals life based
  upon worldview
• Social organization bound by worldview

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Paul Tillich 1886-1965
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Tillichs Definition

• The state of being grasped by an ultimate
  concern, a concern which qualifies all other
  concerns as preliminary and which itself contains
  the answer to the questions of the meaning of
  life.

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Melford Spiros Definition

• An institution consisting of cultural patterned
  interaction with culturally postulated superhuman
  beings.

18
Clifford GeertzProfessor Emeritus at the
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 1923-
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Clifford Geertzs Definition

• a system of symbols which acts to
• establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting
  moods and motivations in men by
• formulating conceptions of a general order of
  existence and
• clothing these conceptions with such an aura of
  factuality that
• the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic

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Marks of a Good Definition

• Usefullness for the purpose at hand
• As precise as possible without being too narrow
  in scope
• As free from bias as possible
• Should further scholarly inquiry

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Problems with Definitions

• Western Bias
• Value Bias
• Theory Bias
• Gender Bias
• Generational Bias
• Religion v. Spirituality

22
G.K. Chesterton

• Tradition means giving voice to the most
  obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the
  democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to
  submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of
  those who merely happen to be walking about.

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DaVincis The Last Supper, 1498
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Superstition Magic

• irrational belief that an object, action, or
  circumstance not logically related to a course of
  events influences its outcome
• possessing or using or characteristic of or
  appropriate to supernatural powers

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Eucharist
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ex opere operato

• "from the work done."
• This position became official at the Council of
  Trent (1545 - 63). Canon VIII of the seventh
  session opposed the view that "grace is not
  conferred through the act performed, but that
  faith alone in the divine promise suffices for
  the obtaining of grace."
• The condition for the recipient is only that one
  does not place an obstacle ( sinful act or
  disposition) against the sacrament's
  administration. Grace is given by God when the
  sacrament is conferred rightly by the church.
  This makes the sacraments unique conductors of
  divine grace.