JCRT

Theorizing the Human Sciences in the Age of Absolute Disruption: Historical Criticism and Its Remainders

2026-09-28T12:00:00Z

Theorizing the Human Sciences in the Age of Absolute Disruption: Historical Criticism and Its Remainders^[1]

A Usable Past: What Criticism Permits a Scholar to Conclude

Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm opens The Myth of Disenchantment with Marie Skłodowska Curie and Pierre Curie sitting at spiritualist séances. At the same time, they measured radiation, and the mental image this supposed paradox conjures encapsulates the project. Here the founders of a supposedly disenchanted science kept company with the enchantments their discipline’s story says they abolished. Magic and meaning still haunt the sciences. A contemporary example of this paradox might be the worship of AI from inside Anthropic.^[2] For Josephson-Storm, nuance and slow reading are skills in urgent need of recuperation in the human sciences.

Academia tends to move with a sense of ahistoricism, which leads the human sciences to discover that their objects have histories regularly. Classification remains a political act, scholarly categories like “Religion” are assembled through conflicts; modernity is a contested account of the present; and the methods that disclose such constructions carry institutional pedigrees of their own. Such discoveries can improve inquiry, and they can also substitute for it. Once an object has been pronounced constructed or implicated in power, the questions about what it does and what we can know look already answered.

Josephson-Storm examines that danger from three directions. Myth contests narratives that identify modernity with the disappearance of magic, especially when they organize histories of the human sciences. Metamodernism proposes a philosophical alternative to an academic culture in which critique allegedly makes general knowledge indefensible. Genealogy turns historical criticism on one of criticism’s most prestigious methods. Perhaps these scholarly moves sound like a familiar story: a historian dismantles inherited categories, tires of dismantling, and builds a replacement. However, these books intentionally complicate this familiar story. The preface to Metamodernism reveals an earlier constructive project overlapping with Myth, and the newest book (conceived in 2016, delivered as a 2017 conference paper) became separate in winter 2020–21 while Metamodernism was in production. Reconstruction and criticism developed organically together.^[3]

Together the three books illustrate the consequences of classificatory regimes and their desired timeless essences. A demythologizing narrative about the humanities and social sciences can shape institutions while misdescribing the practices it summarizes; a social kind of demythologizing can depend on human activity while possessing properties no participant understands; a critical method can be contingent and still produce meaningful knowledge. The propositions are related, but none entails the others, and the difference matters for evaluation. A counterexample may defeat a claim of universal disappearance without measuring decline. A reconstruction of transmission may explain a method’s influence without showing its arguments sound. An account of the reality of social kinds may make inquiry possible without selecting the best explanation of a given kind. Showing that research requires not only a value system but also critical reflection on that system does not necessarily justify the values a researcher recommends; one must evaluate and assess these claims.

Josephson-Storm’s analysis of intellectual intermediaries, the attention to disciplines as producers of their own objects, and the insistence that contingency permits explanation furnish a research program that is not only substantial but also cautionary. His oeuvre’s originality lies less in discovering that constructions are real or knowledge fallible than in coordinating those insights across a capacious path of interdisciplinary intellectual history, social ontology, interpretation, epistemology, and ethics.

In this essay I will read each work in Josephson-Storm’s trilogy as an argument with its own center of gravity before turning to their relationship. Objections to Myth must confront its qualifications about rationalization, objections to Metamodernism must distinguish canonical theorists from the received academic package it attacks, and objections to Genealogy must reckon with its repudiation of the genetic fallacy. Equally, those qualifications cannot immunize the books against their broader claims. Reception helps locate the pressure points, but it cannot adjudicate them without returning to the books.

In my reading of the trilogy, I see an emerging set of theoretical proposals: metarealism, social kinds anchored by identifiable processes, hylosemiotics, zetetic knowledge, genealogical power, and the rejection of the genetic fallacy. Each one is separable from the others, and each one has already begun to circulate in religious studies and cultural theory on its own. I treat them as nodes in the matrix of humanities theory after critique. Therefore, I am interested in tracking a node’s connections to the reception by scholars like Asprem, Hanegraaff, Schilbrack, Kotsko, Elden, and others. In a recent interview with Carl Raschke, Josephson-Storm considers how the mind “spills outward into bodies, media, institutions,” which led me to view his oeuvre as a central nervous system and/or a deterritorialized network-infrastructure map.^[4]

Disenchantment and the Histories Its Story Conceals

The Myth of Disenchantment gains its force from a striking conjunction. The theorists associated with supposedly disenchanted modern knowledge inhabited worlds crowded with occult practice, psychical investigation, and speculation about unseen powers. Josephson-Storm does more than collect embarrassing exceptions: he asks how the human sciences constructed an account of modernity their own histories complicate. The gap between a field’s self-description and the activities through which it developed is the book’s governing problem. The argument is strongest where a description passes back into the practice it describes.^[5]

For Josephson-Storm, myth is both a challenge to a false master narrative and an account of mobile narratives. He does not dismiss industrialization or every process of rationalization with postmodern relativism; instead, he calls for a nuanced approach. Likewise, his evidence establishes no timeless quantity of enchantment beneath the urge for change. His focus is the use of disenchantment to mark a singular rupture between modernity and an enchanted past. His introduction also puts magic, religion, and science into the analysis and in conversation with each other, as a means of resisting the stable containers that would reproduce the classificatory history he wants to examine.^[6] On his blog, Absolute Disruption, he records a German folktale fragment collected in 1848 explaining that there is no more magic because the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses can no longer be used. He traces the motif back to Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, so that the story of magic’s departure has, in his words, “a long history in folktales themselves.”^[7]

In Myth, his opening survey of contemporary supernatural and paranormal belief shows that magic has not disappeared. Still, prevalence, historical trend, and institutional authority are separate questions that present-day data cannot settle. Present-day surveys alone cannot demonstrate whether belief has declined over centuries, whether its meanings have changed, or whether a person can invoke it with equal authority in a laboratory, a court, a household, and a congregation. Josephson-Storm acknowledges historical changes of meaning, fluctuation, and privatization. Yet, he also infers that any decline since the sixteenth century appears limited, and that stronger inference needs a comparable historical baseline.^[8] In Josephson-Storm’s 2019 exchange with Egil Asprem, he concedes that surveys cannot establish the practical importance of reported belief. Asprem’s rejoinder makes the test symmetrical: people can deny magic while carrying charms, and they can claim magical identities while investing little in them. It is insufficient either to infer disappearance from a secular self-description or to infer unchanged enchantment from a positive survey response. The exchange highlights the types and kinds of questions one can ask with Myth.^[9]

For example, Bacon’s relation to natural magic complicates any clean separation between science and an occult predecessor, and the Encyclopédie organizes inherited magical knowledge even while repudiating some of it. These are accounts of selective transformation, not proof that science secretly remained magical. The Romantic narratives of lost gods likewise show disenchantment serving as diagnosis, lament, and stimulus to new mythmaking: accounts of rupture were interventions in the history they described.^[10]

The distinction between selective transformation and secret survival keeps the book from simply reversing the history it criticizes. If every famous rationalist were declared a secret magician, the old categories of magic and science would stay in place, and only the membership lists would change. Josephson-Storm usually follows a better procedure: he reconstructs which practices a given actor accepted, rejected, investigated, or redescribed. His treatment of Tylor, Max Müller, and Theosophy shows scholarship and occult speculation drawing their boundaries through interaction with each other, and he is careful that Tylor’s openness to psychical forces does not become acceptance of spirits.^[11] Esben Petersen warns that correspondence can be mistaken for allegiance, but the book’s own account of Müller antagonizing the Theosophical Society shows that Josephson-Storm does not make that error.^[12]

The Frazer chapters illustrate how a theory can outgrow its first formulation and become productive outside scholarship. The first edition of The Golden Bough does not contain the familiar sequence of magic, religion, and science in finished form. Josephson-Storm situates the developing treatment of magic within political and intellectual conflict. Frazer’s association of magic and science with impersonal regularity also unsettles any summary treating them as absolute opposites, and the historical interest lies in that changing architecture.^[13]

The chapter on Aleister Crowley is the most compelling and helpful for me as a religious studies scholar. Crowley, the most notorious figure of the British occult revival, read The Golden Bough and took from it a theory of magic. Frazer defines magic as a coherent but mistaken system built on two laws of sympathy, similarity (like produces like) and contact (things once joined go on acting on one another), and he ranks it as a failed forerunner of science, superseded first by religion and then by science proper. Crowley keeps Frazer’s account of how magic is supposed to work and reverses its evaluation. The laws Frazer cataloged as errors become working principles; the science that Frazer said magic had wanted to be becomes the science that Crowley claims magick is, and Magick in Theory and Practice cites Frazer by name, reworking his account of sacrifice and the dying god into instructions for ritual. Josephson-Storm’s point is that an anthropological theory written to explain a superseded mentality returns to the world as a manual, so that the human sciences do not simply describe modern magic; they help to manufacture it. An anthropological description can furnish procedures for later practitioners, stronger evidence for the human sciences’ participation in making their objects than shared vocabulary. It demands a temporal distinction: practice influenced by Frazer cannot retroactively validate his description of earlier societies, and practitioners validate no supernatural efficacy. What can be traced is a prescribed practice and its textual debt; how often it was enacted would require further evidence.^[14] A description of superseded magic becomes a resource for renewed magic, and the result is a history of classification, appropriation, and recursive effect rather than survival or re-enchantment.

Weber is the decisive test case of the book, since disenchantment can describe several developments. Josephson-Storm distinguishes theoretical disenchantment from formal rationalization and from capitalist constraint. His discussion of Ascona suggests a more complicated setting for Weber’s thought without establishing occult membership or influence, a gap Robert Ames presses; that reservation leaves the close textual argument to be judged on its own terms.^[15] The chapter’s most consequential qualification makes disenchantment an ongoing program compatible with persistent magic:

But what Weber has in mind is not just a process, but also a program. All he’s doing is identifying that this program is in place, not that it is completed.^[16]

The formulation preserves a qualified Weberian problem rather than eliminating it. The book’s strongest result, in my estimation, is a reconstruction of what disenchantment can mean, coupled with a rejection of its inflation into a completed, universal condition. More magic would not automatically dissolve bureaucratic constraint or transform capitalism.

A later essay develops a constructive possibility: magic itself might undergo the rationalization attributed to other spheres, with professionalization and technology transforming rather than abolishing magical practice. Josephson-Storm marks the proposal as a thought experiment. The proposal extends Myth toward institutional investigation without making the reconstruction of Weber’s doctrine or an accomplished empirical result.^[17] The exchange with Doug Sikkema clarifies what stays disputed: whether the conditions of belief have changed, not whether belief persists.^[18] Charles Taylor’s buffered and porous selves make a comparable point that survey evidence does not refute, though his contrast with earlier ancestors needs historical discrimination; I can accept the distinction and still refuse it as an insulated explanation.^[19]

Myth unsettles a history of the human sciences built around a clean evacuation of occult interest, and documents exchanges between scholarship and its supposed opposite. It makes the disappearance narrative an object of historical explanation. Its broader challenge is strongest against universal rupture and least complete against claims about changing authority, distribution, or lived condition. Those narrower claims cannot be rescued by qualification indefinitely; they must specify what would count as evidence against them. Neither, though, can counterexamples be made to answer questions of scale they were not designed to resolve. Bradley J. Gundlach gives representativeness a concrete target: the book concentrates on cultural leaders and leaves conventionally religious nineteenth-century populations largely outside it. Intellectuals are good evidence for disciplinary self-narration and a less obvious sample of ordinary experience, so the objection limits generalization rather than invalidating the design; the recovery supports intellectual history without automatically supplying a social history of enchantment across populations.^[20]

Hugh Urban shifts the question from survival to redistribution. He asks whether enchantment has moved between churches, popular culture, and commerce, and argues that the book gives too little space to colonial power and markets. His formulation makes a transformation visible:

Enchantment is increasingly something that can be purchased like any other commodity in the marketplace.^[21]

Turning to postcolonial, decolonial, and Indigenous studies theorists would help examine who controls access, which institutions authorize practice, and how economic conditions change. He also questions the movement between myth as falsehood and myth as effective narrative, two meanings worth distinguishing because the pejorative meaning of myth as falsehood tends to prevail, and one of the lasting consequences of the equivocation of myth and falsehood is often the denigration of Indigenous etiologies and the valorization of “Western” etiologies.

The conclusion perhaps moves too quickly from historical criticism to emancipation. Josephson-Storm denies any necessary emancipatory value to being a magician or a disenchanter, which is indispensable: exposing rationality’s contested history does not make its alternatives benign. The broader suggestion that releasing us from a universal reason already leaves us free is harder to sustain. An authority can lack universal foundations and still organize lives through institutions, resources, and sanctions. Discovering that a story is contingent opens the question of changing it; it does not perform the change. His target is a universal authority, so I do not read him as denying every material constraint. The passage nevertheless moves too quickly from that authority’s incompleteness to what I see as the elision of struggles conducted in its name.^[22]

Russell McCutcheon raises the more reflexive objection: what merits this counterhistory’s claims about actors, motives, and causes once allegedly disinterested modernity has been dismantled? He also challenges Josephson-Storm’s quick examination of earlier reflexive religious studies. In hindsight, McCutcheon’s question may anticipate the problem that metarealism and zetetic epistemology address. Contingency does not make every historical account equally credible; the disputed issue is how historical criticism warrants its own explanations.^[23] The durable lesson of Myth, then, is neither that modernity never happened nor that scholars should restore an enchanted worldview. It is that intellectual history improves when it follows the production and policing of distinctions rather than accepting them as the neutral shape of the past. Once again, we as scholars are called toward slow reading, careful deliberation, and a return to the archive. The book is a powerful achievement on those terms, and perhaps its unresolved questions become the central problems of Metamodernism: explaining persistence, generalizing responsibly, and moving from historical criticism to a defensible alternative.

Metamodernism: What Reconstruction Must Explain

After critique, what should theory do next? Metamodernism asks how scholarship proceeds after its categories lose their apparent self-evidence, and it answers by connecting an ontology of changing social kinds, material signs, fallible inference, and explicit ethical purpose. I will argue that the book’s greatest achievement is making criticism answerable to reconstruction, and that its vulnerability lies in the gap between the two: exposing an opponent’s weaknesses does not establish the constructive connections the book proposes. The appropriate test is comparative explanatory performance, not the deductive certainty no fallibilist project should be asked to supply.

The book’s target needs careful specification. Josephson-Storm attacks a received academic package of skepticism, linguistic enclosure, and negative moral judgment. He acknowledges that the leading figures commonly grouped under postmodernism were not uniformly antirealists, ethical nihilists, or universal skeptics, and he asks that his positive proposals be assessed independently of that introductory diagnosis. Nor does his metamodernism announce a succeeding historical epoch or the aesthetic oscillation other metamodernist writers examine. Drawing on Moyo Okediji’s language of extension and challenge, it names a reflexive theoretical project. The distinction matters: objections to the chronology of another metamodernism do not automatically touch this book, while the accuracy of its account of academic life remains an empirical question.^[24]

Wouter Hanegraaff asks that this American academic predicament be provincialized, since some of the proposed breakthroughs already belong to scholarly practice elsewhere. Josephson-Storm’s 2022 reply concedes limited engagement with Gadamer and counters with nonlinguistic, multispecies interpretation; that counter is a substantive disagreement, but it does not answer Hanegraaff’s objection about the hermeneutic circle.^[25] Craig Martin, largely sympathetic, sharpens the source-selection problem. Hostile popular interpreters too often presume the postmodernism the book claims to supersede. On that reading, “Metamodernism might, in effect, be a clarification of ‘postmodernism’ rather than a movement beyond it.”^[26] Josephson-Storm’s explicit corrections of caricature on pages 209–210 rebut these charges.

Metarealism distinguishes dependence on continuing attitudes, on past human causation, on classification, and on mind. Calling something real also requires specifying the contrast (a real statue need not be a real person), which replaces an inflated choice between reality and construction with questions about dependencies. Kevin Schilbrack objects that sophisticated realism already distinguishes dependence on human practices from dependence on the investigator, and Josephson-Storm’s reply shifts the ground to the different historical processes gathered under religion and the category’s colonial formation. Schilbrack’s critique on the importance of the limits on the rhetoric of transcendence is a fruitful reminder for scholars.^[27]

The book’s social ontology push scholars to more frequently consider what comes after critique is to drop the idea that a category like “religion” has an essence and to say instead that its members share a family resemblance. Josephson-Storm points out that this does not solve the problem, because deciding which resemblances count already requires decisions about who belongs and what matters. So he asks a prior question: what causes the members of a category to cluster together in the first place, such that comparison becomes possible? His answer is a process ontology, which reverses the usual order of explanation. On this view, change is the normal condition, and it is persistence that needs explaining. Historical objects hold together because of causal relations and path dependence, not because some unchanging substance is handed down through them. I count this reversal a real methodological gain, because it shows why rejecting timeless categories does not forbid historical generalization: a scholar can still generalize about a category, provided the generalization rests on the processes that keep it stable.^[28]

His central proposal makes the explanatory commitment explicit: “Social kinds are 1) socially constructed, 2) dynamic clusters of powers, 3) which are demarcated by the causal processes that anchor the relevant clusters.”^[29] He is careful to say that the formula is a description meant to guide research, not a definition that fixes necessary and sufficient conditions for membership. “Powers” here covers more than the properties a thing is displaying at a given moment; it includes dispositions, capacities, privileges, and liabilities. A framed banknote keeps its monetary capacity even while no one spends it. A social kind can also outrun what its participants know about it, because an institution can produce properties that neither its members nor an outside observer has yet noticed. It follows that calling something socially constructed does not make it whatever any individual imagines it to be.

The anchoring processes give the proposal its practical specificity. Dynamic nominalism involves classification reinforced through institutions, sanctions, incentives, and role adoption; naming alone is insufficient. Mimetic processes reproduce forms through copying, as with franchises whose similarities depend on organized replication. Ergonic processes generate convergence around functions through selection or design. These alternatives differentiate explanation from a list of resemblances: similar-looking artifacts need not share a lineage. At the same time, common descent does not warrant projecting every property from one example onto another. Josephson-Storm also warns against reading an advantageous consequence backward as an explanation of origins. Here the constructive theory establishes standards capable of disciplining its own attractive examples.^[30]

Those standards also qualify genealogy. A social kind’s past matters to a present explanation when its effects on current powers or anchoring processes can be demonstrated: “Kinds do not automatically inherit essences from their origins.” The argument permits historical explanation while refusing hereditary guilt and hereditary identity. Josephson-Storm calls process-kind analysis the “mirror image of a Foucauldian genealogy.” If difference and discontinuity are what one expects, the puzzle becomes why any properties stabilize at all. The formulation hardly describes everything Foucault did; its force lies in setting a research question that survives successful deconstruction.^[31]

His later response to a research project on esoteric practices adds a distinction between explanation and coordination: researchers may use a provisional umbrella to assemble cases without having established a single social kind. At the same time, stronger generalizations require identifying the processes responsible for the similarities.^[32] He acknowledges that which processes count as the relevant anchors depends on the scale and purposes of inquiry. The book’s conclusion defers a fuller theory of causation and power to future work.^[33] Brian Collins supplies a practical test, adapting social-kind theory to continuity among mythic figures while conceding that the practice resembles his own previous work. Josephson-Storm’s replies (a 2022 proposal to investigate genre, transmission, and pantheon relations; a 2025 traffic-congestion illustration) show that the program offers more than terminology; instead, it functions perhaps analogously to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s reparative reading.^[34]

Hylosemiotics addresses the problem of meaning. If kinds are material processes, language cannot occupy a separate sphere that either mirrors or imprisons the world. Josephson-Storm, working in dialogue with Seth Josephson, brings Peircean semiotics, biological sign theory, and cognition into a material account of interpretation. His opening encounter with a monkey makes the problem concrete: meaningful interaction need not require identical concepts or a shared human language. The minimal presupposition is a navigable environment of approximate clusters and locally reliable relationships.^[35] Producing a sign differs from interpreting it; successful communication differs from accurate representation; a natural sign need not bear an exceptionless relation to what it indicates (smoke machines and misleading symptoms make inference fallible without making it impossible). Public signs and material tools participate in cognition rather than ferrying finished thoughts between private minds.^[36]

The breadth of the synthesis brings unresolved boundaries. Extending interpretation to organisms and machines requires explaining what distinguishes sign response from ordinary causal interaction. Josephson-Storm supplies a criterion: an interpretant can choose among responses, whereas bare causal interaction is insufficient. The harder question is how that criterion discriminates among his examples, enzymes and computers included, without simply redescribing causal selectivity as choice. His treatment of translation is strongest against total impossibility: contextual expansion communicates unfamiliar meanings. It refutes an absolute linguistic prison, but which affective or poetic qualities a translation loses stays open. His later more-than-human essay sharpens the threshold by distinguishing a rock’s causal response from an organism’s interpretation of situationally relevant information. The clarification leaves the empirical boundary questions open rather than settling them by definition.^[37]

Zetetic knowledge supplies the epistemic practice suited to changing objects and fallible signs. Skepticism must accept scrutiny of its own claims, and rejecting certainty does not oblige scholars to treat every explanation as equally doubtful. Josephson-Storm recommends abduction: compare available explanations, examine their evidential support, test alternatives. Evidence should govern confidence, while practical stakes raise the warrant a knowledge claim requires (without making a proposition less probable). Knowledge is also a collective achievement supported by institutions of criticism. The proposal’s appeal lies less in a new guarantee of truth than in refusing the oscillation between confident dogmatism and paralysis.^[38]

Josephson-Storm himself accepts that zeteticism resembles pragmatic fallibilism, an acknowledgment that places the novelty where it belongs, in coordinating an intellectual practice rather than in discovering that knowledge may be corrigible. His stronger attempt to assimilate induction to abduction is less necessary to the program’s success. Calling an inference explanatory does not by itself justify the explanatory virtues employed, secure the independence of converging evidence, or establish that the available alternatives include an adequate account. The best defense is practical: disciplined comparison improves fallible research without abolishing the conditions that make it fallible. That is a persuasive ambition, provided methodological confidence does not stand in for demonstrated explanatory performance.^[39]

The ethical program raises a different question of warrant. Josephson-Storm argues that professed neutrality often conceals negative moral commitments; his discussion of Weber distinguishes value-relevance from a simple demand to remove values, and he insists that political commitments do not authorize distortion of evidence.^[40] An earlier exchange with Donald Wiebe locates the dispute inside religious studies rather than in a quarrel with postmodernism. Josephson-Storm challenges a manifesto prescribing non-normative scholarship and argues for fallible, plural human sciences; Wiebe replies that valuing knowledge and specifying evidential standards differ from assigning scholarship religious, moral, or political purposes. Each side still owes an argument. Methodological values do not by themselves warrant an emancipatory mission, and Wiebe’s restriction of the university’s purposes does not follow from empirical testing.^[41]

Establishing the involvement of values does not establish which values should govern inquiry. Josephson-Storm’s preferred answer is Revolutionary Happiness: a worthwhile, flourishing life understood through critical virtue ethics, compassion, and collective transformation. Capital-H Happiness is not uninterrupted pleasure, and the political proposal is not an instruction that oppressed people become cheerful; his engagement with Sara Ahmed makes room for anger, and the refusal of oppressive expectations, and compassion toward oppressors does not require abandoning resistance. Buddhist and Confucian resources contribute to a program extending concern beyond the isolated individual and beyond the human species.^[42] Jessica Zu praises those resources while asking scholars to learn from, rather than merely about, the Global South (modern Chinese Yogācāra offers her a parallel reconstruction). Her demand that trust and suspicion apply alike to Western and non-Western traditions extends the book’s reflexivity into the distribution of interpretive authority; it does not prove that the traditions assembled support identical conclusions.^[43] Sohaib Khan asks whether process language merely redescribes economic doctrines without identifying their organizing historical projects, and he questions compassion’s unequal burdens. Josephson-Storm’s reply accepts that probabilistic thinking does not guarantee humility, rejects treating ethnographic self-description as infallible (interlocutors can deny racism while expressing racist views), and insists that revolutionary Happiness permits outrage; it does not settle how collective ethical authorship works under unequal conditions.^[44]

The normative transition remains the least fully secured connection. His positive argument is practical and relational: one’s flourishing depends on other lives, and helping others can contribute to a worthwhile life (a reason for compassion, not merely an ontological slogan). Its reach is the difficulty, since dependence can explain reciprocal concern without yet justifying expansive obligations toward every affected being, and a thick conception of Happiness does not transfer without argument into whatever psychological research measures under that name. Josephson-Storm marks his concluding ethical sections as “a promissory note, a first pass,” welcomes competing goals, and retains room for research pursued for its own sake. In my estimation, he exposes a substantial ethical proposal to scrutiny while leaving important questions about justification, institutions, and conflict unresolved.^[45]

Metamodernism succeeds most clearly as a connected discipline of reconstruction: identify what a critique dislodges, investigate what nevertheless persists, explain how it persists, compare explanations, and acknowledge the purposes of doing so. None of those steps automatically entails the next, and the book is uneven wherever the need for a constructive alternative becomes evidence for its preferred alternative. Its distinctions produce real gains, especially the separation of construction from nonexistence and of historical origins from demonstrated present effects. Its significance is not that it settles theory’s disputes. It makes a serious, revisable proposal for the work that their continuation ought to enable.

Turning the Coils Inward: Genealogy Under Its Own Examination

The Genealogy of Genealogy makes the investigator’s inheritance its object, asking how historical exposure acquired authority. Its six chapters pursue genealogy’s institutional ascendancy, its entanglement with the policing of ancestry, its invented pedigree, and Foucault’s self-fashioning. Yet the declared self-consuming procedure is more selective than the imagery suggests, since the conclusion distinguishes genealogies that collapse when applied to themselves from historical explanations that remain useful. I therefore read the book’s strongest question as not whether genealogy has an impure history, but what that history obliges its practitioners to reconsider.^[46]

The opening case is exceptionally well chosen. Josephson-Storm juxtaposes the French presentation of Achille Mbembe’s Critique de la raison nègre with its English reception as a genealogy, a methodological identity less evident in the original than Anglophone readers assume. From that discrepancy, he reconstructs an institutional history: the separation of history, philosophy, and literature; the declining prestige of intellectual history; and the recovery of historical inquiry within literary studies through discourse analysis. Edward Said and Frank Lentricchia become mediators, while Talal Asad exemplifies the circulation of genealogical models into religious studies. Here transmission becomes a historical problem rather than a ceremonial citation to Foucault.^[47]

The explanatory claim is that practitioners acquire genealogy by imitating exemplary works rather than by mastering an agreed procedure. Already Metamodernism is at work: genealogy is a social kind sustained by imperfect copying, a plausible mechanism by which scholarly authority reproduces itself. The larger allegation of hegemony is less secure, since a catalogue of genealogies establishes circulation, not dominance across heterogeneous disciplines, and prestige is not the same as intellectual exhaustion. His earlier essay credits genealogy’s emancipatory contributions to queer, feminist, and postcolonial scholarship, a concession that matters beside the stronger claim that professional rewards have displaced political potential, since documenting the former does not establish the latter.^[48]

The second chapter takes inheritance literally: genealogical societies, eugenic investigators, and state agencies assembled ancestry into actionable records. Its force comes from concrete operations: genealogical testimony in Carrie Buck’s sterilization case; the expansion of legally assigned Blackness through ancestry rules; and restrictions tied to blood-quantum classifications in particular federal and tribal settings. Such practices helped determine rights, vulnerability, and exclusion, and the contrast between expanding one subordinated category and contracting another is especially illuminating: neutral-seeming ancestral calculation acquires its meaning within distinct political projects. Genealogical power here names a demonstrable relationship between archives, classification, and coercion.^[49]

The last example also contains a factual error. On page 75 the book says that “this erosion of Indigenous self-definition deepened with the introduction of ‘blood quantum’ under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1935, which further undermined tribal sovereignty by requiring a fixed percentage of ‘Indian blood’ for full membership.” Both the date and the description are wrong. The act was approved on June 18, 1934.^[50] Its section 19 does not set a membership rule for tribes; it defines who counts as “Indian” for the purposes of the act itself, and it does so through three routes: members of a recognized tribe then under federal jurisdiction, their descendants residing on a reservation in 1934, and, as a separate category, persons of one-half or more Indian blood. The half-blood clause governed eligibility for the act’s benefits, not tribal citizenship. Fixed blood-quantum thresholds did spread in this period, but they entered through the tribal constitutions adopted under the act, drafted with heavy Bureau of Indian Affairs involvement, and through the Bureau’s own enrollment practices, which is exactly what the Deward Walker passage the book quotes describes for the Nez Perce. The book’s own preceding sentence, on the Dawes Act, already locates the policing of “Indian” heritage in administrative. To be clear, the Indian Recognition Act, Blood Quantum, thresholds, quotas, and all other methods of settler colonial attempts at the erasure of Indigenous nations and peoples are genocidal acts. The correction therefore does not weaken the chapter’s claim that racial classification did coercive work.^[51] It shows why the contrast between an expanding category of Blackness and a contracting category of Indianness needs the particular legal and administrative mechanisms spelled out, since in the Indigenous case the mechanism was not a statute’s text but the constitutions and enrollment rules built beneath it.

Moving from these institutions to philosophical, genealogical societies, eugenic investigators, and critical historians share a word and sometimes a setting. A shared vocabulary and settings justify an investigation without showing that the practices served the same political function. Josephson-Storm anticipates the objection: he is “not arguing that genealogy is intrinsically eugenicist, nor that it remains irrevocably stained by its historical entanglements with white supremacy,” and his stated goal is the more modest one of tracing “the layers of association that had to erode before genealogy could be taken up as a seemingly innocent term for critical scholarship.” His strongest argument is conditional and exposes a double standard: a scholar who discredits a concept by its compromised history cannot exempt genealogy from the same test. The book’s further claim reaches beyond that: genealogy “is not a dead metaphor,” because “the conceptual grammar of lineage tends to naturalize othering and to reinforce intergenerational transmission of cultural status,” so the vernacular meaning keeps working inside the scholarly one. That is a claim about transfer, and it requires evidence of how the transfer occurs in critical practice, not evidence that the two meanings coexist.^[52]

The Nietzsche chapters shift from inherited contamination to interpretive accuracy. Josephson-Storm reads Zur Genealogie der Moral as a polemic against moral genealogists, especially Paul Rée, rather than the announcement of a method Nietzsche claimed as his own, and reconstructing his philological training and actual interlocutors gives the argument real substance. Speculative history does not become intentionally fictional because later readers find its evidence thin, and the gap between origins and later purposes bars no inquiry into origins.^[53]

The reading is not new, though Josephson-Storm carries it further than anyone before him. Jacqueline Stevens’s 2003 essay already challenged the conversion of Nietzsche’s critical references to genealogists into authorization for a superior method; Josephson-Storm’s contribution is broader, combining that challenge with institutional history and the French reconstruction of Nietzsche’s identity.^[54] Even so, attacking the genealogists of his day does not commit Nietzsche to abandoning genealogy; it is equally consistent with his wanting to do it better than they did. Josephson-Storm’s own footnote concedes the point in part. He acknowledges a passage in which Nietzsche uses Moral-Genealogie without the polemical edge, and he reads it as Nietzsche turning his opponents’ term against them rather than adopting it. That reading is possible, but it is not the only one, and the preface itself complicates it. In section 7, Nietzsche tells the would-be genealogist of morality to exchange speculation for the “actual history of morality,” the gray, documented record of what can be established. He is not rejecting genealogy there; he is prescribing a method for it. If the founding text of the tradition asks genealogists to work from documented history, then the rigid opposition Josephson-Storm sometimes draws between documented history, and genealogy is hard to sustain. The evidence supports a narrower claim: that Nietzsche criticized a particular way of writing the history of morals, not the ambition to write it.^[55]

The treatment of Ursprung, Herkunft, and Entstehung is more compelling when read as a criticism of systematization than as a charge of carelessness. Josephson-Storm shows that the supposed technical vocabulary Foucault attributes to Nietzsche, in which Ursprung names a metaphysically suspect search for essences. In contrast, Herkunft and Entstehung name descent and emergence, which does not hold up against Nietzsche’s German, where the terms are used interchangeably. Nietzsche describes his own project as a hypothesis about the Ursprung of morality. But Foucault did not overlook this. His essay concedes the interchangeable usage before building its distinction between “stressed” and “unstressed” uses of Ursprung on a handful of passages, and Josephson-Storm’s verdict, that Foucault “was not so much uncovering Nietzsche’s terminology as constructing it,” is a verdict on that construction. Nor can Foucault be accused of lacking reflexivity, since the essay’s later movement turns the historical sense back on the historian who wields it. The right question is therefore not whether Foucault was aware of the problem or capable of self-scrutiny. It is whether his reconstruction of Nietzsche actually observes the distinctions it claims to draw out of him, and on the evidence Josephson-Storm assembles it does not.^[56]

Nietzsche’s politics cannot disappear when an emancipatory method claims him as ancestor. Racialized breeding, anti-Jewish rhetoric, and an appalling passage about Black people’s supposedly reduced sensitivity to pain complicate selective appropriation. Josephson-Storm distinguishes these problems from identifying Nietzsche with Nazism, and it allows recuperative readings; Nietzsche’s own attack on antisemitic agitators in the second essay, section 11, further separates hostile rhetoric about Jews from endorsement of organized antisemitism. Philosophical use does not demand an innocent predecessor. Still, it does demand honesty about what is retained, transformed, or rejected, and an argument that refuses such reconstruction to its opponents cannot quietly perform it on its own authorities.^[57]

If Nietzsche did not hand down genealogy as a method, the question becomes who did, and the Josephson-Storm’s answer was the most rewarding stretch of reception history for me. The recovery of Jean Wahl is central: his lectures expanded genealogy beyond morality into questions about knowledge and art, while curricular changes helped consolidate the Nietzschean canon. Deleuze then made genealogy central to Nietzsche’s identity, and others adapted it to distinct projects. Josephson-Storm traces multiplication rather than installing Wahl as a new founder, and Deleuze’s turn toward the rhizome disrupts the image of unbroken succession.^[58]

Foucault’s structuralism offers another recovery, centering Georges Dumézil’s comparative analysis of myths, institutions, and structures through procedures rather than personal influence. A second proposition is harder to establish: that Foucault’s changing methodological identity concealed an increasingly inconvenient inheritance. Explicit acknowledgment of a teacher, changes in vocabulary, and intellectual disagreement are not interchangeable evidence, and the reconstruction loses persuasiveness when it converts a complex adjustment of commitments into a presumed strategy of concealment. The warning that origins must not determine present meaning applies to intellectual biographies too.^[59] Stuart Elden’s response concentrates the difficulty, questioning the proposed link between Dumézil’s politics and Foucault’s distancing from archaeology, since continuing references complicate the alleged break.^[60] Josephson-Storm records exceptions and later acknowledgment, so the disagreement challenges a causal chronology and an attribution of motive, not Dumézil’s significance.^[61]

The disputes over Foucault’s pedigree matter less than what Josephson-Storm recovers from Foucault himself. He reads The Order of Discourse as distinguishing critical attention to exclusion from genealogical attention to the formation of discourses, perspectives that alternate and complete each other. Foucault’s enthusiasm for François Jacob’s history of heredity supplies an example of genealogy reconstructing scientific emergence without calling science an illusion. Such history finds a constructive resource within Foucault’s inheritance rather than requiring inquiry to escape it first.^[62]

The same distinction sharpens Discipline and Punish: a soul produced through technologies of power need not be unreal, and its historical constitution becomes something to explain. In the 1976 lectures, genealogy acquires an insurgent function through the reactivation of local and subordinated knowledges. These examples interrupt the slide from constructed to fictitious, or from implicated in power to epistemically worthless, without equating production with approval.^[63] Josephson-Storm sometimes draws the contrast between archaeology and affirmative genealogy too categorically. His more careful position is explicit: “I am not claiming that this is the sole or even dominant meaning of genealogy in Foucault.”^[64] The chapter’s own documentation of shifting terminology (dynastics among them) strengthens the challenge to methodological shorthand while weakening any attempt to assign each term a single stable function.

The conclusion supplies the book’s clearest standard for judging its own performance:

The genetic fallacy is an error; origins may offer clues, but they never fully determine the present.^[65]

Once the principle is accepted, impurity alone cannot discredit genealogy; the questions become whether its claims are justified, how earlier commitments persist, and what particular consequences its practice produces. The deliberately harsh genealogical mask makes those questions vivid, but it cannot exempt the surrounding historical allegations from evidence. In my estimation, the rhetoric about academic impotence is strongest as a criticism of routinized procedures, weakest as a verdict on a diverse practice’s political effects. Acquiring a belief through institutions does not defeat its justification; trustworthy education has a causal history too. Genealogy gains force by identifying unreliable transmission, concealed assumptions, or reference shifts, which calls for differentiated consequences (correction, limitation, investigation, rejection) rather than a single verdict.^[66]

The constructive alternative returns to Metamodernism: if variation is ordinary, inquiry should investigate how categories acquire temporary durability. Mimetic anchoring identifies copying practices and controls, and the mundane example of proofreading specifies how resemblance is maintained rather than merely observed. Ergonic convergence asks whether comparable functions and constraints produce recurring forms without common descent. A useful account must also show when such mechanisms fail, and whether apparent convergence reflects independent emergence, diffusion, or an abstraction the investigator has imposed.^[67]

The opening account of scholarly imitation offers a revealing test. If genealogy persists because influential exemplars organize training, citation, and professional recognition, that explanation identifies more than a contingent beginning. It specifies processes that reproduce a recognizable practice even as its definitions diverge, so the constructive vocabulary clarifies the earlier history. But other methods circulate through the same institutions by similar routes. Why, then, did those circumstances favor genealogy, and which features distinguished its transmission? Answering requires comparison with rival methods, evidence of uptake, and attention to the problems practitioners believed genealogy solved. Institutional incentives and reasoned attraction need not compete; mimetic anchoring would earn its keep by integrating them rather than making imitation another name for credulity, a task the book opens more convincingly than it completes.^[68]

Josephson-Storm presents the program as an experiment: hylosemiotics would tie histories of meaning to embodied practices, insurgent retrieval would recover past resources for present inquiry. The evidential standard must stay equal for destructive and constructive history, and the comparison of confinement proposes a question, not a demonstration. The book succeeds less by replacing genealogy with a finished method than by exposing assumptions that keep historical inquiry from explaining, judging, and reconstructing at once; its strongest inheritance from Foucault is a capacity for revision, including revision of the uses made of Foucault himself.^[69]

Reciprocal Tests: Reconstruction under Historical Pressure

It is tempting to read the trilogy as a sequence in which the first book destroys, the second constructs, and the third synthesizes. The books read better as tests of one another, since each does some of all three and their different emphases put useful pressure on each other. Myth provides concrete histories against which the account of classification in Metamodernism can be tried. Metamodernism provides the standards for telling a social kind apart from its name, and an origin apart from a cause that is still operating. Genealogy asks whether those standards hold when the argument is turned on criticism itself.

One thread runs through all three books: a refusal of the usual inference from historical contingency. Scholars often reason that if an institution could have turned out differently, it must be somehow unreal or beyond explanation. Josephson-Storm reverses this. Contingency does not dissolve the object; it poses a question about it: what made this outcome possible, and what keeps it in place? Metamodernism turns that question into a general program by naming three kinds of anchoring (dynamic-nominalist, mimetic, and ergonic). However, those terms belong to the later book and should not be read back into Myth as its explicit theory. The Frazer and Crowley case shows what the program requires in practice. Frazer wrote a theory of magic; Crowley cited it and rewrote it as instructions. That documented borrowing and alteration, rather than the mere resemblance of two rituals, is what supports a hypothesis of mimetic transmission. But transmission is only half the story. Showing that a practice was handed on does not show what kept it alive afterward or how many people took it up. The later theory earns its place by insisting on that distinction between documented transmission and the still-unexplained durability of what was transmitted.^[70]

The thread also includes a self-correction. In The Invention of Religion in Japan, Josephson-Storm had leaned on dynamic nominalism, Ian Hacking’s idea that naming a kind of person or practice helps bring it into being. In Metamodernism, he pulls back from treating naming as sufficient. A name by itself cannot explain what a social kind can do. A status can be proclaimed and still fail to take hold if the institutions, sanctions, and incentives that would support it are missing, and a pattern that no one has named can still shape how people act.^[71] That correction cuts against one strand of Josephson-Storm’s own argument in Genealogy, since it warns against letting a shared word carry a large historical claim, and the political inheritance of genealogy is exactly where the book asks a word to do that work. When he shows that family records were used to classify people coercively, he offers an institutional explanation grounded in documents, administrative decisions, and enforceable consequences. When he shows that a later theorist uses a term once associated with those records, he has established something different: a resemblance in vocabulary that may well have political consequences, but whose mechanism still has to be demonstrated. His own distinction in Metamodernism between names, concepts, and materially anchored kinds is what makes that demand unavoidable. By his standard, the word “genealogy” is a name; the coercive practice was a kind; and the two cannot be run together without showing the process that links them^[72]

The most sympathetic reading treats this limitation as part of the book’s design. By subjecting critical genealogy to its own harshest procedures, Josephson-Storm shows why guilty origins can never be a general argument against a present practice, and his rejection of the genetic fallacy is the lesson the performance is meant to teach. In this reading, the book’s overstated implications produce discomfort in the reader, not settled doctrine. The strongest skeptical reply accepts that the performance was intended and still asks what licenses each claim, because a harsh method can expose a weak inference in others without supplying evidence for the motives it attributes to them. Staging an argument reflexively changes how it should be read. It does not settle the facts the argument asserts.

Four questions have to stay in contact without collapsing into one another: whether something exists or is socially real, how it came to be and why it persists, whether our claims about it are warranted, and whether its effects are good. Metarealism answers the first, the historical books the second, zeteticism the third, and the ethical program the fourth. This is the most persuasive architecture in the project: a human science that neither denies its objects because they were constructed nor accepts their self-descriptions as explanations. What the project does not do is prove that its parts require one another. Social reality can be made intelligible under more than one ontology, and a researcher can accept every one of Josephson-Storm’s commitments while rejecting his ethics. I read the three books as a coordinated set of proposals rather than as a chain in which each critique forces the next conclusion. The problem, where there is one, is that an explanatory proposal has been left incomplete, not that a causal account is missing.^[73]

The proposal to explain stability gives my assessment its methodological center. Once a history has shown that a pattern is contingent, it can go on to investigate how the pattern reproduces itself, where the copies fail, and under what conditions the pattern lapses. In Josephson-Storm’s words, “the real work begins when we stop asking if something is contingent and start asking to what degree and why.” His example of proofreading and print inspection, which keep copies of a book resembling one another, shows what a mimetic anchoring process looks like in practice. His other example is weaker: he suggests that Foucault’s history of confinement, which treats the asylum as a European product of the Age of Reason, may describe an ergonic convergence, since East Asian societies treated mental illness in parallel ways, but he names the comparison without doing the work that would tell convergence from diffusion.^[74] A theory of anchoring also owes an account of why a stable configuration broke down at one moment and held at another; otherwise stability gets mechanisms while the ontology simply licenses change. Inheriting a critical tradition therefore means reconstructing it selectively, and both books admit as much: Genealogy grants that its preferred Foucauldian approach is not a traditional Foucauldian usage, and Metamodernism concedes that the canonical postmodernists did not uniformly hold the doctrines it critiques.^[75] Latour’s earlier turn from matters of fact to matters of concern shows that the call for a criticism that helps build a common world is not new; what Josephson-Storm adds is the coordination of philosophical and historical tasks on a scale Latour did not attempt.^[76]

The global reach of Josephson-Storm’s oeuvre and its potential application brings some exciting possibilities. Jessica Zu asks that the same interpretive standards of trust and suspicion apply to Western and non-Western sources alike.^[77] Nor does a vocabulary’s prominence measure how a field actually does its research, and a portable theory can harden into a routine of its own.^[78] Josephson-Storm’s later pedagogical essay, written in response to his reviewers and modeled on Freire, proposes dialogue, solidarity with oppressed communities, and institutional change. The program does not lack a practical side. But proposing practices is not the same as showing what they achieve.^[79]

I look forward to seeing how the Josephson-Storm continues to expand the critique of hegemony, especially within academia, the conjectural steps from intellectual proximity to motive, and the final integration of ethics with causal explanation. These are not incidental flaws, because the relation between criticism and construction is the project’s central promise. But they do not cancel the achievement. They mark the places where the program should be used experimentally, with alternatives kept in view, rather than adopted as a finished settlement.

After the Critique: Religious Studies and Cultural Theory

Josephson-Storm gives researchers a demanding reason to keep working after critique. If a category is contingent, its reproduction becomes something to investigate. If a discipline has disavowed parts of its own history, recovering them can improve the grasp of its present objects. If a method carries inherited political materials, the task is to discriminate among those inheritances rather than accept or refuse them by reflex. What he offers is not a change of mood after a long season of criticism but an attempt to hold four things together at once: historical differentiation, explanatory mechanisms, fallible knowledge, and a research ethic in which scholars state the purposes their work serves instead of claiming a neutrality they do not have.

For religious studies, the stakes concern both the discipline’s object and its account of itself. The critique of “religion” as a universal category produces a familiar difficulty: if scholars helped build the object they study, what is left to compare and explain? Josephson-Storm accepts the historical critique and refuses the inference that construction exhausts reality. Classifications can have powers we can discover without belonging to one timeless religion-kind, and his process ontology reopens comparison on that basis. Whether a given cluster supports generalization has to be settled in the investigation itself, not guaranteed or forbidden in advance by the word “religion” and its history.^[80] His intervention on esotericism shows what this means in practice. A single label might gather three different things: a kind held together by shared classification, a lineage of transmitted texts, and a set of patterns organized around secrecy. These are distinctions to investigate, not a finished taxonomy. The example shows what his answer to critical religion is meant to preserve: the ability to ask what exists and operates beyond scholarly usage while still examining how that usage changes its objects.^[81]

His earlier trinary of religion, superstition, and the secular makes the position more precise. Adding a third term to the religious/secular opposition brings into view the practices excluded from both protected religion and state-authorized truth, since a state can guarantee religious freedom while suppressing what it calls superstition. Classification, on this account, distributes permissions and vulnerabilities rather than merely naming beliefs. That places Myth within critical scholarship on secularism and gives its concern with magic an institutional rationale. The trinary is a proposal open to historical revision, not a universal diagram, and his later discussion of transnational secularisms stresses exchange and creative reinterpretation rather than an Asia passively receiving European concepts.^[82] Distinctions already emerging in the field, such as Joseph Blankholm’s separation of political from worldview secularism, are a reminder not to treat critical secularism scholarship as a single target. The gain is finer discrimination among histories and practices, not the discovery that everything secular is secretly religious.^[83]

The discipline’s self-description undergoes a parallel revision. Writing on theosophy and religious studies, Josephson-Storm adds esoteric commitments and institutional connections to the standard Protestant genealogy of the field, and he concedes that those connections served colonialism and racism as readily as resistance. Recovering excluded interlocutors neither rehabilitates their truth claims nor gives the discipline a new innocent origin; the danger would be to replace a Protestant monopoly with an equally total theosophical counterstory.^[84] His exchanges with Wiebe and others defend plural methods and explicit purposes without giving up evidential appraisal. They show that judging his thought requires separating a defense of fallible inquiry from a license for relativism. What no reply yet shows is how those commitments guide decisions when purposes conflict, and power is unequally distributed.^[85]

In cultural theory, the intervention concerns the relation between exposing a construction and explaining its effects. Josephson-Storm’s proposed change is to make the reproduction of patterns as important as their contingent beginnings. The question I must ask of a genre or a method is what stabilizes it and what that stability makes possible, not only how its history can be denaturalized. Genealogy puts exactly that demand on an inherited critical practice. Its strongest claims extend critical reflexivity; its weakest moments let the prestige of exposing a history outrun the evidence of that history’s continuing effects.

His position is a move within an ongoing contest over reconstruction, not the announcement of a successor epoch. Its relation to the other metamodernisms is one of difference with the possibility of alliance. His account is philosophical and methodological, while the cultural-historical accounts of metamodern feeling ask about art, affect, and sensibility. In a later interview, he acknowledges affinities with Vermeulen and van den Akker while describing his own aim as a less punitive scholarly culture, which signals an intended alliance rather than the arrival of a new cultural period.^[86]

In conclusion, Myth most vividly reorganizes the history of exchange between scholarship and the practices it consigned to a vanished past, and its challenge to a universal rupture is stronger than any denial that disenchantment happened in differentiated ways. Metamodernism provides the most sustained constructive framework, above all where it separates social construction from nonexistence, though its epistemic and ethical connections remain proposals to be tested. Genealogy demands scrutiny of critical conventions while its own institutional generalizations need the evidential discipline it demands of others; Kotsko’s complaint that its constructive program mostly sends the reader back to Metamodernism is fair, and it is one reason the three books have to be read together.^[87] Researchers and advanced students will find here a research agenda with usable tests, narrower than the books’ panoramic syntheses but firmer.

The lasting contribution is a defense of inquiry that accepts historical situatedness without treating it as a verdict against knowledge. It shows that things have histories and consequences that can be discovered. Provisional explanations can improve. Criticism must answer the same questions about its own methods that it puts to everyone else. Read this way, the three books are substantial interventions in religious studies and cultural theory, and their unfinished character is a reason for further argument, not an exemption from it.

A Note on Method and AI Assistance

I read all three books in full and checked every quotation and consequential page reference against the published editions. Grammarly was used to check for spelling, grammar, and clarity. During the drafting stage, I tested the node-and-network mapping method with Claude and Gemma4, but they weren’t helpful. My friends and colleagues again helped immensely. Skynet has not replaced us all yet…

Adam DJ Brett
American Indian Law Alliance and Syracuse University
ORCID 0009-0004-6725-8425

The title plays on Walter Jaeschke, “Philosophy of Religion After the Death of God,” in Philosophy and Religion in German Idealism, ed. William Desmond, Ernst-Otto Onnasch, and Paul Cruysberghs, Studies in German Idealism 3 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2325-1_1, and on the name of Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm’s blog, Absolute Disruption, https://absolute-disruption.com/. The books discussed are Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 9780226403366 (paper); Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 9780226786650; and Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2026), 9780226847313 (paper). ↩︎
Victor Tangermann, “Cult of Anthropic Insiders Rumored to Be Worshipping Claude as a God,” Futurism, September 17, 2026, https://futurism.com/future-society/cult-anthropic-insiders-worshipping-claude-god. ↩︎
Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 1–18; Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), ix–x, 15–21; Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2026), 257–58. ↩︎
Carl A. Raschke and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, “Genealogy, Enchantment, and the War for the Mind,” JCRT • Religious Theory (Boulder, CO: Whitestone Publications, September 23, 2026), https://doi.org/10.17613/hxex7-s8c52. The interview precedes Josephson Storm’s keynote at an online conference on “Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare” and ranges from cybernetics and cognitive warfare to digital systems, AI, and the university. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 6–7, 16, 168–69. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 7–18. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “A Folktale of Disenchantment: A Small Research Note,” Absolute Disruption: Theory after Postmodernism (blog), December 29, 2017, https://absolute-disruption.com/2017/12/29/a-folktale-of-disenchantment-a-small-research-note/. The fragment was recorded by Adalbert Kuhn and F. L. W. Schwartz in 1848. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 22–34. ↩︎
Jason Josephson-Storm and Egil Asprem, “The Enchanted World Today,” Inference 4, no. 3 (March 2019), https://doi.org/10.37282/991819.19.21. See Storm’s paragraphs beginning “First, the inherent limitations of surveys,” “Second, importance,” and “Taken together these two issues”; Asprem’s reply, especially its second point and final paragraph. Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Sex, Magic, & Rockets or the Implications of the Babalon Working for Theories of Belief and Rationality,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 37 (2025): 323–35, at 326–27, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-bja10149. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 45–57, 63–93. Compare Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620), bk. 2, aphorism 9, https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Bacon.htm, which assigns a redefined magic a practical place within his division of inquiry. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 98–123. ↩︎
Esben Petersen, review of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, by Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 46, no. 1 (2019): 145–47, especially 147, https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/article/1501/pdf/download; compare Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 110–11. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 125–52. Frazer himself acknowledges his revised distinction in the preface to the second edition (1900), reproduced in James George Frazer, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, vol. 1, part 1 of The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. (1911; repr., London: Macmillan, 1917), xx–xxi, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59607/pg59607-images.html. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 160–69; Aleister Crowley [The Master Therion], Magick in Theory and Practice, part 3 of Book 4 (n.p., [1929?]), chap. 14, sec. 2, 107–9, https://www.100thmonkeypress.com/biblio/acrowley/books/magick_in_theory_1_1929/magick_part_1_text.pdf. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 269–301; Robert Ames, review of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, by Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, Reading Religion, June 12, 2018, https://readingreligion.org/9780226403366/the-myth-of-disenchantment/. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 300–301. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Max Weber and the Rationalization of Magic,” in Narratives of Disenchantment and Secularization: Critiquing Max Weber’s Idea of Modernity, ed. Robert A. Yelle and Lorenz Trein (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), 31–49, especially 43–48 and nn. 57–66 at 184–85. The explicit thought-experiment qualifications occur at 44 and 48. ↩︎
Doug Sikkema, “Disenchantment, Actually,” The New Atlantis 54 (Winter 2018): 96–103, https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/disenchantment-actually; Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, John Wilson, and Doug Sikkema, “Why Do We Think We Are Disenchanted?,” The New Atlantis 56 (Summer/Fall 2018): 3–12, https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-do-we-think-we-are-disenchanted. ↩︎
Charles Taylor, “Buffered and Porous Selves,” The Immanent Frame, September 2, 2008, https://tif.ssrc.org/2008/09/02/buffered-and-porous-selves/. ↩︎
Bradley J. Gundlach, review of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, by Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, Church History 89, no. 2 (2020): 475–77, especially 477, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640720001031. ↩︎
Hugh B. Urban, review of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, by Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm, History of Religions 59, no. 1 (2019): 78–82, especially 80–81, quotation at 81, https://doi.org/10.1086/703523. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 308–16, especially 314–15. ↩︎
Russell T. McCutcheon, “On the Myth of Disenchantment,” Harvard Theological Review 111, no. 4 (2018): 610–17, especially 610–12, 613–17, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816018000299. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 5–6, 15–18, 289–90, n. 16. For the distinct aesthetic proposal, see Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism,” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 2, no. 1 (2010), article 5677, https://doi.org/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677. Michel Clasquin-Johnson had already adapted an oscillatory metamodernism to religious studies in “Towards a Metamodern Academic Study of Religion and a More Religiously Informed Metamodernism,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 73, no. 3 (2017), a4491, especially 4, 7–8, https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.4491. This predates Storm’s book and is contextual evidence, not its reception. Leonardo Ambasciano’s later “Absolutely Disruptive: An Introduction to Josephson-Storm’s Metamodernism Book Review Symposium,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 37 (2025): 1–12, especially 7–10, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-bja10134, distinguishes the currents polemically. See also Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “An Interview with Moyo Okediji on Metamodernism,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 483–87, especially 485–87, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16200. Linda C. Ceriello, “The Metamodern Bend: Theorizations for Religious Studies and a Review of Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, and Depth After Postmodernism,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 489–96, especially 490–95, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16195, demonstrates the broader cultural and religious scope of the alternative approach; she reviews the 2017 collection, not Storm’s book. ↩︎
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Provincializing American Theory,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 509–12, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16193; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 156. Josephson-Storm, “Response to Responses,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 517–20, especially 517–18, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16192. ↩︎
Craig Martin, review of Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, by Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, History of Religions 61, no. 4 (2022): 419–22, especially 421–22, quotation at 422, https://doi.org/10.1086/719020; compare Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 209–10 and chap. 6, n. 1, at 331. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 33–35, 41–46. Kevin Schilbrack, “Realism after Postmodernism in the Academic Study of Religion,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 513–16, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16196; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 32–34, and “Response to Responses,” 518–19. Schilbrack’s article appeared online January 30, 2023, in the December 2022 issue. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 77–82, 90, 99–104. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 111–17. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 118–27. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 131, 140. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, “Sex, Magic, & Rockets,” 330–33. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 135–37, 283–84. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Breaking the Postmodern Deadlock: Metamodernism’s Methodological Revolution,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 37 (2025): 57–71, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-bja10135. See especially 59–65, 70–71. For the earlier exchange, Brian Collins, “Lightning Bugs and Fireflies: Can Metamodernism Help Us Do Better Comparative Mythology?,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 497–500, especially 498–99, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16197; Josephson-Storm, “Response to Responses,” 518; Tommy Woodward, “Attached Critique: Paranoid and Reparative Studies of Religion,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 36, no. 3–4 (2024): 377–406, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-bja10106. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 149–52, 162–69. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 169–83, 196–203. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 183–96, especially 191–92; for translation and context, 183–87. See also Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Metamodern Theory for the Study of More-than-Human Cultures,” Cultural Science 15, no. 1 (nominal issue 2023): 146–55, especially 148–53, https://doi.org/10.2478/csj-2023-0012. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 211–21, 222–29. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 226–34. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 243–54, 273–74. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Revolutionizing the Human Sciences: A Response to Wiebe,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (2021): 82–88, especially 83–87, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341498; Donald Wiebe, “A Response to My Critics,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (2021): 98–105, especially 99–103, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341503. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 257–59, 263–72. ↩︎
Jessica Zu, “Objective Humanities, Reflexive Humanities,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 501–4, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16198. ↩︎
Sohaib Khan, “Minding the Gap: Why Epistemological Rectitude Doesn’t Lead to Political Emancipation,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 505–8, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16194; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 279–80. Josephson-Storm, “Response to Responses,” 519–20. His ethnographic example is assessed as a methodological counterexample, not an independently investigated account of those interlocutors. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 255, 261, 264–65. Jim Kanaris, review of Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, by Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, and Discourse and Ideology: A Critique of the Study of Culture, by Craig Martin, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91, no. 3 (2023): 3, advance article published January 9, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfad084. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 1–9, 234–48. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 13–46. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 46–51, especially 47–48. For the earlier article’s explicitly qualified assessment, Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “The Hegemony of Genealogy,” boundary 2 52, no. 3 (2025): 27–84, especially 61, 68–75, https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-11800570. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 68–79, 90–94. ↩︎
An Act to Conserve and Develop Indian Lands and Resources [Indian Reorganization Act], Public Law 73-383, 48 Stat. 984, June 18, 1934, Laws of the United States, 73rd Cong., 2nd sess., pt. 4, Public Laws 322–430, Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789–2011, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives Building, Washington, DC, National Archives Identifier 7873515, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7873515. For further research, see National Archives, “Records Relating to the Indian Reorganization Act (Wheeler–Howard Act),” accessed September 27, 2026, https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/indian-reorganization-act. ↩︎
I mention this correction because it is an important part of history more people need to know and research and to help aide in finding the information. Likewise, Josephson-Storm is one of the most careful and thoughtful readers of archives I have encountered so I know it is the type of thing he would like noted. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 67, 93–94, 236–37. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 100–105, 115–29. ↩︎
Jacqueline Stevens, “On the Morals of Genealogy,” Political Theory 31, no. 4 (2003): 558–88, especially 558–60, https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591703254383. Consulted author-hosted text: https://jacquelinestevens.org/StevensGenealogy.pdf. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 103–5 and chap. 3, n. 20; Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), trans. Ian Johnston (Vancouver Island University), preface, sec. 7, https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogypreface.htm. The translated passage supports the interpretive counterargument; it is not used to count German occurrences of Genealogie. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 125–29; Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, ed. Donald F. Bouchard, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 139–64, especially 140–42, 157–64, https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/philosophy/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Foucault-1977-Nietzsche-Genealogy-History.pdf. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 105–15, 128–29. Compare Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, second essay, secs. 7 and 11, trans. Johnston, https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogy2.htm. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 135–53. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 161–87. ↩︎
Stuart Elden, “Initial Thoughts on Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm’s The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History,” Progressive Geographies (blog), June 21, 2026, https://progressivegeographies.com/2026/06/21/initial-thoughts-on-jason-ananda-josephson-storms-the-genealogy-of-genealogy-nietzsche-foucault-and-the-coils-of-critical-history/. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 168–69, 175–76, 186–87, 224–25, and chap. 5, n. 49. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 204–11. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 212–20. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 227; for dynastics and changing formulations, 211–12, 219–20. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 235–36. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 236–43. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 249–52, and conclusion, nn. 29–33. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 47–48, 250–51. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 246–54. Conclusion, n. 32. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Myth of Disenchantment, 168–69; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 121–23. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 119–28, especially 121. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 52–79, 90–94, 236–40, 249; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 131, 139–40. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 255, 284; see also chap. 4, n. 20, at 315. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 90, 123, 135–40; Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 250–52. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 204–27; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 15, 209–11. ↩︎
Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern,” Critical Inquiry 30, no. 2 (2004): 225–48, especially 225–27, 245–48, https://doi.org/10.1086/421123, https://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf. ↩︎
Jessica Zu, “Objective Humanities, Reflexive Humanities,” Religious Studies Review 48, no. 4 (2022): 501–4, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16198; Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 220–21, 263–65. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 15–18, 51, 278–80; Josephson-Storm, Genealogy of Genealogy, 46–51, 235–42. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism, 255, 263–65; Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Metamodernism as the Pedagogy of Revolution,” Religion & Theology 31, nos. 1–2 (2024): 129–36, at 3–7 of the advance PDF, https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-bja10066. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “The End of Theory of ‘Religion’?,” Religious Studies Review 50, no. 1 (2024): 61–67, especially 64–66, https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.17083. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Nightmen, Troglodytes, and Other Phantoms of the Classificatory Imagination,” Aries 24 (2024): 257–59, especially 258–59, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700593-02402014. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “The Superstition, Secularism, and Religion Trinary: Or Re-Theorizing Secularism,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 30, no. 1 (2018): 1–20, especially 3–8, 14–18, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341409; Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “Epilogue: The Secular Incarnation of the God of Time: Postcolonial and Decolonial Insights from Beyond the Horizons of Euro-American Secularism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91, no. 1 (2023): 64–68, especially 65–67, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfad042. ↩︎
Joseph Blankholm, “Remembering Marx’s Secularism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 88, no. 1 (2020): 35–57, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfz104. See especially 35–39 and 48–51. ↩︎
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, “A Theosophical Discipline: Revisiting the History of Religious Studies,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 89, no. 4 (2021): 1153–63, especially 1154–59, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfab104. Published online January 7, 2022; issue date December 2021. ↩︎
Josephson-Storm, “Revolutionizing the Human Sciences,” 83–87; Wiebe, “Response to My Critics,” 99–103; Josephson-Storm, “Response to Responses,” 519–20, and “Metamodernism as the Pedagogy of Revolution,” advance PDF, 3–7. ↩︎
Augustas Pinkevičius, “Metamodernism and the Future of Theory: An Interview with Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm,” Darbai ir Dienos 84 (2025): 111–41, especially 118–20, https://doi.org/10.7220/2335-8769.84.7. ↩︎
Adam Kotsko, “A Tale of Two Book Reviews: On Bernico and Dettloff’s Enough Is Enough and Josephson Storm’s Genealogy of Genealogy,” That Blog You Like Is Going to Come Back in Style! (Substack), September 13, 2026, https://adamkotsko.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-book-review. ↩︎

Genealogy, Enchantment, and the War for the Mind

2026-09-23T12:00:00Z

Genealogy, Enchantment, and the War for the Mind: An Interview with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm

The following is an interview with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, who will deliver the keynote address at the wholly online conference entitled “Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare: Information, Interpretation, Conspiracy, and the Struggle for Reality” on Thursday, October 1, from 13:00 to 14:30 EDT (11:00–12:30 MDT).

Josephson Storm’s talk is entitled “Militarizing the Mind: Cognitive Warfare from the Cold War to the Dark Web”. Participants may register for the conference without fee, including for Prof. Storm’s address, on the registration page, which also carries the full conference schedule and paper abstracts. The interview is conducted by Carl Raschke, Senior Editor of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.

Josephson Storm is Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Religion and Chair of Science and Technology Studies at Williams College, where he also holds affiliations in Asian Studies and Comparative Literature. He earned his PhD in Religious Studies at Stanford University and his Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School. His research ranges across the historical construction of “religion” and “science” in Europe and East Asia from 1600 to the present, Japanese religions and Buddhist philosophy, Western esotericism and spiritualism, the history of science and technology, continental philosophy, critical theory, and social ontology.

Storm is the author of four books with the University of Chicago Press. His first, The Invention of Religion in Japan (2012), received the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. The three volumes that followed form a trilogy on the past, present, and future of the human sciences. The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences (2017) dismantles the long-standing thesis that modernity banished magic, showing how the founders of the human sciences were themselves entangled with occultism, spiritualism, and psychical research. Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (2021), winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, works through the skeptical impasses of postmodern theory toward a renewed program for the humanities grounded in process social ontology, hylosemiotics, and a self-critical epistemic stance he calls zeteticism. The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History (2026) turns genealogical critique on itself, tracing how a once-insurgent method hardened into academic routine and proposing in its place a “metamodern historiography” that reunites history with philosophy.

Storm is also founding co-editor of the journal Metamodern Theory & Praxis and co-editor of the volume Theosophy and the Study of Religion (2024). He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, and he chaired the Department of Religion at Williams from 2013 to 2021.

Raschke is Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Denver and the author of Neoliberalism and Political Theory: From Kant to Identity Politics and Sovereignty in the 21st Century: Political Theology in an Age of Neoliberalism and Populism.

Carl Raschke: Your three books, all published by University of Chicago Press, comprise a groundbreaking and provocative trilogy. Let’s start with The Genealogy of Genealogy. The book blurb, not to mention the sort of pushback you incur from the irrepressible and irascible Adam Kotsko, seems to flag the all-too-commonplace and tiresomely zeitgeistisch preoccupation with the presumed racism and eugenics lurking behind the practice of genealogy in the humanities. I cite from p. 232 about how “genealogy’s pretensions to an emancipatory politics to enable other futures . . . have largely been defeated or at least absorbed into the very structures of power it railed against.” You note also, rather sardonically, that “its chief legacy has been career advancement.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we have here with your book simply another version of Ricoeur’s “hermeneutics of suspicion” cosplaying in Nietzschean and Foucauldian garb as something we call “genealogy.” You say toward your conclusion that you are really aiming at a “metamodern historiography” that hybridizes philosophy with history, and history with philosophy. Can you elaborate, and please let me know upfront if I’m misreading you.

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: Thanks for your thoughtful questions.

One small correction up front: The Genealogy of Genealogy is actually my fourth book with Chicago, though I can see why you said three, as The Myth of Disenchantment, The Genealogy of Genealogy, and Metamodernism form a trilogy on the past, present, and future of the human sciences. They can be read in any order or as stand-alones, though.

Otherwise, I think you are basically reading me right, but with one important qualification: I do take the history of genealogy’s entanglement with scientific racism and eugenics very seriously. I’m not saying that genealogy is inherently racist, however, and I definitely don’t think that discovering ugly origins is necessarily enough on its own to discredit a contemporary practice. That would reproduce one of the errors the book is attacking: the genetic fallacy. Origins can give us clues, but they don’t necessarily determine what something is now.

So I’m not merely performing a hermeneutics of suspicion on genealogy. Ricoeur is actually part of the history I reconstruct. He helped consolidate this image of Nietzsche and Freud as practitioners of a suspicious, reductive hermeneutics that exposes what is lurking underneath our ideals. What interests me is what happened when that gesture, that hermeneutics of suspicion, hardened into a scholarly genre, especially one capable of being suspicious of everything but itself.

That’s where the somewhat sardonic remarks you quote come in. Genealogy was once supposed to be a hammer or a scalpel directed at hegemonic institutions and concepts. Now it’s a master’s tool. It circulates through elite universities, presses, journals, hiring networks. Something that presents itself as intellectual insurrection has become remarkably good academic currency. At its most hollow, it’s a mere ritual disobedience performed inside institutions that know perfectly well how to reward it.

And it has become incredibly formulaic. As I say in the book: “a thousand genealogies, one plot.” Show that something we thought was natural or universal is historically contingent. Find the power relations behind it. Dig up a compromised past. Identify victims or beneficiaries. Unmask. Problematize. Repeat. What once had the capacity to shock has become critique on autopilot.

But, to be totally clear, I’m not against critique. If anything, I’m hypercritical. I want to push critique harder. Critique has to be able to criticize itself. Sometimes it has to bite itself in the ass. Rote criticism isn’t liberating just because it calls itself radical. The experiment of the book is to turn genealogy against genealogy and see what survives. Most versions of genealogy don’t. They break. Good. Let them break.

That’s also why I like Foucault’s language of autodestruction more than the idea that we should simply patch genealogy up and put it back to work. In a line I quote in the book, Foucault himself said he wanted his books to be like a “Molotov cocktail, or minefield; autodestructing (carbonisent) after use like fireworks.” So I think it is high time to let genealogy explode. Carbonize. See what’s left afterward.

For me, what’s left points toward what I’m calling “metamodern historiography.” I don’t mean that as a new doctrine or a ten-step method. I mean both some modest concrete proposals for scholars and a call for a much larger conceptual repertoire for thinking historically.

The simplest version is: philosophy needs history and history needs philosophy. Philosophers like to imagine that they can ask timeless questions, but even the philosopher who says history doesn’t matter is citing predecessors, entering inherited debates, and using concepts whose meanings have changed over time. History is already present, even when unnamed.

And historians are doing philosophy whether they admit it or not. Every historian makes epistemological judgments about evidence, ethical judgments about stakes, assumptions about what words mean, assumptions about what sorts of social things exist, and so on. You don’t escape philosophy by refusing to talk about it. You just end up doing philosophy without questioning your presuppositions.

Once you put history and philosophy back together, some different questions become possible.

Genealogy has been very good at showing that things are contingent. But honestly, by now contingency should be the starting point, not the big reveal. Of course concepts change. Of course institutions mutate. Of course social categories have histories. Power has been everywhere. The deeper problem is why anything holds together at all. Why do some meanings stabilize? Why do some institutions persist? Why do similar social forms sometimes appear in very different places? What are the processes that keep things temporarily coherent amid all that historical turbulence? Stability, too, has a history.

And there’s another side of this that also matters to me, which is more affirmative and, ironically, comes partly from Foucault himself. He sometimes imagined genealogy as the recovery of “desubjugated” or “insurrectionary” knowledges. I want to take that much more seriously than most genealogists have. The archive doesn’t just contain crimes to expose and errors to debunk. It also contains abandoned possibilities, marginalized knowledges, forgotten virtues, failed experiments, suppressed utopias. Not every ruin is barren. Some are seedbeds.

So metamodern historiography isn’t an attempt to produce a new hegemony. I don’t want another master-method that will repeat the same story over and over in new settings. The whole point is to stop pretending there should be one. I want histories that can explain rupture but also continuity, contingency but also convergence, domination but also resistance, destruction but also construction.

A history of history doesn’t have to be an endless sequence of intellectual assassinations. It can be recursive without being nihilistic. It can correct itself, learn from what it destroys, recover things worth keeping, and sometimes even help us build something new.

Carl Raschke: Thank you. That helps me a lot, because it underscores, in my reading of your work, how the scholarly approach you term “metamodernism” backgrounds your treatment of genealogy. What both books share pointedly in common is a critique of “skeptical” (or what we would way too promiscuously term these days “critical”) discourses that pretend to be anti-hegemonic while functioning uncritically as hegemonic discourses themselves. That is why what the Frankfurt School a century ago named “critical theory” ended up, in my estimate, a throwaway term for these sorts of aforementioned “hypocritical” hegemony-methodologies that now dominate the humanities.

As you imply, they always valorize Foucault, while for the most part grossly misrepresenting him. I applaud you for having the courage to direct attention to this phenomenon. Faux “critical” anti-hegemonism, again in my take, has a lot to do with the proliferation among academics nowadays of once-disreputable conspiracy theorizing (note the proliferation of fashionable types of antisemitism, which Sartre considered the paradigmatic type of conspiracy theory exemplifying mauvaise foi, or “bad faith,” and which are far more than simply anti-Zionism). Since your keynote talk at our cognitive warfare and conspiracy conference at the beginning of October broaches this subject, your work as a whole proves to be a remarkable exercise in background briefing.

But let me be straightforward here, and please be aware that this is just friendly disagreement. Here is where I take issue, not with your “genealogy of genealogies,” nor with your account of “metamodernism” (with which I first became familiar through its usage in literary theory and its applications in the visual arts), but with your characterization of “postmodernism” as largely, if not wholly, skepticism. In some ways you seem to use the vernacular, and often the polemical, meaning of the word “postmodernism” as a kind of caricature to offset your notion of “emancipatory zeteticism,” which is compelling in its own right without any sort of conceptual foil in juxtaposition with it.

I’ve spent my whole career, as it turns out, fighting against the vernacular or caricatured reading of “postmodernism.” I note that you do point out that figures such as Derrida or Foucault, or even Deleuze for what it’s worth, were not “skeptics” in the traditional or ordinary-language connotations of those terms. I also grant that superficial readings of Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition (whence the transition in public discourse from “poststructuralist” to “postmodernist” began to effloresce) have a lot to do with the garden-variety meme of postmodernism as “skepticism.”

But my argument (actually, it’s more a long-researched analysis of philosophy and culture in tandem) is that the “poststructural” moment (I’m deliberately using that term instead of “postmodern”), which has now come and gone, actually opened the gates wide to what you are calling “metamodernism.” For instance, your discussion in Metamodernism of what you term “social kinds,” “ergonic convergence,” “hylosemiotics,” and “process social ontology” reminds me in many ways of what Deleuze and Guattari were doing in the 1960s and 1970s. The “semiotic” dimension of what their collaboration aimed at has been largely misunderstood and misappropriated in the Anglophone world, especially with the fad of the so-called “new materialism.”

I would also argue, even though I won’t go there in this conversation, that it is the key to unlocking the black box of AI. Guattari’s relatively unknown account of an “a-signifying” semiotics strikes me as very much in line with what you are doing in your book Metamodernism, which I think is brilliant, by the way.

Anyway, I know that is long, but I want to throw you some red meat. Perhaps you can chew on it, and maybe let out a roar?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: Okay, red meat accepted, metaphorically, since I’m a vegetarian. But I think we disagree less than you think we do, although there is at least one place where I want to push back.

I absolutely agree that Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and most of the people stuffed into the box marked “postmodernism” were not universal skeptics, straightforward antirealists, or ethical nihilists. I say that explicitly in Metamodernism. I also note that there weren’t even any self-described “poststructuralists” in France and that the figures later canonized as postmodernists disagreed with each other about all sorts of fundamental things.

But here’s where I think we differ. I’d reject the charge that I’m using a vernacular or polemical caricature of postmodernism as merely a foil. To be clear, what I call postmodernism doesn’t map precisely onto the work of Derrida, or the work of Foucault, or the work of any single French philosopher in isolation. Rather, it is an academic paradigm, or more precisely a family of overlapping paradigms. Crucially, these were produced through the reception and recombination of these thinkers in different disciplines.

Let me explain. Thomas Kuhn argued that textbooks often tell us more about a community’s paradigms than the original works do. Simplifications, exaggerations, and secondhand criticisms get taught to graduate students, reproduced in introductory works, and eventually begin functioning as established disciplinary truths.

Newtonianism as taught to burgeoning physicists was a very different beast than the actual Isaac Newton. The textbooks cleaned him up, systematized the mechanics, dropped most of the theology and alchemy, and folded in the work of later physicists and mathematicians.

All this means that if you want to know a scholarly community’s paradigms, don’t just read its founding figures. Look at its textbooks. Look at what graduate students are taught. Look at the concepts that become so obvious within a discipline that nobody bothers defending them anymore.

That is what happened with postmodernism. It was a bricolage, a pastiche assembled out of fragments of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, and a lot of other folks, reconstructed through textbooks, edited collections, graduate seminars, and secondary scholarship. And, crucially, it was this mash-up that got taught as a research paradigm, with each discipline getting a slightly different variant.

So I’m not especially interested in proving that the “real Derrida” was a skeptic. In fact, I don’t think he was. But demonstrating that Derrida himself was more complicated only gets us so far, because the object I’m trying to describe is what scholars actually learned to do. If thousands of scholars learned a portable set of skeptical moves that they associated with Derrida, then challenging Derrida’s actual epistemology doesn’t get us anywhere in addressing those moves. At some point the cover version becomes more culturally consequential than the original song.

Problems of reception are also one of the things connecting Metamodernism to The Genealogy of Genealogy. In the new book I have the space to present the argument at greater historical resolution. There I’m tracing another sequence of productive misreadings. A particular French intellectual milieu reconstructs Nietzsche as the great genealogist. Foucault then constructs his own Nietzsche based on that already constructed, refurbished French Nietzsche. After that, the Anglophone academy constructs its own Foucault. A relatively short essay, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” gets promoted into a master key for Foucault’s thought. His accounts of archaeology and genealogy are mashed together. Eventually you get something that has wandered very far from Nietzsche, far from the French Nietzsche, and even far from Foucault.

That “Foucault” then becomes one of the components of the taught postmodernism.

So part of what I’m trying to do in that book is break the chain. As I put it there, I want “to free Nietzsche from Foucault’s reading, and Foucault from the flattening grip of his scholarly afterlives.”

That doesn’t mean we burn Foucault and go home. Quite the opposite. Some of the best things in Foucault got lost in the flattening. His joyful, insurgent genealogy, his interest in desubjugated knowledges, his more complicated accounts of power, his willingness to let knowledge disrupt the scholar as well as the object of scholarship: I want some of that back.

The same thing is true of poststructuralism more generally. So I agree with you that the poststructural moment opened gates that metamodernism walks through. That is built into the argument. I say in the book that postmodern skepticisms cannot be evaded. They have to be worked through. Metamodernism is not restoration. I’m not trying to rewind the tape to 1955 and pretend Derrida never happened.

The move is more aggressive than that. More dialectical. I’m aiming for a negation of the negation. Grant the postmodern critique. Steel-man it when needed. Then turn it inside out.

Grant the critique of essences. Grant the instability of disciplinary master categories. Grant that language mediates our access to the world. Grant that knowledge is historically and socially situated. Then ask what follows if those critiques themselves become our starting assumptions rather than our final conclusions.

That is basically the engine of Metamodernism. I take a series of problems associated with postmodernism and push through them rather than backing away. Anti-essentialism turns into process social ontology and social kinds. The linguistic turn gets pushed into hylosemiotics. Skepticism, when made skeptical of itself, becomes zeteticism. And so on.

So yes, Deleuze and Guattari are influences. I’m not bothered by that at all. Deleuze is explicitly one of the process thinkers I acknowledge. A world of becoming rather than static substances, hostility toward crude essentialism, attention to relationality and material processes: I’m happy to claim those points of contact and affinity.

But I wouldn’t collapse the projects.

One of my central questions is almost the reverse of the usual celebration of becoming. If everything changes, change isn’t the puzzle. Stability is. Why does anything hold together?

That’s why I care about anchoring processes. Social kinds, as I describe them, are dynamic clusters of powers temporarily stabilized by causal processes. And it’s why I introduce ergonic convergence: sometimes historically unrelated social forms start looking alike because they encounter similar material constraints, institutional environments, ideological pressures, or practical problems.

So I’m less interested in shouting “Everything flows! Look at the unpredictable flux!” than in asking why the river sometimes freezes.

Hylosemiotics is an even clearer case. It’s even more different. I can certainly see the resonance with Deleuze and Guattari, and Guattari’s a-signifying semiotics is something I’d be happy to think harder about. But hylosemiotics comes through a different route: Peirce, Uexküll, Grice, Millikan, philosophy of biology, ethology, and especially research into animal communication.

And its central claim is that meaning is inference. Sentient beings, not just humans, interpret both voluntary and involuntary signs. So we need to separate sign production from sign consumption, that is, meaning-making from interpretation.

That makes me hesitate over the comparison with an a-signifying semiotics. Hylosemiotics is trying to naturalize and radically expand signification, not bypass it. A raven’s cry, a scent of smoke, a line of footprints in the snow, or a human sentence can become a sign for an interpreter. But the world doesn’t come preloaded with meanings. The same footprints can mean different things to different interpreters. Something functions as a sign because an organism can draw an inference from it. Meaning emerges in that relationship.

That might actually become interesting for the AI question you raise. I’d want to distinguish very carefully between machinic operations that manipulate signs and an inferential account of meaning. I’m not convinced those are the same thing, and I suspect the difference matters enormously for whatever we end up saying so-called AI is doing.

So I’d put our disagreement this way. I think you are right to defend Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and company against the flattened version of “postmodernism.” I’m trying to do some of that myself. Where I differ is that I think the flattened version became historically actualized. It became teachable, reproducible, professionally useful. It became a paradigm.

And once a paradigm exists, saying “but Foucault didn’t really say that” isn’t enough to break its hold.

In a way, that’s a thread connecting the two books. I’m interested in what happens when complicated philosophy gets turned into method, method gets turned into disciplinary common sense, and disciplinary common sense forgets where it came from.

So perhaps the formulation I would use is this: poststructuralism is not simply what metamodernism negates. It is one of the things metamodernism metabolizes. I want to preserve what worked: anti-essentialism, historicization, attention to power, the critique of naïve representation, the recognition that our categories are constructed and unstable, and so on. But I don’t think fidelity to those insights requires fidelity to the academic orthodoxies that formed around them.

The answer isn’t to return obediently to the master thinkers. It’s to recover what they got right, wreck what no longer works, and build something out of what survives.

Carl Raschke: Your answer here, which I truly appreciate, strikes me as having certain assonances and resonances with the early Foucault, whom nobody seems to read anymore. I’m not saying in any sense you’re making a “retro” move with metamodernism, only that we’ve come back to the underlying problematic of modernism itself, which you address in Metamodernism and appear to suggest postmodernism forced us to confront but didn’t succeed in overcoming. Graciously, I’m more than willing to set aside the intractable issue of whether postmodernist “skepticism” was the real deal or not.

But what I find most thought-provoking in your previous response is a tacit way of thinking, if not being, that you frame and seek to configure so interestingly in the initial book of your “trilogy”: the putatively negative dialectic of “enchantment” and “disenchantment” (for Weber, Entzauberung, or literally “de-magification”).

Which brings us to the conference on cognitive warfare and conspiracy theories. I’m fascinated with your extremely insightful excursion into the conflicted project of the Frankfurt School, especially its fraught analytic of fascism as in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. I’m of course referencing your 2017 book The Myth of Disenchantment. I sense that your critique of the overdetermined, and “overheated,” lumpen-Foucauldianism that saturates our overly politicized humanities nowadays can be traced back to the missteps of the Frankfurt School on this score (at least, that’s my reading of you). So my next piece of “red meat” I will throw at you, despite your vegetarianism, is as follows: does the techno-militarization of the mind you are going to talk about at the conference have its own profound “genealogical” provenance in this proto-Enlightenment hybridization of the rational and occult that undercuts the so-called “myth of disenchantment”?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: I think there is something to that. But I want to hedge the answer because I’m literally in the middle of writing the cognitive warfare piece now. I’m still reading, still doing research, and some of this is intuition rather than an argument I’m prepared to nail to the wall.

My first hesitation is with “genealogical provenance,” particularly after everything I’ve just said about genealogy. I don’t think there is a single origin point from which we can draw a straight line through Renaissance magic, the Enlightenment, the Frankfurt School, cybernetics, and finally cognitive warfare. History is messier than that. Things break, mutate, recombine, and sometimes arrive at similar places by completely different routes.

But I do think you’re putting your finger on a problem that has followed me through a lot of my work.

One of the central arguments of The Myth of Disenchantment was that modernity never accomplished the purification imagined for it. Magic did not simply disappear as science advanced. The occult wasn’t some primitive residue stubbornly surviving outside modern rationality. Again and again, the people supposedly disenchanting the world were themselves entangled with magic, mysticism, spiritualism, psychical research, or esotericism. And even today the majority of Americans, something like 73 percent, hold some kind of paranormal belief. We get similar numbers in Europe. There was never a point when most people, even in the supposed heartland of modernity, were disenchanted.

That’s one reason I’m both attracted to and dissatisfied with the Frankfurt School. Horkheimer and Adorno’s line that “Enlightenment reverts to mythology” is incredibly powerful. But I argued in The Myth of Disenchantment that their dialectic still grants too much to the original disenchantment story. Reason supposedly conquers myth, instrumental rationality runs amok, and enlightenment collapses back into its opposite.

I argue instead that the clear victory of reason over myth never happened. Reason was never purified of myth. Science was never purified of magic. The oppositions were unstable from the beginning.

And the Frankfurt School itself is a good example. Critical theory’s “proximate other,” as I put it in the book, was the occult. Ludwig Klages helped formulate some of the language about the domination of nature that later became central to critical theory. Benjamin’s aura, correspondences, constellations, angels, and Ur-images emerged in a milieu saturated with esotericism. Adorno attacks magic while simultaneously mourning the loss of what he thought disenchantment had destroyed.

So I wouldn’t make the Frankfurt School the culprit here exactly. They’re more interesting than that. They are another knot in the problem. They saw something profound about instrumental reason while remaining caught in the very binaries they were trying to explode.

More recent work I’ve been doing has made me increasingly skeptical of treating “rationality” and “irrationality” as the relevant opposition. In particular, there is a common model of rationality itself that can be historicized.

In a recent piece in the journal Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (MTSR), “Sex, Magic & Rockets,” an essay focused on the ritual magic practices of the rocket engineer Jack Parsons, I argue that one particularly influential twentieth-century model of rationality came out of cybernetics, rational choice economics, and related movements.

Whereas earlier philosophers like Descartes argued that machines were the opposite of thinking beings, during the mid-twentieth century, and against a Cold War backdrop, the machine was increasingly taken as the model for the mind. Human beings were seen as something like individual calculators, processing information and making algorithmic or probabilistic decisions about means and ends.

Again, I’m still working this out for the talk. Still, I want to emphasize that this way of looking at the mind brought some insights but also blind spots. I don’t actually think the cybernetic model tells us what the mind is. At best it is a partial picture. What interests me is that it produced an extraordinarily powerful way of making the mind technically legible.

Once you treat cognition as information processing, all sorts of things become possible. Mental activity can be quantified, modeled, transmitted, intercepted, simulated, optimized, disrupted. The abstraction does real work.

But abstractions have a nasty habit of forgetting that they are abstractions.

This is where N. Katherine Hayles’s account of information “losing its body” becomes important for me. Once information is imagined as fundamentally separable from its material instantiation, you can start moving in some very strange directions.

AI is one obvious direction. If cognition is basically information processing, then why should intelligence have to live in a biological human body?

But weirdly, remote viewing points in almost the opposite direction from the same conceptual neighborhood. The military researchers studying it explicitly described what they were looking for as a human “information-accessing capability,” eventually calling it “anomalous cognition”: information transfer without the ordinary sensory channels. The body drops out there too. Perception starts looking like access to information that might occur independently of eyes, ears, distance, perhaps even ordinary physical locality.

I’m not claiming AI and remote viewing are basically the same or are equally legitimate or anything like that. That would be nuts. But I do think there is a family resemblance in the abstraction that makes both imaginable: mind becomes detachable from embodied perception, and “information” starts doing an enormous amount of metaphysical work.

Push that far enough and something that began as an engineering concept starts looking suspiciously like an ontology. The mind is information. Organisms are information. Society is information. Eventually the world itself starts becoming something called “information.”

And that matters politically and militarily, because once the mind is rendered as an information system, it also becomes something you can imagine controlling as an information system.

You can see one version of this in the Cold War history of propaganda and communication research. Modern communication research was entangled with psychological warfare. There is a fairly straightforward model lurking there: sender, message, channel, target. Find the right message, transmit it effectively enough, and alter what the target thinks.

Soviet reflexive control is already subtler than that. Instead of simply putting an idea into somebody’s head, you manipulate the informational environment from which they make decisions, ideally getting the opponent to choose the action you wanted while experiencing it as their own decision.

Those techniques work. I don’t want to dismiss them because their model of cognition is incomplete.

But as I say, they have blind spots.

Byung-Chul Han’s idea of psychopolitics gets at one of them. Power does not always arrive from outside as propaganda or command. Increasingly it works through freedom itself: through participation, preference, self-disclosure, prediction, desire. We feed the system voluntarily. We train it on ourselves.

That seems much closer to what contemporary platforms actually do than the old picture of propaganda broadcasting messages into passive brains.

And that gets me to conspiracy theory. In “Sex, Magic & Rockets,” I suggest that what we often describe as radically different “rationalities” may be better understood in terms of different epistemic communities, different ontological commitments, and especially different structures of epistemic trust.

Most of us don’t believe the Earth moves around the Sun because we personally did the astronomy. We trust a huge network of institutions, experts, instruments, textbooks, teachers, and practices. That’s just how most knowledge works.

So minds are not autonomous calculators floating in informational space. Cognition is embodied. It is enacted. It takes place inside epistemic communities and depends on networks of trust, habits, institutions, technologies, and other people.

So I’m starting to think that one of the deeper problems in the history of cognitive warfare is that military and technological systems repeatedly make cognition tractable by reducing it to something manipulable: messages, probabilities, information flows, neural vulnerabilities, behavioral data.

Those are reductions, but sometimes they are frighteningly effective.

Still, to restate the old cliché, the map is not the territory.

And maybe that is where the contemporary language of “cognitive warfare” gets especially interesting. It doesn’t merely describe the mind as a new battlefield. It helps produce an image of mind as territory: something that can be mapped, penetrated, occupied, defended, and dominated by whoever has the superior instruments.

That fantasy of mastery may itself be part of the problem.

Because cognition is never simply sitting inside the skull waiting to be hacked. It spills outward into bodies, media, institutions, relationships, and infrastructures. You aren’t merely fighting over what information enters a mind. You are fighting over the environments in which people learn what deserves attention, which authorities deserve trust, what counts as evidence, and ultimately what kind of world seems to be there.

So perhaps the thread running through the talk is that, by seeing the mind as an information machine, we became extraordinarily good at building machines, institutions, and military doctrines around that picture of the mind. And the picture works just well enough to become dangerous.

Again, even this model doesn’t necessarily disenchant anything. Technologies do not merely change what people can do. They change what people can plausibly say exists. So technologies don’t simply disenchant the world. They can generate new conditions for enchantment.

That seems especially important with digital technologies. The machines most associated with rationalization, computation, surveillance, prediction, and control are also remarkably productive of hidden agencies, invisible networks, algorithmic forces, paranoid pattern-recognition, and conspiratorial accounts of causation.

All that is to say, the same systems that promise unprecedented powers of calculation, prediction, and control may also be extraordinarily good at generating ghosts in the machine.

Carl Raschke: I don’t know if you are familiar with the story of Jim Channon, who died in 2017 at the age of 77. He was a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, futurist, and business consultant whose ideas helped inspire the 2009 movie The Men Who Stare at Goats. He was heavily influenced by the New Age and Human Potential Movements, which in themselves derived in many respects from the left wing of the Theosophical Society as instantiated in the writings of Annie Besant and Alice Bailey. The term “New Age” itself is Bailey’s. In the film, Channon was played by George Clooney. Channon came up with the notion of the First Earth Battalion (a play on the radical environmental movement at the time known as “Earth First!”). Channon’s First Earth Battalion Operations Manual envisioned a radically different sort of elite soldier: a theosophically minded, half-human, half-cyborg combatant he called a “warrior monk,” after the occultified legend of the Knights Templar. Channon’s “warrior monk” was supposed to meld discipline, physical fitness, conflict de-escalation, psychological acumen, and unconventional methods of learning and perception, including those of the paranormal.

Channon, then and even more so now, has been generally regarded as a New Age eccentric who wasn’t taken seriously by the military at the time, but that is not really the case. He may not have been taken seriously by the military brass at the Pentagon, but he had his own strong following. Marilyn Ferguson, author of the extremely influential book The Aquarian Conspiracy, constantly touted him and fundraised for him. I sat in on an interview with Channon by a local journalist in the early 1980s, and it was obvious he was not only zealous but highly intent on making a historical impact. In the interview he bragged about his close (he called them “friendly” and “cosmopolitan”) ties to Soviet intelligence and made the following statement to the journalist, which got published in a now-defunct local alternative weekly known as Up the Creek: “If the military took over today, you’d be damned pleased with the results.”

Since you’re digging into much of this stuff from that era, I think he would be a paradigm case of what you describe in The Myth of Disenchantment. Techno-mathematical esotericism has been a deep feature of Western culture reaching back millennia. After all, wasn’t Pythagoras himself a fanatical vegetarian and what today might popularly be called a “cult leader”?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: I haven’t seen the movie. But yes, I know about Jim Channon. His project, and U.S. military psychical research more generally, is another one of those great examples where the neat border between rationality and enchantment just collapses.

And that’s definitely the terrain of The Myth of Disenchantment. Still, Channon is especially useful because paranormal perception, bodily discipline, and military strategy are all being jammed together to make some new kind of soldier.

But he wasn’t the first, or the last. Attempts at military psychical research go back at least to the First World War, if not earlier.

Still, I’d resist drawing a straight line from Pythagoras to Channon. That starts to look a little too clean, and history is rarely that obliging. But as a recurring configuration, absolutely! Technical rationality and esoteric speculation keep showing up in the same room. Sometimes wearing the same uniform.

Carl Raschke: Speaking of military psychical research, are you familiar with the peculiar controversy that goes back to at least the late 1970s and with Paul Vallely’s and Michael Aquino’s From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory (1980)? The paper openly stated that psychological warfare should be aimed at the American public as well as our adversaries. Given Aquino’s self-declared “Satanism” and his public “priestly” position as “Magus V of the Aeon of Set” (what he considered the “true name” for the Prince of Darkness), this is an episode even stranger than the story of Channon, and of course it gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories back in that period. There is absolutely no evidence Aquino had any influence on official military policy, but given the expansive sophistication of cognitive warfare worldwide since that period, I’m curious as to how you map and evaluate the ongoing legacy of psycho-tech with its esotericist edge. Have we left all that behind, or has it just slunk into the shadows?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: Good guess! Now we’re getting dangerously close to spoilers for the talk. Aquino is actually one of the figures I’m using to open it.

What fascinates me most about MindWar is its peculiar account of truth. Aquino insists that his proposal goes beyond propaganda, which he associates with deception and manipulation. But then, as I think I’ll quote in the talk, the paper describes a “whole truth that, if it does not now exist, will be forced into existence by the will of the United States.”

That’s a remarkable statement. Victory begins with securing conviction, and reality is supposed to catch up.

The paper also argues that operatives must have a personal conviction in what they are promoting and that people on the other side of the PSYOP must experience their decisions as uncoerced. So the coercion needs to disappear from view.

That’s where I think the esoteric resonance becomes especially interesting. I’m not claiming that Aquino smuggled Satanic magic into official military doctrine. But here is a strategic military proposal in which will, conviction, and the power to bring a desired reality into existence are doing extraordinary work. And the technological means he emphasizes are largely ordinary electronic media, not ESP.

So have we left this behind? I’m interested less in whether Aquino’s particular program survived than in the larger ambition to make the future true by engineering what people believe, desire, and choose for themselves.

And then there’s the amusing irony that the paper itself became evidence, for conspiracy theorists, of a nearly omnipotent apparatus of governmental mind control.

Aquino proposed a project for mastering perception, beginning with one’s own and extending to everyone else’s. Its afterlife shows just how appealing the fantasy of that mastery can become.

Carl Raschke: I guess we’re both on the exact same wavelength. I happen to know a lot about Aquino and the Temple of Set, but I won’t go there for the purpose of this interview. And, of course, he’s only one random historical illustration, not the more profoundly imbricated and ongoing issue anyway. One thing we haven’t really talked about much is the broader concept of “cognitive warfare” and how advances in digital technology, and now of course AI, shape what “knowledge” has been, and is becoming, in a broad anthropological, if not sociopolitical, sense. It seems that Kant’s “first question” of philosophy, how do we know what we know, is swiftly and maddeningly becoming extraordinarily and exhaustingly problematic. Care to make some general comments or observations along these lines? To what degree does your “genealogy of genealogy” problematize the theory of knowledge even further than figures like Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche did in the nineteenth century?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: A small confession: I came to the phrase “cognitive warfare” because of the conference call. It wasn’t something I’d been carrying around previously, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more useful I’ve found it.

I think you’re right that digital technologies and so-called AI are transforming the knowledge landscape. To be clear, knowledge has always depended on technologies and epistemic communities. But the speed and scale of these new systems raise some pretty fascinating and disturbing questions, especially when so much of our social interaction is mediated through bots, advertisers, and bad-faith, or at least questionably motivated, actors, some of whom may be deliberately trying to fragment or reshape that landscape.

On The Genealogy of Genealogy, though, I’d tweak your formulation slightly. You are right that I’m taking suspicion a step further. I’m turning it on itself. But the result isn’t amplified hyper-suspicion. It’s a suspicion that is capable of being suspicious of itself. Self-reflexive suspicion has to become more precise. Perhaps even humbler.

As I argue in that book, critique has become automatic, routinized in many sectors of the academy. Historical criticism is one of its main instruments. But explaining the history of something doesn’t, on its own, settle whether it’s true or whether there’s evidence for it. And of course, genealogy has its own history. Its methods and authority are open to the same critical scrutiny it directs everywhere else.

My fuller answer to the epistemological question, though, is in Metamodernism, where I develop a metaepistemic stance I call zeteticism. It is the basis for what I am doing in the Genealogy book. In a way, it’s skepticism turned on itself: a skepticism of skepticism. There is a lot more there, because I hold myself to thinking not only about our orientation toward knowledge but also about a concrete program for producing better knowledge claims. But in brief, I argue that once we transform skeptical dogmatisms into genuine doubts, we can become more discriminating. Doubt will always be with us. The project of a search for undeniable foundations is misguided. But we can abandon certainty without giving up on knowledge. It’s just that the kind of knowledge we end up with is located within the horizon of temporality and finitude. We will never have the last word.

There’s a lot to say here, and I realize I’ve gone on for a bit. But I want to resist the temptation to give a long monologue about epistemology.

Anyway, in the book I also emphasize that we aren’t isolated egos peering out at the world like little homunculi. We know things as embodied beings, embedded in communities and institutions. This is a theme I keep returning to.

Relatedly, I’m working right now with the Polish philosopher Piotr Rosół on the ethics of collective attention. One of the questions we’re exploring is what happens when the problem is no longer a lack of information, but its superabundance. We’re drowning in the stuff. Information overload. And I think that’s part of the context in which cognitive warfare becomes useful as a concept.

Under those conditions, who gets to direct our attention? How do we, as communities, choose where to direct it? What gets made salient and what disappears from view? So this is where cognitive warfare starts to have some important philosophical consequences for me. What happens when the very conditions for collective inquiry become targets of strategic intervention by politically motivated actors?

The scale of the problem matters, too. Our actions have ethical consequences in an increasingly interconnected global world, but it can be very hard to figure out what effect we are having precisely because the consequences are often displaced from us in time or space. Hans Jonas had some good stuff to say about this problem more broadly.

All that is to say, we can’t solve a collective epistemic crisis by treating it as a series of individual failures to think critically.

The most important questions are problems of institutional and technological design, and of building better epistemic communities. Epistemic trust issues. Sadly, many of the institutions that could help, like the university or scientific and medical research institutions, are actively under threat, in the U.S. at least. Some of their problems are also internal. So we need to defend, repair, and even reinvent the institutions and shared practices that make it possible for us to find things out together. To be clear, my aim isn’t an intellectual monoculture. It’s a space where inquiry is possible, disagreement is productive, and no authority gets to settle the questions in advance.

So yes, teach people to think critically. But we also have to fight for the institutions, technologies, and communities that give thinking a fighting chance.

Carl Raschke: Thank you. That is quite illuminating. One final follow-up question to your last answer. We live in what Peter Drucker back in the 1980s dubbed the “knowledge society.” Other terms abound these days to characterize the phenomenon, such as Yann Moulier-Boutang’s “cognitive capitalism,” Pierre Bourdieu’s “cultural capitalism,” and Bernard Stiegler’s cum Maurizio Lazzarato’s “immaterial labor.” Most economists agree that our vast global economy has become a digitized knowledge economy where value is created through the production of knowledge (i.e., Stiegler’s long historical process of “grammatization”). But my concluding question comes down to the fate of knowledge production itself and the institutions which conventionally have supported it, specifically the university. Care to comment on where you see the role of colleges and universities amidst the burgeoning planetary storm of “hyper-grammatization” through hyper-scaled digitization, especially AI?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm: I think there’s a danger in economists taking the “knowledge economy” too literally and measuring value in terms of quantity of production.

We already publish more scholarship than anyone can read. Precarity and the pressure to publish or perish have already flooded the world with lots of low-quality scholarship. LLMs can multiply the output almost indefinitely. But more text isn’t necessarily more knowledge. There’s a huge difference between producing knowledge-like outputs and cultivating individuals and communities capable of knowing.

Resistance and struggle are key to learning. We find things out by running into a world that doesn’t behave the way we expected and by encountering other people who ask questions we never thought to ask. At their best, universities give those encounters somewhere to happen. They function as sites for constructive disagreement. Somewhere you can be wrong, get called on it, and come back with a better argument.

AI also brings us face to face with an old problem in the study of automation and safety. When machines take over routine tasks, the human skills involved tend to atrophy. Then, when something goes wrong, the machine hands control back to a person it has effectively trained into passivity. The results can be disastrous. The implication is that the more we outsource reading, reasoning, and so on, the less prepared we are to recognize when the machine has gone badly wrong.

So I don’t want students trained into passivity by technologies that are supposed to make them more capable. And I certainly don’t want universities competing to produce the same commodities faster and cheaper. Education should help people decide what’s worth wanting, cultivate the epistemic virtues they need to pursue it, and catch the moment when someone, or something, starts deciding for them.

Of course, defending the university doesn’t mean defending every feature of the institution we’ve inherited. Don’t get me started on all that is wrong with the corporate university today! And we academics are already very good at critique. We could stand to get better at building.

All that is to say, I don’t want a university that trains sophisticated spectators of a world going to hell. I want to help build institutions where people acquire the knowledge, imagination, and solidarity to do something about it.

Anyway, it has been a pleasure chatting with you! I’m looking forward to the conference.

Carl Raschke: Indeed, it’s been a pleasure.

Carl A. Raschke
University of Denver

Further Resources

Book Review: Kant Machine: Critical Philosophy after AI

2026-09-09T12:00:00Z

Book Review: Yuk Hui, Kant Machine: Critical Philosophy after AI (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2026). Paperback, 144 pp., $26.95. ISBN: 9781350602502.

With Kant Machine: Critical Philosophy after AI, Yuk Hui sets out to engage “philosophers who want to engage with AI and the history of philosophy beyond analytic philosophy and cognitive science.” He poses three questions: What could be called an intelligent machine? Are machines capable of being moral? And does an algorithm of perpetual peace exist?^[1] Behind all three stands a wager, namely that Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy, drafted while the first industrial revolution gathered steam, was already an inquiry into the mechanization of reason. Working at the intersection of continental philosophy, media theory, and the philosophy of technology, Hui recovers Kant’s questions about knowledge, morality, and politics in order to draw a boundary around what machine learning, artificial moral agency, and algorithmic governance can accomplish. The wager pays: the book offers one of the sharpest available diagnostics of computation’s limits. Yet, read from the standpoint of practical theology and social ethics, Hui’s account of moral life remains formal and solitary. The gap between the reasoning mind and the formed community is precisely where the diagnostic gives out.

The book’s architecture mirrors Kant’s critical one. In “Intelligent Machine,” Hui asks what kinds of machines deserve the name, contrasting rule-based symbolic AI (heir to Cartesian rationalism) with data-driven connectionist systems (heir to Humean empiricism). Kant’s account of how the mind organizes experience offers the middle path between them, and, in Hui’s hands, that path still explains how contemporary systems learn and adapt. In “Moral Machine,” Hui tackles AI alignment by setting a Kant test alongside Turing’s imitation game: instead of asking whether code can merely simulate ethical conversation, it asks whether a machine can exercise genuine moral self-legislation. As Hui puts it, “after the Turing test, one might propose that the next challenge would be the Kant test: is a machine capable of being moral? … instead of a Moral Turing Test based on imitation, we should consider the Kantian Moral Test as the only veritable test.”^[2] His answer deflates the field’s confidence. Genuine moral action requires a freedom and a reflective judgment that resist full calculation; current systems sound fluent and fall short. “Peace Machine” returns to Toward Perpetual Peace (1795) and asks whether platforms can compute a lasting global order. They cannot; code does not resolve the friction and contextual difficulty of political life, the conflict of universals that no algorithm arbitrates: “We have to reaffirm with Kant: conflicts are necessary, but wars are not unavoidable.”^[3] Throughout, Hui works by careful philosophical reconstruction, placing Kant in conversation with figures such as Leibniz, Turing, and Norbert Wiener, and the claim holds steady: artificial intelligence remains bound to mechanical and statistical operation.

Readers of Hui’s earlier work on digital objects, recursivity, and cosmotechnics will recognize the project; so will readers of his teacher Bernard Stiegler, who traced how digital tools both support and undermine human attention. Hui extends Stiegler’s concern with the technical organs of memory and care into a direct recovery of Kantian critique, and in doing so he refuses both corporate techno-utopianism and reactive despair. The book presumes real familiarity with “What is Enlightenment?”, the first Critique, and Toward Perpetual Peace; Hui engages these texts with layered attention rather than summary, and he repays the preparation. His greatest strength lies in the refusal to treat Kant as a historical curiosity. Kant’s questions still speak directly to the design of intelligent systems, and the payoff is a claim the AI alignment literature needs to hear: alignment cannot substitute for autonomous moral judgment.

While this formalism is faithful to Kant, it is also the book’s limitation. Moral reasoning, in Hui’s telling, happens almost entirely inside one rational mind. Lived moral agency is embodied, relational, and communal; character and judgment form slowly, in the presence of others, through shared practices and the pressure of real situations. Under conditions of technological acceleration the immediate institutional danger is not the machine that wakes up; the danger is the overburdened human being who outsources high-effort moral discernment to a fluent system. When the necessary friction of relational encounter is removed, the conditions of formation erode, and practitioners (ministers, chaplains, educators, and their secular counterparts) may appear ethically compliant while remaining undeveloped in tested conviction. Because Hui’s framework stays within a largely secular, individualist register, it diagnoses computational constraint with great clarity yet offers few resources for the communal habits and embodied practices that actually protect human agency from automated capture.

None of this unsettles the achievement. Kant Machine is a rigorous, disciplined counterweight to the popular AI safety literature, and scholars in continental philosophy, critical theory, and the theology of technology will find it clarifying; graduate seminars will put it to immediate use. The work that remains, for practical theology and cultural theory alike, is to meet Hui’s diagnostic with the thicker, relationally sustained practices that keep discernment embodied. The machine cannot be argued out of the room; the room can, however, be furnished so that human beings remain the ones who judge.

David Roome
Eastern University
ORCID 0009-0004-1261-7953

Yuk Hui, Kant Machine: Critical Philosophy after AI, Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy Series (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026), xi–xiii. ↩︎
Hui, Kant Machine, 41. ↩︎
Hui, Kant Machine, 105. ↩︎

Book Review: American Empire, American Faith: Conquest, Christianity, and the Shaping of a Nation

2026-09-03T12:00:00Z

Book Review: Philip Jenkins, American Empire, American Faith: Conquest, Christianity, and the Shaping of a Nation (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2026). Hardcover, $44.99. ISBN: 9781481324250.

1. Introduction

This review examines American Empire, which argues that the United States should be understood not simply as a modern nation-state with global influence, but as an empire whose political power has been shaped, justified, and contested through religious and cultural narratives. Addressing debates in American religious history, political theology, empire studies, and cultural theory, the book first aims to establish what it means to call the United States an empire and then to show how Christianity has interacted with that imperial formation from the era of early settlement onward. Its central claim is that empire is not only a military, territorial, or economic reality; it is also a cultural and moral process through which expansion, hierarchy, and domination become imaginable and legitimate.

In the context of early U.S. settlement, Christianity supplied settlers and political leaders with narratives of providence, chosenness, mission, civilization, and divine purpose that could help frame land acquisition, Indigenous dispossession, racial hierarchy, and continental expansion as morally warranted or historically necessary. At the same time, the relationship is not simply one-directional: American imperial development also reshaped Christianity by giving religious communities new missionary ambitions, national identities, global horizons, and institutional purposes. The book therefore treats Christianity and empire as mutually constitutive—each building upon, authorizing, and transforming the other—rather than as two separate histories that occasionally overlap.

The stakes of this intervention are considerable. By connecting religion to empire from early settlement onward, American Empire asks readers to reconsider whether familiar American ideals of freedom, democracy, exceptionalism, and religious mission may also conceal structures of domination and transnational power. It challenges the tendency to imagine Christianity as either wholly separate from U.S. expansion or automatically opposed to coercive forms of political authority. Instead, it shows that religious language can make power morally intelligible: empire may present itself not as domination, but as liberation, protection, civilization, providence, or service.

I argue that while American Empire makes a significant contribution by defining empire as a cultural and moral formation and by tracing the mutually reinforcing relationship between Christianity and U.S. power, its broader claims depend on how clearly it distinguishes empire as an analytic category and historical process from ordinary nationalism, civil religion, or geopolitical influence. This review will therefore assess not only whether the author establishes the United States as an imperial power, but also whether the book convincingly demonstrates how religious and cultural forms made that power morally legitimate from early settlement through later national development. The book is most valuable for scholars and advanced students of American religion, political theology, settler colonialism, and cultural theory who are interested in the moral worlds through which empire is made durable.

2. Summary of the Argument

American Empire develops its central argument by first establishing empire as more than a formal system of overseas colonies, military occupation, or economic exploitation. The book instead treats empire as a historical process through which political authority expands, organizes territory and populations, produces social hierarchies, and legitimates its own power through cultural and moral narratives. On this account, the United States belongs within the history of empire not simply because it eventually acquired territory or exerted global influence, but because U.S. expansion depended on practices of settlement, dispossession, racial ordering, governance, and cultural transformation that resemble and develop imperial forms of power. The author’s central claim is that religion is not peripheral to this process. Christianity and colonial expansion develop together: religious language helps make expansion morally intelligible, while imperial expansion creates new religious institutions, identities, practices, and ambitions.

The book’s conceptual movement begins by defining empire broadly as a historical system of political expansion and domination in which a power organizes territory and populations through unequal relationships of rule, settlement, dispossession, and cultural transformation. The United States becomes an empire not simply because it acquires land or exercises international influence, but because its expansion depends on settler colonialism and the management of peoples understood as culturally, racially, and religiously different. Christianity is central to this definition because it provides a language through which expansion can be framed as providence, mission, civilization, or salvation rather than domination. At the same time, imperial power produces a religious hierarchy: it authorizes and develops Christian institutions and practices while marginalizing, transforming, or attempting to eliminate Indigenous and other non-Christian religious forms.

A crucial part of this account concerns the unequal treatment of religious traditions. The expansion of Christianity occurs alongside attempts to suppress, replace, discipline, or render illegible Indigenous and other non-Christian forms of religiosity. Colonial power does not merely introduce a new religion into a neutral field; it establishes a hierarchy in which Christian norms are treated as universal, civilized, and compatible with legitimate political authority, while Native religious practices are often marked as primitive, superstitious, threatening, or in need of eradication. The book thus presents religious transformation as one mechanism of empire: the creation of new Christian forms and institutions is inseparable from the marginalization and extinguishing of religious worlds that obstructed or challenged colonial authority.

3. Analytical Evaluation

a) Methodology and Sources

Methodologically, American Empire joins political history to the cultural and religious materials through which power becomes imaginable, morally defensible, and socially durable. Rather than treating empire only as a matter of territorial acquisition, military force, or state policy, the author reads American expansion through the religious narratives that helped interpret it: Christian ideas of providence, mission, civilization, and salvation become central to the book’s account of how imperial authority was justified.

The book’s source base appears deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing together political and governmental records with religious and cultural evidence such as sermons, missionary writings, institutional archives, public discourse, and historical accounts of settlement and colonial expansion. This range is a major strength because it enables the author to place official policy alongside the religious language that made such policy intelligible to settlers, clergy, and other participants in American expansion.

b) Argument and Evidence

American Empire is most effective when it identifies the specific religious mechanisms through which U.S. expansion was justified, normalized, and, at times, resisted. Its key contribution is not simply to describe American activity as “imperial,” but to show how Christian language made imperial power morally intelligible. Ideas of providence, chosenness, civilization, salvation, and mission allowed settlers, clergy, missionaries, and political leaders to frame territorial expansion and the subordination of Indigenous peoples as benevolent, divinely sanctioned, or historically necessary. In these cases, the book demonstrates that religion did not merely accompany expansion; it supplied a moral vocabulary through which dispossession could appear as improvement, conversion as liberation, and political rule as a form of service.

The book connects ideals such as freedom, democracy, civilization, and religious mission to concrete hierarchies of race and power. Although these ideals appear universal in the abstract, they could be distributed selectively: Christian and Euro-American norms became the measure of legitimate religion, political maturity, and fitness for self-rule, while Indigenous and non-Christian peoples were rendered objects of conversion, discipline, removal, or governance. By connecting this moral language to the material realities of settlement, land, institutional authority, and religious suppression, the book shows how imperial power operated through culture as well as through policy.

At times, however, the analysis risks treating “empire” as too expansive a category. If every form of American cultural influence, missionary activity, national aspiration, or international engagement counts as imperial, then the term may lose the precision that gives it explanatory force. A sharper distinction among settler colonialism, formal rule, civil religion, nationalism, and ordinary geopolitical influence would strengthen the argument while preserving the book’s central insight: American empire has depended not only on what the United States has done, but also on the religious stories that have made those actions appear legitimate.

c) Relation to Existing Scholarship

American Empire enters a body of scholarship on American exceptionalism and U.S. empire. Scholars such as William Appleman Williams, Amy Kaplan, Paul Kramer, Daniel Immerwahr, Julian Go, Walter Hixson, and Nikhil Pal Singh have instead demonstrated that U.S. development and global power have been deeply entangled with territorial expansion, colonial administration, racial hierarchy, military intervention, and informal forms of domination. American Empire extends this work by directing attention to religion: its distinctive contribution is to show that imperial power required not only political institutions and economic interests, but also a moral vocabulary through which Americans could imagine expansion as providential, humanitarian, civilizing, or liberating.

The book also belongs in conversation with scholarship on civil religion and political theology. Where work on American civil religion has explored the sacralization of the nation through ideals of freedom, democracy, destiny, and sacrifice, American Empire’s analysis resonates with postcolonial and cultural-theoretical accounts of empire, especially work associated with Edward Said and Ann Laura Stoler, which emphasizes that imperial rule depends as much on culture, knowledge, intimacy, and moral classification as on armies or administration.

The book’s most important conversation partners should also include scholarship in Indigenous studies, Black studies, Asian American studies, and the study of global Christianity. In particular, scholarship on settler colonialism and Indigenous religious traditions raises the question of whether Christianity should be understood only as a legitimating discourse or also as a field that Indigenous peoples strategically adapted, resisted, and transformed under colonial conditions. American Empire opens productive avenues for further work on these questions, especially concerning the relationship between religious freedom and colonial governance, the creation and suppression of religious difference, and the ways communities subjected to American power generated alternative moral worlds.

d) Strengths

The greatest strength of American Empire is its ability to reframe empire as a cultural, moral, and religious structure rather than reducing it to territorial conquest, military intervention, or formal colonial administration. The book shows that American power depended not only on policies enacted by governments but also on narratives that explained expansion as providential, civilizing, humanitarian, or liberating. This approach makes visible the moral work that empire requires: unequal relations of power cannot endure through force alone but must also be made meaningful to those who exercise and accept them. By placing Christianity at the center of this process, the book demonstrates that religion was not merely an afterthought to American expansion but a crucial medium through which imperial power could be imagined as righteous or necessary.

A related strength is the author’s ability to connect large-scale institutions and policies to ordinary moral language and religious practice. The book moves between the formal structures of expansion—settlement, political authority, missionary institutions, education, and the regulation of religious difference—and the language through which those structures entered public consciousness. Christian themes of mission, salvation, providence, freedom, and civilization did not remain abstract theological ideas; they could shape how settlers, clergy, missionaries, and political actors understood land, peoples, and national purpose.

The book is also theoretically useful because it offers readers a vocabulary for recognizing how universalistic ideals can coexist with unequal power. Freedom, democracy, humanitarianism, civilization, and religious mission are often invoked as morally expansive values, but American Empire demonstrates that they can also function selectively, marking Christian and Euro-American norms as universal while rendering Indigenous and non-Christian communities as objects of reform, conversion, discipline, or removal. The historical specificity of the book’s attention to settlement, Christian institutions, and the treatment of non-Christian religiosity keeps this argument from remaining purely abstract.

e) Limitations and Critique

The book’s most significant limitation follows from one of its greatest strengths: its expansive definition of empire. By demonstrating that empire works through culture, morality, religion, and political power, American Empire productively challenges narrow accounts that reduce imperialism to formal colonies or military conquest. Yet the category can become too broad if military intervention, settler colonialism, informal economic domination, missionary activity, cultural influence, and formal colonial rule are all treated as equivalent expressions of a single imperial process. A sharper conceptual distinction among them would strengthen the argument by clarifying what is distinctive about particular moments of U.S. expansion and by preventing “empire” from becoming a label for virtually every exercise of American influence.

A second limitation concerns the distribution of evidence and voice. The analysis would be strengthened by more sustained engagement with the experiences and intellectual worlds of Indigenous communities, colonized subjects, migrants, religious minorities, women, and ordinary laypeople. Such sources would not simply add diversity to the archive; they could reveal how imperial power was interpreted, resisted, adapted to, or redirected by those most affected by it.

Finally, the book’s broad historical scope risks flattening important differences among distinct eras of American power. Continental settlement and Indigenous dispossession, overseas colonial administration, Cold War intervention, and the contemporary security state share family resemblances, but they involve different legal regimes, racial formations, institutional mechanisms, and religious justifications. When the analysis moves rapidly across these periods, it can imply a continuity that is more seamless than the historical record allows. A more differentiated chronology would make the book’s central insight even stronger by showing not merely that Christianity and empire have long been intertwined, but how the relationship changed as the forms, targets, and legitimating languages of American power changed.

4. Conclusion

Despite its limitations, American Empire is best understood as a strong interpretive intervention into the relationship among Christianity, U.S. power, and imperial expansion rather than as the final word on American empire. Its central achievement is to insist that empire must be studied not only as a military, territorial, economic, or administrative reality, but also as a cultural and moral formation. By placing Christian narratives of providence, mission, civilization, salvation, and freedom alongside histories of settlement, dispossession, racial hierarchy, and expansion, the book makes clear that the American empire has depended on more than political institutions or force alone. It has also depended on religious stories that make unequal arrangements of land, race, authority, and belonging appear legitimate, benevolent, or historically necessary.

The book is especially valuable for scholars working in American religious history, political theology, cultural theory, U.S. history, postcolonial studies, and religion-and-politics research. It offers a useful framework for asking how religion relates to political power without reducing Christianity either to a private sphere isolated from public life or to a uniform instrument of domination. It makes Christianity and empire appear as mutually constitutive: Christian institutions and moral vocabularies could authorize expansion and hierarchy, while imperial projects reshaped religious identity, missionary ambition, institutional practice, and national self-understanding. This emphasis makes the book a particularly useful corrective to accounts of American religion that neglect settler colonialism, global power, and the suppression or transformation of Indigenous and non-Christian religious traditions. The book would work well in advanced undergraduate and graduate seminars on American religion, empire, nationalism, race, civil religion, political theology, settler colonialism, and global Christianity.

Ultimately, the lasting value of American Empire lies in its challenge to readers to examine the moral narratives through which power appears universal, benevolent, or necessary. Its limitations do not negate that contribution. Rather, they identify questions that future scholarship must pursue: how have different communities experienced, resisted, adapted to, or redirected the religious worlds of American power; how have the mechanisms of empire shifted from settlement to overseas intervention and the contemporary security state; and under what conditions can religious ideals of freedom, mission, or democracy become resources for genuine liberation rather than languages of domination?

Kev Grane
University of Denver

JCRT Readers can receive 20% off at baylorpress.com using code “17Promo”.

BOOK REVIEW: YASCHA MOUNK, THE IDENTITY TRAP: A STORY OF IDEAS AND POWER IN OUR TIME.

2026-08-18T21:31:42Z

BOOK REVIEW: YASCHA MOUNK, THE IDENTITY TRAP: A STORY OF IDEAS AND POWER IN OUR TIME (NEW YORK: PENGUIN PRESS, 2023) ISBN: 9780593493205.

1. Introduction

This review examines The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time by Yascha Mounk, which argues that a new “identity synthesis” has come to dominate key progressive institutions by treating race, gender, and sexual orientation as the primary lens through which social life, justice, and political conflict must be understood. Addressing contemporary debates over identity politics, social justice, and liberal democracy, the book seeks to reconstruct the intellectual genealogy of this outlook, trace its spread from the academy into wider culture, and argue that its rejection of universalism creates what Mounk calls an “identity trap”: a politics that promises justice and recognition but often undermines its own egalitarian aims. I argue that the book’s most important contribution lies in its sustained attention to the internal paradoxes of this identity-centered politics and in its demonstration that these paradoxes are not incidental flaws but central features of the framework itself.

2. Summary of the argument

Mounk develops this thesis across fifteen chapters organized into four major parts. Part I reconstructs the intellectual origins of the “identity synthesis,” beginning with postmodern critiques of truth and grand narratives, moving through postcolonial theory and “strategic essentialism,” and culminating in critical race theory. Strategic essentialism, as Mounk presents it, involves treating identity categories as politically stable and unified for practical purposes even while acknowledging that they are socially constructed and internally diverse. He traces a genealogy from figures such as Michel Foucault, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak through Derrick Bell and Kimberlé Crenshaw to popularizers such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

Part II turns from ideas to institutions, charting the spread of identity-synthesis norms through universities, media, corporations, and activist spaces. Through case studies of campus controversies, speech codes, and changing institutional norms, Mounk argues that identity-based frameworks have become increasingly central in shaping what counts as legitimate speech and action.

Part III focuses on the flaws of the identity synthesis and is the strongest section of the book. Here Mounk examines mutual understanding across difference, cultural appropriation, free speech, integration, equality, and debates over racism, gender, and meritocracy. He argues that the identity synthesis generates self-defeating tensions: it seeks solidarity while denying the possibility of mutual understanding; it praises diversity while treating ordinary cultural exchange as suspect; and it seeks justice for marginalized groups while risking forms of zero-sum competition that weaken shared citizenship.

Finally, Part IV offers a response to the identity synthesis and a defense of a liberal alternative. Mounk reconstructs three core claims of identity-focused ideology: that identity should be the primary prism for understanding society, that universal values and neutral rules merely mask domination, and that genuine justice requires group-based differential treatment. He counters these claims by defending a renewed universalism grounded in equal citizenship, free speech, and democratic contestation.

3. Analytical Evaluation

3.1 Methodology and Sources

Mounk frames his object of study primarily as a work of political theory and intellectual history rather than as ethnography or social-scientific measurement. His main method is a combination of textual analysis, theoretical synthesis, and illustrative case studies. In the early chapters he closely reads major theorists; in later chapters he turns to examples from universities, media, and public life to show how these ideas operate institutionally.

Intellectual history and conceptual analysis are well suited to tracing the genealogy and coherence of the identity synthesis, and the institutional examples help show how abstract commitments become everyday norms. At the same time, the book relies heavily on public controversies and secondary reporting, which raises questions about representativeness. Its examples tend to come from elite Anglo-American institutions, and it does not systematically examine how widespread these norms are or how they are experienced by those most affected.

Two omissions are especially important. First, religious institutions receive relatively little sustained attention, even though they are major sites where identity, moral authority, and democratic norms are negotiated. Second, the book engages elite discourse far more than lived experience; it tells us much about public controversies but less about how ordinary subjects inhabit, resist, or reinterpret identity-centered frameworks in everyday life.

3.2 Argument and Evidence

At its core*, The Identity Trap* is an argument about paradox. Mounk’s strongest contribution is to show that the identity synthesis both attracts supporters and undermines its own aims because its key principles pull against one another. One major paradox concerns mutual understanding: if members of different identity groups cannot truly understand one another, then the possibility of cross-group persuasion, shared moral language, and durable solidarity becomes difficult to sustain. Yet movements shaped by the identity synthesis continue to depend on precisely these forms of persuasion and coalition.

A second paradox appears in debates over cultural appropriation. Mounk argues that identity-synthesis norms often cast ordinary forms of cultural borrowing and mutual influence as morally suspect, even though pluralistic life depends on shared practices and cultural exchange. A third paradox emerges around equality: policies intended to redress injustice can, when framed against universal norms, become forms of zero-sum competition among identity groups rather than pathways toward common citizenship.

These paradox-focused analyses are the most compelling and philosophically fruitful parts of the book. Still, the evidence is uneven. Mounk sometimes moves too quickly from demonstrating that a set of ideas contains internal tensions to suggesting that institutions everywhere are being reshaped or destabilized by them. The argument is therefore strongest at the conceptual level and weaker when making broad empirical claims about scale, uniformity, or inevitability.

3.3 Relation to Existing Scholarship

The Identity Trap enters several overlapping debates: the genealogy of identity politics, the role of postmodern and postcolonial theory in contemporary culture, and the future of liberalism under conditions of intensifying identitarian conflict. Mounk presents himself as a reluctant critic who acknowledges the moral force of identity-based claims while arguing that the present synthesis of these ideas has become counterproductive for liberal democracy.One of the book’s chief contributions is to give this constellation of ideas a precise name and structure. Rather than using “identity politics” as a loose catch-all, Mounk proposes the term “identity synthesis” and reconstructs it as a recognizable ideological formation. That is a useful intervention. At the same time, the range of interlocutors is narrower when it comes to sympathetic theorists of identity-based justice. The book engages canonical critical theorists and visible public figures more than feminist, queer, decolonial, or religious thinkers who have tried to articulate identity-sensitive yet universalist or coalition-oriented alternatives.

Even so, the book opens important questions for future research. It invites more sustained work on how identity-centered norms operate outside elite institutions, how they intersect with religious and national forms of identity politics, and whether identity-sensitive commitments can be reconciled with a substantive egalitarian universalism.

3.4 Strengths

One of the major strengths of The Identity Trap is how Mounk reconstructs an intellectual genealogy, traces institutional diffusion, considers the role of social media and digital platforms, and ends with a practical defense of liberal universalism. This gives the book a coherence that many interventions in the culture wars lack.

Another strength is the accessibility of the intellectual history. Mounk synthesizes postmodernism, postcolonial theory, and critical race theory into a narrative that is readable without being simplistic. He is also attentive to the role of technology and media in accelerating the identity trap, showing how digital platforms reward outrage, intensify in-group identity, and make identity-centered moral language more socially sticky.

Most importantly, the book’s greatest strength lies in its treatment of the internal paradoxes of the identity synthesis. Mounk is at his best when he shows how certain principles undermine the very goals they claim to advance. His practical concluding advice also strengthens the book. He urges readers to escape the identity trap by claiming the moral high ground for universal equality, refusing to vilify opponents, remembering that adversaries can become allies, appealing to the reasonable middle, building coalitions, and avoiding reactionary imitation.

3.5 Limitations and critique

Despite its considerable strengths, The Identity Trap also has important limitations. Methodologically, it leans heavily on vivid anecdotes and high-profile controversies, and these examples sometimes do more rhetorical than representative work. This can make the book feel overextended when it moves from diagnosing tensions in a body of thought to making broad claims about institutions or public life as a whole.

Conceptually, the boundary between strong ideological versions of the identity synthesis and more modest identity-sensitive practices is not always sharp. As a result, some criticisms feel overbroad. The book also gives too little attention to theorists who attempt to combine identity-sensitive analysis with universalist or coalition-oriented commitments, which risks making the identity synthesis appear more exhaustive of the field than it really is.

From my perspective, the omission of religious institutions and lived experience is especially significant. The book also pays comparatively little attention to conservative, nationalist, and religious forms of identity politics, which creates an asymmetry in its treatment of identity as a broader political phenomenon. These limitations do not undo the book’s contributions, but they do indicate that it should be read as a strong liberal critique of one influential configuration of identity-based justice discourse rather than as a complete map of contemporary identity politics.

4. Conclusion

Despite its limitations, The Identity Trap offers a substantial and illuminating contribution to debates over identity, justice, and liberal democracy. Its combination of accessible intellectual history, attention to digital and institutional dynamics, and clear conceptual vocabulary makes it especially useful for scholars in political theory, religious studies, ethics, and sociology.

Its deepest contribution, however, lies in its sustained argument that several of the identity synthesis’s core principles are ultimately self-defeating. Calls for solidarity can coexist with the denial of mutual understanding; the pursuit of recognition can become hostility toward cultural exchange; and the search for justice can harden into zero-sum competition that weakens shared citizenship. By identifying these paradoxes and pairing them with a practical defense of liberal universalism, Mounk offers both a critique of a powerful contemporary ideology and a usable framework for resisting its most self-undermining tendencies.

Conference on Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy (Announcement)

2025-09-07T02:59:34Z

When: Sept. 26-27, 2025

Where: Online

Sponsored by the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory in Collaboration with the University of Denver

You must register in order to receive a participation link for conference. Once you register, the actual link for the conference will be sent to your email address.

Please note that the dates of the conference have been changed from the original CFP due to the very low participation of Western hemisphere scholars. Because of time zone differences, the original schedule of noon on Sept. 25 to late afternoon Sept. 26 has been changed to early morning on Sept. 26 to noon on (Sat.), Sept. 27. Program times are Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) announces an online conference entitled Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy to be held Sept. 26-27, 2025. The proceedings will be published and developed into a special issue of the JCRT in 2026. Prizes of $300, $150, and $100 will be awarded for first, second, and third place in the competition among final submitted papers. Only papers that are submitted and selected for the conference will be eligible for the prize.

The conference seeks to explore the complex and evolving intersection between populism and nationalism and its rejection of the neoliberal global order. It aims to shine a particular spotlight on how religious ideologies and moral value systems, both conservative and progressive, motivate and shape contemporary populist movements as well as their nationalist forms of political expression. Finally, the conference looks to answer the more overarching question: what implications does the growing influence of populist and neo-nationalist constituencies have for the future of democracy?

Program

ALL TIMES ARE GREENWICH MEAN TIME (GMT)

Friday, Sept. 26

13:30 – 14:00 | Jonathan Abernethy-Barkley, “Populism and Conspirituality: ‘Awakening’ As Conversion Narrative For Insurgency”, University of Aberdeen (UK)
14:00 – 14:30 | Hajer Ben Ameur, “The Grammar of Crisis: Far-Right Populism and the Semiotic Afterlife of U.S. Neoliberal Volatility”, University of Sousse (Tunisia)
14:30 – 15:00 | Marlam Donadio, “Democracy in Crisis: Insights from Nadia Urbinati”, Stony Brook University (US)

15:00 – 15:30 | **Break

15:30 – 16:00 | Melinda Ren, “Amor Mundi and the Crisis of Democracy: Arendt’s Response to Populism”, University of Sussex (UK)
16:00-16:30 | Lars Vadjina, “Make Earth Great Again: Nationalist Futurism in Space Policy and Astro-Narratives”, University of Tübingen (Germany)
16:30 – 17:30 | Break

Keynote speaker

17:30 – 19:00 | Carl Raschke, “The Trendline is Toward Global Populism: So Who’s Sovereign Now?”, University of Denver (US)

Respondent: Michel Staudigl, University of Vienna

Carl Raschke

Carl Raschke is Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Denver in Colorado (US). He is the author of over 20 books and hundreds of scholarly articles over his more than half century academic career. His most recent books include Sovereignty in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), Neoliberalism and Political Theology: From Kant to Identity Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2019, Force of God: Political Theology and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2015), and The Revolution in Religious Theory: Toward a Semiotics of the Event (University of Virginia Press, 2012). He is the co-founder and senior editor of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory. He was named University Lecture at Denver for 2020-21. He serves on the board of the Center for Religion and Transformation at the ‘University of Vienna. He is also a regular contributor to thegloboscope.com.

19:00 – 19:30 | Alar Kilp, “Populism, Nationalism, and Moral Politics in Secular Estonia: Religion and Identity from the 1990s to Wartime Securitization”, University of Tartu (Estonia)
19:30 – 20:00 | Kevin Hujing, “Parties of Enmity: Rival Myths, Mimesis, and the Future of Democracy”, Metropolitan State University of Denver (US)
20:00 – 20:30 | Nazmul Arefin, “The Rise of Right-Wing Populism, Anti-Muslim Hate, and De-democratization: Reckoning Global North-South Nexus”, University of Alberta (Canada)

20:30-21:00 | Tomasz‑Łukasz Stanowski, “Populism , Symbolic Violence, and Synodality: A Comparative Study of the Pontificates of John Paul II and Francis”, Jagiellonian University (Poland

21:30 | Adjourn

Saturday, Sept. 27

12:30-13:00 | Marko Krtolica, “Challenging the Global Order: How Radical Right Parties in Western and Eastern Europe Differ”, Iustinius Primus Faculty of Law (North Macedonia)
13:00 – 13:30 | Maria Eduardo Costa and David Geraldes Santos, “Populist mythification and the moralization of politics: André Ventura as the people’s prophet in Portugal”, University of Beira Interior (Portugal)
13:30 – 14:00 | Kamal Makili-Aliyev, “Populism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Irredentism: Lessons from the Miatsum Movement”, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)
14:00 – 14:30 | Jyot S. Singh, “Populist Authoritarianism or Authoritarian Populism? Rethinking Regime Typologies through the Lens of Discourse, Jindal School of International Affairs (India)
14:30 – 15:00 | Joshua J. Ocon, “Between Logos and Loyalty: Does the Fanatic have a place in a Democracy?”, University of the Philippines – Dilman (Philippines)
15:00 – 15:30 | Dean Caivano, “Populism as Alibi: Weekend at Bernie’s and the Narrative Logic of Necro-Sovereignty”, Leheigh University (US)
15:30 – 16:00 | Efimija Zajkovska, “Religion as a Political Resource: Populistic and Authoritarian Abuses of Religion in Post-Socialist European Countries”,
16:00 – 16:30 | Nina Viaznikova, “Building National Identity: The Political Use of Architectural Reconstruction”, ”, Iustinius Primus Faculty of Law (North Macedonia)
16:00-17:00 | Anna Peterson, “Populism, Nationalism, and the War on Woke”, University of Florida.
17:00 – 17:15 | Break
17:15 – 18:00 | Closing Group Session (ALL ATTENDEES ARE ENCOURAGED TO PARTICPATE)
13:00 – 13:30 | Maria Eduardo Costa and David Geraldes Santos, “Populist mythification and the moralization of politics: André Ventura as the people’s prophet in Portugal”, University of Beira Interior (Portugal)
13:30 – 14:00 | Kamal Makili-Aliyev, “Populism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Irredentism: Lessons from the Miatsum Movement”, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)
14:00 – 14:30 | Jyot S. Singh, “Populist Authoritarianism or Authoritarian Populism? Rethinking Regime Typologies through the Lens of Discourse, Jindal School of International Affairs (India)
14:30 – 15:00 | Joshua J. Ocon, “Between Logos and Loyalty: Does the Fanatic have a place in a Democracy?”, University of the Philippines – Dilman (Philippines)
15:00 – 15:30 | Dean Caivano, “Populism as Alibi: Weekend at Bernie’s and the Narrative Logic of Necro-Sovereignty”, Leheigh University (US)
15:30 – 16:00 | Efimija Zajkovska, “Religion as a Political Resource: Populistic and Authoritarian Abuses of Religion in Post-Socialist European Countries”,
16:00 – 16:30 | Nina Viaznikova, “Building National Identity: The Political Use of Architectural Reconstruction”, Iustinius Primus Faculty of Law (North Macedonia)
16:00-17:00 | Anna Peterson, “Populism, Nationalism, and the War on Woke”, University of Florida.

17:00 – 17:15 | **Break

17:15 – 18:00 | Closing Group Session (ALL ATTENDEES ARE ENCOURAGED TO PARTICPATE)

Footnotes

As the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory works toward a special issue on Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy, our goal is to create an interdisciplinary forum to examine these pressing issues. We encourage contributions from a spectrum of perspectives, approaches, and methodologies.

Themes and Topics:

religion, race, class, and secular ideology in the formation of populism cadres and national identity
the varieties of populism with reference to local cultures and national legacies
the tension and conflict between neoliberal concepts of global order and populist movements
competing political theories of democracy and their historical and intellectual sources
forms of “moral politics” (in George Lakoff’s phrasing), or the interaction of socio-ethical value frames and their political manifestations
globalization, the “postmodern” fracturing of social identity, and its impact on democratic governance
religious nationalisms and their significance, or lack thereof
the nuanced meaning of the term “authoritarianism”, including focused case studies
political and religious “mythmaking” in the genesis of populist and nationalist insurgencies

Conference on Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy – Call for Papers and Presentations (Conferences)

2025-04-18T20:11:47Z

When: Sept. 25-26, 2025

Where: Online

Submission deadline: Aug. 1, 2025

Sponsored by the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory in Collaboration with the University of Denver

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) invites proposals for an online conference of Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy to be held Sept. 25-26, 2025. The proceedings will be published and developed into a special issue of the JCRT in 2026. Prizes of $300, $150, and $100 will be awarded for first, second, and third place in the competition among final submitted papers. Only papers that are submitted and selected for the conference will be eligible for the prize.

The conference organizers are seeking proposals of high academic quality that take a reflective and analytical approach in consideration of both general and specific topics that have an international appeal or focus. We are not interested in papers that are de facto advocacy pieces, political screeds, or defamatory harangues against certain nations, peoples, or groups.

Themes and Topics

We encourage submissions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following areas of inquiry:

religion, race, class, and secular ideology in the formation of populism cadres and national identity
the varieties of populism with reference to local cultures and national legacies
the tension and conflict between neoliberal concepts of global order and populist movements
competing political theories of democracy and their historical and intellectual sources
forms of “moral politics” (in George Lakoff’s phrasing), or the interaction of socio-ethical value frames and their political manifestations
globalization, the “postmodern” fracturing of social identity, and its impact on democratic governance
religious nationalisms and their significance, or lack thereof
the nuanced meaning of the term “authoritarianism”, including focused case studies
political and religious “mythmaking” in the genesis of populist and nationalist insurgencies

Submission Guidelines

Submission of Proposals: Contributors should send an abstract of 300-500 words outlining their proposal and its relevance to the theme of the conference/special issue. Panels and oral presentations as well as finished papers are welcome. Proposals should at the top provide the following information: Full Name, Professional Title, Institutional Affiliation, Email, Telephone number, Proposal Title.

Publication: All conference presenters will be invited to submit finished articles no later than Feb. 1, 2026. Submissions will be peer-reviewed and selected for a special issue in 2026.

Important Dates:

Abstract Submission Deadline: Aug. 1, 2025
Notification of Acceptance: Sept. 1, 2025
Full Paper Submission Deadline: Feb. 1, 2026
Notification of Acceptance for Publication: Apr. 15, 2026
Expected Publication: June 2026

Submission Process

All proposals should be submitted as email attachments to the editor via the contact form with the header “Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Demovtsvy – [Title]”.JCRT

Special Issue On Religion and Bioethics (Call for Papers)

2025-01-23T04:03:41Z

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to the intersection of religion and bioethics. This issue seeks to explore how religious beliefs, ethical frameworks, and cultural values intersect with the challenges of medical and biotechnological advancements. We welcome contributions that offer theoretical insights, critique existing paradigms, and propose new avenues for understanding the role of religion in bioethical decision-making.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

The influence of religious traditions on contemporary bioethical debates.
Case studies illustrating the role of religious ethics in healthcare settings.
Comparative analyses of religious perspectives on issues such as euthanasia, organ donation, and genetic engineering.
The impact of religious pluralism on bioethical policy-making.
The role of religious leaders and institutions in shaping public bioethical discourse.
Ethical implications of emerging biotechnologies in the context of religious worldviews.
Intersections of secular bioethics and religious moral frameworks.

We encourage submissions that address these topics through various methodologies and perspectives, including theoretical reflections, philosophical analyses, historical studies, and empirical research. Contributions from diverse religious backgrounds and interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome.

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts: Articles should be at least 2,000 words in length, including references.
Format: Submissions must be in PDF or Word form.
Citations: All citations should be in Chicago Manuel of Style.
Deadline: All manuscripts must be submitted by May 1st, 2025.
Submission Process: Please submit your manuscript electronically along with a Curriculum Vitae via to the contact formwith the heading “Religion and Bioethics Manuscript.”

All submissions will undergo a peer-review process. For inquiries regarding this special issue, please contact the chief editor at carl.raschke@jcrt.org or assistant editors at kev.grane@du.edu.We look forward to receiving a range of insightful and thought-provoking contributions that advance our understanding of the complex relationships between religion and bioethics.

Religion and Bioethics (Conferencee)

2024-12-18T18:23:13Z

When: Jan. 9-10, 2025

Where: Online

Register Now

Sponsored by the The Whitestone Foundation dba The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory in collaboration with the University of Denver.

The conference seeks to explore the complex and evolving intersection between religious beliefs, ethical principles, and bioethical concerns that have become prominent in contemporary social discourse.

The burgeoning field of bioethics, which seeks to navigate complex and often controversial issues in medical practice, biotechnology, and public health, finds itself in constant dialogue with questions of moral and ethical responsibility. Religion, as a fundamental aspect of human life and culture, contributes richly to this discourse, offering frameworks that shape individuals’ ethical orientations and responses to bioethical dilemmas.

Historically, religious traditions have deeply influenced moral philosophy and ethical decision-making. From the Hippocratic Oath to modern-day debates on genetic engineering, assisted reproduction, and end-of-life care, religious thought provides vital insights and moral considerations.

Various religions have taken stances on the inherent dignity of human life, the moral limits of medical intervention, and the sanctity of the human body. These stances continue to significantly impact legislation, medical practice, and public opinion on bioethical matters.

As the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory works toward a special issue on Religion and Bioethics, we aim to create an interdisciplinary forum to examine these pressing issues. This special issue seeks to facilitate a richer understanding by bringing together scholarly contributions that investigate how religious beliefs and ethical principles interact within the realm of bioethics. We encourage contributions from a spectrum of perspectives, approaches, and methodologies.

Program

All times given are Mountain Standard Time (Denver)

Thursday, Jan. 9

8:00 am

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Carl Raschke, University of Denver

8:30 am

The Sacred End: Ethics and Practice of Sallekhanā in Jainism

Nisha Daga, Institute of Technology Jodhpur, India

9:00 am

Suffering and Dying in Modern Pandemics: A Parallel Reading of I. Illich, G. Agamben and B.-C. Han

Kyriaki Grammenou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

9:30 am

Bioengineering and Religious Mythmaking

J.C. Smith, University of Denver

10:00 am

A Multicultural Approach to Moral Diversity in Religious Bioethics

Chris Durante, Saint Peter’s University

10:30 am

Faith and Transitions: Religious Notions of Accountability and Gender Affirming Care for Youth

Kev Grane, University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology

11:00 am

Religion, Bioethics, and the Juridification of the World: Legal Frameworks and Moral Dilemmas

Malwina A. Tkacz, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Poland

11:30 am

What is Conscience Besides Integrity? Secular and Quasi-Secular Justifications for Conscientious Objection in Healthcare

Dennis Lunt, Bemidji State University, Northwest Technical College, University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics

13:00 pm

Panel Discussion: Religion and Bioethics – Foundational Issues for the Near Future

Wylin Wilson, Duke Divinity School; Michael Buratovich, Spring Arbor University; Carl Raschke, University of Denver, Moderator

14:00 pm

Collapse of Confucianism and Intellectual Suicides in Early 20th-Century China

Genn Ruann, University of California; Xiaoqian Zhang, Northeast Normal University

14:30 pm

AI and the Enabling of Violence? Identity, Gnosticism, and Language in the Technological Society

Matthew Vest, Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Ohio State University

15:00 pm

Doxastic Neutrality in AI: A New Paradigm for Managing Uncertainty in Medical Decisions

Nesim Aslantatar, Indiana University (Bloomington)

15:30 pm

Eunkang Koh, Seoul National University of Science and Technology

Ethical Issues of CRISPR and Genome Editing through the Lens of Religious Values in South Korea

16:00 pm

Karey Harwood, North Carolina State University

Reconsidering the Significance of Biogenetic Ties

16:30 pm

Isabela Rosales, University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology

Faith, Policy, and Reproductive Healthcare in Colorado: In the Wake of a Forced Migration Crisis

Friday, Jan. 10

These two collaborative sessions will consist in plenary online discussions concerning the shaping of public agendas as well as public discourse about religion and bioethics that will draw on points or themes introduced in the conference presentations. All contributors and attendees are urged to be involved. A transcript will be produced and may be edited into some format for future publication.

8:00 am

Collaborative session I

9:15 am

Break

9:30 am

Collaborative session II

10:45 am

Break

11:00 am

Wrap up

11:30 am

Adjourn

Healing As A Multimedia Practice – Contemporary Spirituality In Turkey, Part 1 (Duygu Sendag)

2024-10-17T23:09:22Z

The following article is published in three installments.

Introduction

Zeynep, a 37-year-old Turkish woman, comes from a secular family background. She has traveled to Bali and India on different occasions to participate in yoga and meditation courses. Her main goal for joining these activities was to heal her childhood traumas and release emotions related to unpleasant memories. During both courses, much to her surprise, the facilitators led the group in a chant of an ‘eastern mantra,’ the zikr^[1] of the phrase La ilahe illallah. Zeynep says, “We all stood up, held hands, and started singing La ilahe illallah accompanied by a guitar, while also turning around hand in hand!”.

She explains that in her friend and family circles, public expressions of Islam, such as reciting religious expressions in Arabic, did not exist and were not appreciated. Therefore, hearing the Arabic phrase during the activity stirred mixed feelings in her; on the one hand, she felt ‘at home,’ but on the other, she could not help thinking how ‘that thing’ found her there—in a yoga and meditation course. Zeynep continues to engage in Sufi readings and practice yoga and meditation, which she sees as instruments that heal her ‘inner child’ on the path to reaching her own truth and finding her ‘authentic’ self.^[2]

What particularly strikes my curiosity in Zeynep’s narrative is how a practice, previously unimaginable for someone like her—a ‘secular,’ ‘modern,’ and ‘free’ woman, as she describes herself—has become imaginable. What are the underlying conditions through which the zikr or chanting La ilahe illallah, laden with political implications, particularly in the Turkish context, becomes a sensible practice in specific situations for a secular individual? What are the processes by which certain religious and traditional practices get delinked from their particular cultural contexts and find new meanings? Lastly, in what ways are new connections and continuities drawn between past and present or old and new, such as between Sufi rituals and therapeutic methods for trauma processing?

To answer these questions, I will present an analysis of contemporary spiritual practices from the theoretical framework of “religion as mediation.” I argue that healing practices emerge as the primary practices of mediation through which individuals seek to transcend the ordinary and form links between a number of culturally meaningful dichotomies, such as external and internal, visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious, constructed and authentic/real. I suggest that the notion of healing acquires its specific meaning through an interplay between religion and psychology, whereby old practices get refashioned within a psychologizing framework and acquire a ‘therapeutic’ label.

Once religious practices are framed as therapeutic, they are rearticulated in scientific terms and rationalized based on their effects on the psychological and physiological functions of the human body. The therapeutic serves as a frame within which individuals reorganize diverse past forms and draw links between them. Hence, the meaning of healing in contemporary spiritual forms extends far beyond a mere elimination of a disease, recovery from sickness, or the transformation of self. It rather refers to a ‘world repairing’ process, occurring at both personal and collective levels, whereby participants of the contemporary spiritual milieu gather the fragments of past forms and recombine them in personalized bricolages through the mediation of the therapeutic. In this way, past and present, old and new, sacred and secular, mystical and rational are recomposed into one coherent, consistent, and continuous whole where the individual can safely dwell.

This study draws primarily on data gathered between 2018 and 2020 during a joint research project funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.^[3] The fieldwork spanned five different cities, and 72 interviews were conducted with individuals who either organized or participated in activities that fall outside of institutional or traditional forms of faith. As part of the research team, I took part in various events, workshops, circles, and retreats which involved different combinations of practices, such as yoga, meditation, shamanic and Sufi rituals, tai chi, qigong, homeopathy, storytelling, art therapy, astrology, breath therapy, energy healing, reiki, detox diets, ayurveda, mindfulness technics, regression therapy, feng shui, aromatherapy, family constellation, and numerology.

Some participants were primarily interested in affecting a change in their personal lives and some others, who saw themselves as ‘changemakers’, believed that change at the individual level would also work as a positive transformative force upon the larger community. The existing literature recognizes that the meaning of healing in contemporary spiritual forms is much more than a simple elimination of an illness or a disease. For instance, Meredith McGuire observed that for adherents of very different healing approaches, healing signified a particular type of ‘self-transformation’.^[4] Beckford (1984) suggested that new religious and healing movements in North America and Europe cultivate and promote a distinctive relationship between ethics, spirituality, and healing.^[5]

The majority of relevant academic works focus on the therapeutic techniques adopted by diverse groups, the different conceptualizations of body, mind, and soul in healing systems, and the ways healing effects and experiences are produced. However, the existing literature has not sufficiently explored the questions of why and how healing has become such a central theme in religious/spiritual discourse.^[6] I believe the reason is because despite the recognition that the signification of the notion varies culturally, ‘to be healed’ is somehow assumed to be a major function and a desired state for all religious and spiritual cultures. In my analysis, I intend to problematize this assumption by providing a brief comparison as to the varying significations of healing in different spiritual and religious cultures existing in Turkey. In so doing, I aim to contextualize the central position of healing in contemporary spiritual forms and relate it to the rise of ‘therapy culture’ and the spread of the therapeutic language.

The paper is structured as follows: First, I review the media perspective in religious studies and explain how I use the therapeutic as a historically specific medium, a product of a scientific endeavor to articulate and manage human processes. Second, I present the meanings that the notion of healing has acquired in various spiritual and religious discourses in Turkey to avoid a generic understanding of the concept and to highlight the distinctive forms it has taken in contemporary spiritualities. Third, I discuss how the therapeutic as a medium interacts with religious mediums and remediates past forms, initiating connections between systems and processes that were previously considered to be discrete and incompatible. Finally, I examine how the initiated connections come to define healing as a ‘world repairing’ act, through which both the individual and the world are constructed as wholes made up of connected parts, rather than disconcerted fragments.

Culture, Mediation, and Therapeutic Media

The line of scholarship that views religion as mediation concentrates on the diverse ways whereby the ‘distance’ between the earthly and the divine or the visible and the invisible are mediated in different religious/spiritual traditions^[7] . The focus, in this approach, is placed on the techniques and technologies referred to as ‘medium,’ through which communication with and about ‘the sacred’ becomes possible.^[8] Here, a medium is not taken as a fixed genre or a simple vehicle of communication that embeds a particular content. Instead, a medium is seen as a cultural construction endowed with the power to serve a particular purpose, the value of which is also generated and embraced by groups or individuals in a given context.

Examples of a religious medium might involve both material and nonmaterial things, such as certain bodily practices, sensations, performances, words, books, images, prayers, prophecies, music, dance, spirit mediums, priests, healers, prophets, amulets, icons, oils, powders, incenses, liquids, shrines, temples, churches, mosques, audiocassettes, or videos (De Witte 2008: 19). In a similar vein, Quran is also a religious medium, and a variety of practices derived from it, such as reciting verses, producing Islamic calligraphy, or chanting the zikr of the phrase La ilahe illallah, are mediation practices through which the sacred word is channeled on earth in various aural and visual forms. Such practices are endowed with power in mediating the assumed ‘distance’ between the sacred and the profane.^[9] Therefore, performing them is considered to incite a process of transformation that will progressively render humans ‘closer’ to the sacred presence.

Mediation is intrinsic to culture; experience is constructed and put into the narrative through the recognized forms of mediation in a particular cultural context. In this paper, the way I use ‘therapeutic’ is also related to a historically specific cultural framework which is termed ‘therapy culture’ to refer to the distinctive influence of psychotherapeutic language in shaping our understanding of what is sensible, possible, communicable, and doable.^[10] My use of ‘therapeutic’ should not be confused with the term’s clinical connotations that inform the relationship between a patient and a therapist. Rather, by ‘therapeutic,’ I mean a range of practices and discursive tools that help mediate between a series of dichotomies, such as internal vs. external^[11] , conscious and unconscious, visible vs. invisible, known vs. unknown, self vs. the other, representation vs. reality, rational vs. irrational, chaos vs. order, discord vs. harmony, and conflict vs. unity.

These tools, which I will refer to as ‘therapeutic media’^[12] from now on, involve a variety of concepts, narrative templates, idioms, causal frameworks, vocabularies, explanatory schemas, methods, techniques, procedures, treatments, and modes of intervention through which human beings build their world and make sense of it. Therapeutic media reifies that world and the ‘therapy culture’ by acting as an institutionally authorized medium, that draws links between various oppositions and oversees a sensible exchange between them. Different from religious mediums, therapeutic media does not necessarily claim to mediate between the sacred and profane. On the contrary, its emergence was a result of a search for materialistic explanations for the ‘higher mental powers of humans,’ which were traditionally associated with the realm of the divine.^[13]

The history of therapeutic media goes back to the emergence of psychology as a modern scientific discipline in Europe and North America in the second half of the 19th century. Though a multiplicity of approaches within psychology and its cognates existed, the discipline evolved alongside and out of the secularization processes. It sought to find laws, procedures, and techniques with which the ‘hidden’ aspects of human thinking and behavior could be rendered not only visible and intelligible but also manageable.^[14] It, therefore, is taken as a ‘technology of self,’ that constructed the contemporary apparatus for ‘being human’.^[15] Thus, therapeutic media does not only incorporate tools for ‘world-building’, but it also directs humans in terms of how to inhabit that world.

Changing Meaning of Healing

Most scholars recognize the central role of healing in contemporary spiritual practices. However, there has been insufficient exploration into the specific meanings this complex notion has acquired within contemporary spiritual forms. I believe that the elevated status of healing in contemporary societies often obscures its potential negative connotations or its peripheral position within various religious and spiritual cultures. The excerpt from Hervieu-Léger’s work, wherein she describes healing as one of the three primary themes of new spiritualities, aptly illustrates my point:

The first thematic focus, and undoubtedly the most central, is that of the representations and expectations relating to health and healing. It will rightly be pointed out that the centrality of the theme of healing in contemporary forms of faith does not present any originality [emphasis added]. Protection against disease concerns the mortality of humans, which is already a central object of all known forms of magic. The return to health constitutes, in all human societies [emphasis added]one of the main purposes of ritual mobilization and supernatural powers. No religion fails to address, though in varying forms, the fundamental human urge to escape suffering and illness (Translation from French is mine).^[16]

In the above passage, an unquestioned relationship is assumed between healing and spirituality, and healing is framed, in a way, as the ultimate function of religion/spirituality. I consider Régis Dericquebourg’s book, Croire et Guérir (To Believe and to Heal), particularly important in this respect, because he adopts a historical perspective and refrains from assigning a fixed position to healing in religious discourse. Dericquebourg’s main argument is that while healing was only peripherical within the matrix of other theological notions, it constitutes the central pillar of practices and doctrines for religions founded through the late 19th and the early 20th centuries.^[17] Moreover, although terms like ‘healing,’ ‘health,’ ‘illness,’ and ‘suffering’ have been fundamental in shaping human cultures, they do not carry fixed meanings or clear positive/negative connotations. Instead, they work as metaphors for understanding how a social reality is constructed in a specific context.

Consequently, I believe that examining the various meanings of healing, while giving due attention to the authorized forms of mediation within the broader cultural context, can offer a more nuanced understanding of the concept. Below, I present a brief outline of spiritism and the signification of healing within the spiritist culture, yet another non-institutionalized form, which emerged and rose in popularity in the 1940s, alongside the secularization policies promoted and imposed by the Turkish Republic. The comparative framework will help to contextualize the therapeutic turn in contemporary spiritualities by allowing to trace the (dis)continuities between these two forms. The particular meaning of healing in these two distinct non-institutional forms is informed by the different positions they have taken vis- à-vis science, in particular, psychology and religion.

My focus, therefore, will be primarily on two things; first, the selectivity at work in how spiritism and more contemporary spiritual forms appropriated certain psychological concepts, and second, their attitude towards Sufi traditions, which have heavily influenced both the institutionalized form of Islam and heterodox religious forms practiced throughout the country.

Duygu Sendag is Assistant Professor at Uskudar University in Turkey. Sendag has a PhD in Civilization Studies from Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul.

Footnotes

Zikr literally means ‘remembering.’ In Sufi culture, it is the practice of repeating the same Quranic expressions over and over as a way of remembering God. La ilahe illallah literally means ‘There is no God but God.’ ↩︎
Pseudonyms are used for all interlocutors throughout the article. ↩︎
This research project was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Project number 215K300). ↩︎
Meredith B. McGuire, Ritual Healing in Suburban America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988). ↩︎
James A. Beckford, “Holistic Imagery and Ethics in New Religious and Healing Movements,” Social Compass, 31(2-3) (1984), pp. 259-272. ↩︎
I use religion only with reference to the institutionalized forms of belief. My usage of spirituality, however, comprises both institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms. ↩︎
Hent de Vries, “Media Res: Global Religion, Public Spheres, and the Task of Contemporary Comparative Religious Studies,” in Religion and Media, ed. Hent de Vries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 3–43; Birgit Meyer, “Religious Remediations: Pentecostal Views in Ghanaian Video-Movies,” Postscripts 1, no 2/3 (2005), pp. 155-181; David Morgan, “Introduction: Religion, media, culture: the shape of the field,” in Key Words in Religion, Media and Culture*,* ed.David Morgan (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 1-19. ↩︎
Jeremy Stolow, “Religion and/as Media,” Theory, Culture and Society 22/4 (2005), p. 125. ↩︎
Joel Robbins, “Keeping God’s distance: sacrifice, possession and the problem of religious mediation,” American Ethnologist 44/3 (2017), p. 464. ↩︎
Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, (London and New York: Routledge, 2004); Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of faith after Freud (New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London: Harper Torchbooks, 1968); Eva Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions and the Culture of Self-Help (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2008); Nikolas Rose, Inventing our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). ↩︎
It is also possible to formulate the distinction between internal and external through more psychological terminology: the ‘demands of the unconscious’ vs. the ‘imperatives of the superego.’ ↩︎
Throughout the article, I use both ‘medium’ and ‘media.’ Though I do not see a difference in meaning, I keep both terms to differentiate between old and new mediums. Therefore, when I mention religious forms, I use ‘medium’ and for therapeutic ones, I use ‘media.’ ↩︎
Wade E Pickren and Alexandra Rutherford, A history of modern psychology in context (New Jersey: Wiley, 2010): 8. ↩︎
Rose, Inventing our Selves, p. 11. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 2. ↩︎
Danièle Hervieu-Léger, “Bricolage vaut-il dissémination? Quelques réflexions sur l’opérationnalité sociologique d’une métaphore problématique,” Social Compass 52/3 (2005): 301. ↩︎
Dericquebourg defines a new category called ‘Healing Religions’ (Religions de Guérison) based on his analysis of the following four religions: Scientology, Christian Science, Antoinism, and Invitation of Life. See Régis Dericquebourg, Croire et guérir – Quatre religions de guérison (Paris: Dervy, 2001): 12. ↩︎

Greening America’s Virtues (Nick Mather)

2024-10-02T11:59:01Z

The United States likes to present itself as a global leader, yet, when it comes to tackling what is arguably the greatest crisis facing humanity, global climate change, we have fallen woefully short of that idea. The nation’s failure to adequately address the climate crisis is in part the product of an American vision of the good life predicated on endless cycles of consumption that drives environmental destruction and contributes to a changing climate.

This vision, partnered with flat-out denial of environmental problems by some politicians, and the inability to cross ideological divides point to something profoundly amiss with America’s values and politics. Stalemate, not reason, rules the day. Given the warnings by the international scientific community as well as the Department of Defense, the inability, or refusal, of the United States government to seriously address global climate change is both a political and moral failure. How can this be fixed? Can it be fixed?

It can be repaired. The answer lies in the republican tradition of virtue. The United States was founded as a republic. Republicanism was the ideology of the Enlightenment.^[1] The term ‘republic’ derives from the Latin res publica, which Knud Haakonssen explains was the “public realm of affairs that people had in common outside their familial lives” and has traditionally been known as the common weal, or commonwealth.

A republic also referred to the “institutional structures of public life” according to which the public would participate in the ways that government structures were organized.^[2] With an emphasis on the common good and citizen participation, a republic was considered the most just form of government. Achieving justice, the virtue of the state, required virtue from the citizens and their representatives.

The republican form of government has its roots in Greek philosophy, particularly within the thought of Plato and Aristotle. Central to their ideas of creating a just government was the concept of virtue, those qualities, traits and dispositions that contribute to the formation of an excellent character. According to Aristotle, virtue is a necessary condition for an individual to achieve a happy, flourishing life. Likewise, virtue is a necessary condition for a republic to achieve both justice and the common good.

Some philosophers have argued that virtues are an essential component of any environmental ethic, which Ronald Sandler defines as the norms of action or norms of character that govern our interaction with the environment and have begun the work of forming an environmental virtue ethic.^[3] Environmental virtues are the appropriate dispositions, qualities, or character traits humans need to cultivate in order to have beneficial interactions and relationships with the environment and non-human animals.^[4]

As Sandler observes, any meaningful changes to environmental policies and practices will require a transformation in human habits towards the environment. As such, a virtuous character is necessary for progressing right action and behavior.^[5] A complete environmental ethic must include virtue. Environmental virtue can provide the necessary wisdom in applying action-guiding rules and principles to particular situations. Environmental virtue may also aid in weighing conflicting moral demands or arbitrating between a plurality of value sources and justifications. ^[6]

In her book *Dirty Virtues,^[7] * Louke Van Wensveen reviewed environmental literature, including works by social ecologists, deep ecologists, animal rights activists, creation theologians, ecofeminists and environmental philosophers published after 1970 and identified 189 virtues and 174 vices.^[8] The virtues Van Wensveen discovered were largely drawn from the traditional Aristotelian concept of virtues. However, she claims that ecological virtue language differs from this tradition in that some of the traditional vices and virtues are reinterpreted and reversed.

For example, mastery is a traditional virtue with positive connotations; in environmental literature mastery over nature is seen as a primary cause of environmental crises and as such is a vice.^[9] The environmental virtue language unearthed by Van Wensveen is an emerging, diverse discourse in which different thinkers stress different virtues and vices.

Yet, it is a distinct moral vocabulary in which certain virtues like benevolence, care, compassion, frugality, gratitude and vices such as anthropocentrism, arrogance, greed and ignorance, constitute the moral landscape.^[10] She claimed that in her research she had yet to discover a work of “ecologically sensitive philosophy, theology, or ethics that does not in some way incorporate virtue language.”^[11] Virtue, it would seem, is an inherent part of the language of environmental ethics.

Environmental virtue ethicists such as Geoffrey Frasz, Philip Cafaro and Ronald Sandler have largely focused on extending classical virtues such as benevolence, gratitude, compassion and moderation to environmental concerns. They have also examined the lives of persons who could be considered environmental exemplars and the virtues that they embodied.

Environmental virtue ethicists have also investigated the ways in which the natural world informs human character. What has largely been missing is the possibility of deriving environmental virtues from civic virtues. In her review of some of the primary publications in the field of environmental virtue ethics, Marilyn Holly observed environmental virtue theory lacks an accompanying political theory.^[12]

John Barry commented the “language of civic republicanism has been largely absent from debates within green politics and theories of the politics and ethics of sustainability.”^[13] Given that virtue is a necessary requirement for the success of a republic and that virtue is a primary component of environmental ethics, its absence in political and ethical debates is surprising.

A possible explanation for this is that modern, liberal governments like that of the United States have focused on rights rather than virtue. This tends to emphasize the democratic process, liberty, and freedom rather than the character of the citizen. Rights are essential in protecting the interests of minority communities from what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the tyranny of the majority.” Yet, de Tocqueville also recognized the importance of traditional customs and virtues, what he called “the habits of the heart,” in tempering individualism and the tyranny of the majority. As such, rights are not free from virtue; rights are supported by virtue.

Brian Treanor notes much of the literature on environmental virtue ethics focuses on personal rather than public virtues. He suggests that the reason political virtues have largely been ignored is because it is easier to determine how an individual may act versus an entire citizenry. Furthermore, he notes there is a contemporary inclination to treat environmental virtues as private personal choices that may contribute to one’s personal happiness but are “neither essential for flourishing nor social in scope.”^[14] However, Treanor argues that public virtues, in particular political virtues that he identifies as a subset of public virtues, are the “keystone” for environmental virtue ethics. Without these political virtues, Treanor claims, “the whole edifice of environmental virtue is doomed to fall.”^[15]

A few environmental virtue ethicists have taken steps to rectify the lack of political virtue in environmental virtue ethics. By using Plato’s Republic as a model, Melissa Lane argues that we must recognize ourselves as citizens of eco-republics who take responsibility in creating a common good in which we all share.^[16]

Treanor also contributes by arguing the importance of recognizing that humans live in community, often in several overlapping communities at once, so the individual’s flourishing cannot be isolated from the communities in which they live. Treanor argues that “environmentalism must come to be thought of in terms that are explicitly and unavoidably political” because “in a commons, either we are all saved or none of us is saved.”^[17]

I believe we can develop a more comprehensive environmental virtue ethic that is informed by the civic virtues required of American citizens and which is also consistent with our religious past and spiritual present. In his 1984 book After Virtue. Alasdair MacIntyre argued that moral philosophy must begin in historical and social tradition. He wrote:

I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation, a variety of debts, inheritances, rightful expectations and obligations. These constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point. This is in part what gives my life its own moral particularity.^[18]

Building on MacIntyre’s idea of grounding an ethic in history and social tradition, it can be demonstrated that there is an American tradition of virtue that can be utilized to inform a uniquely American environmental virtue ethic. By examining the primary writings of American politicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals a set of core American virtues can be identified.

After discovering these virtues within the American tradition, they can be compared with the virtues identified by Van Wensveen to see if they can also serve as environmental virtues, demonstrating that civic virtues can also be environmental virtues. My hope is that this will provide a path forward from the current political stalemate regarding environmental policy. Encouraging virtues in American citizens can both strengthen our government and lessen our impact on the natural world.

Perhaps the best place to begin exploring the tradition of American virtue is with Benjamin Franklin, the epitome of the self-made man. Franklin believed the key to his success, and therefore success for anyone, could be found in the practice of virtue. He devoted an entire chapter of his autobiography to his pursuit of virtue and identified thirteen virtues to be practiced in the pursuit of moral perfection including temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.^[19]

Although he clearly identified as a deist who rejected the idea of divine revelation, Franklin believed that “religious practices were beneficial because they encouraged good behavior and a moral society.”^[20] Indeed, that was the role many of the founders believed churches served the fledgling republic—instilling virtues into the citizenry. This is the reason Franklin supported a religious revival, the First Great Awakening, which swept through the colonies in the 1730s and 40s. The Great Awakening would help set the stage for American democracy. At its center was the evangelical preacher Jonathan Edwards who, like Franklin, would teach the necessity of virtue.

Although Edwards is more often than not associated with the hellfire and eternal damnation described in his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, that is not entirely representative of his thought. Edwards viewed the natural world as evidence of God’s eternal love and creativity. Since God’s creation was good, the natural world could be a source of virtue. In his The Nature of True Virtue, Edwards wrote that true virtue “consists in benevolence to Being in general…it is that consent, propensity and union of heart to Being in general, that is immediately exercised in a general good will.”^[21]

George Marsden explains that for Edwards, a loving God was at the center of creation who was constantly pouring forth His love to His creation so “the highest good is to return that love to God. If we truly love God, then we should also love what God loves, which is everything in creation, excepting evil or the negation of love.”^[22] According to Edwards then, to live virtuously is to love God’s creation. We should love others, and the natural world, regardless of personal benefit or self-interest. Furthermore, in “Beauty of the World”, Edwards suggests that the beauty of the natural world mirrored the beauty of virtue:

The fields and woods seem to rejoice, and how joyful do the birds seem to be in it. How much a resemblance is there of every grace in the fields covered with plants and flowers, when the sun shines serenely and undisturbedly upon them. How a resemblance, I say, of every grace and beautiful disposition of mind; of an inferior towards a superior cause, preserver, benevolent benefactor, and a fountain of happiness…How great a resemblance of a holy and virtuous soul in a calm serene day.^[23]

By emphasizing the goodness of creation and that true virtue lies in benevolence towards the natural world, Edwards’s theology can help inform an environmental virtue ethic that can appeal to American religious sentiments. Perhaps appealing to the founder of American evangelicalism and his theocentrism can help counter a strain of anti-environmentalism that runs through contemporary evangelical thought and help open a dialogue with the evangelical community.

Because Jonathan Edwards died in 1758, did not live to see the American Revolution. There is no denying, however, that he was influential in the creation during subsequent decades of the American character and culture. The Revolution was considered a moral as well as a political revolution.

In the 1760s and 1770s, enormous attention was paid to the issue of virtue, which was seen as more political and historical than theological (Gaustad 1993, 54). However, the political and religious observance of virtue cannot be so easily separated. Perhaps due to their religious heritage, many colonists held the view that there was something uniquely virtuous about Americans. Some viewed the success of the revolution as evidence of divine favor.

Given the opportunity to create a government, there was little question that Americans would attempt to construct a republic. All of the colonies had republican forms of government based on the republics of England.^[24] The question was whether Americans were truly virtuous enough to maintain a republic. As such, virtue was on nearly every American mind even before the daunting task of creating a national government presented itself to a fledgling nation.

The writers of the constitution drew upon over 2,000 years of political philosophy that taught that for a republic to succeed, citizens and elected officials had to be persons of virtue. Many colonists held the view that there was something uniquely virtuous about Americans, evidenced by the success of the revolution. Given the opportunity to create a government, there was little question that Americans would attempt to construct a republic. Indeed, the founders believed they were creating a republic of virtue led by virtuous men chosen by virtuous people to represent them.

Most Americans know the apocryphal story of a six-year-old Washington telling his father that he could not tell a lie after admitting to using a hatchet that he received as a gift to hack at a cherry tree. It is a didactic tale used to demonstrate Washington’s honesty, and also that virtue was an innate characteristic of the president. The tale is pure fiction though, invented by one of Washington’s earliest biographers who wanted to portray Washington as a moral exemplar for Americans

Although the story of the cherry tree is an American myth, Washington’s virtues are apparently based in reality. Gordon Woods writes that “Washington’s genius, Washington’s greatness, lay in his character” and that it was his “moral character that set him off from other men.” Washington was praised as being the “living embodiment of all the classical republican virtues the age was eagerly striving to recover” which included “restraint, temperance, fortitude, dignity, and independence.”^[25]

These were also arguably on display when Washington declined a third term as president, thus initiating one of the most important of American traditions – the peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders. His surrender of power and the integrity of his character would lead to comparisons with Cincinnatus, a classical Roman politician who was known for his virtue.

Thomas Jefferson, elected president in 1800, idealized America as a pastoral republic with a virtually endless frontier where democracy was intimately connected to the land and the virtues of its agrarian citizens. Nature, virtue, and equality were all connected in Jefferson’s thought. He envisioned a pastoral America where independent farmers would tame wild nature by transforming it into cultivated farmland whereby, they would be instilled with the virtues necessary for the citizenry of a democratic republic.

In his Notes on the State of Virginia he wrote that “those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.”^[26] Farming inculcates the virtues of independence and industry, along with “patience, resourcefulness, tranquility of mind, love of order, moderation in material expectations, as well as physical and spiritual well-being” which are all fortified by sustained contact with nature.^[27]

While the president is to serve as a moral exemplar, the moral failings of the founding fathers, especially Jefferson ought to be acknowledged The American dream of opportunity and self-sufficiency was largely made possible through slavery, stolen land and genocide. Jefferson consistently railed against the institution of slavery, although he owned slaves himself and impregnated one six times.

He feared what the institution of slavery entailed for the nation’s future “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”^[28] He believed that attitudes towards slavery were changing and hoped that eventually slaves would be emancipated by a change of consciousness rather than by force. Jefferson preferred harmony, not war, with the indigenous population; however, he prized their lands over peace. Despite the moral failings of the founders, I think it is important not to throw the virtuous baby out with the viscous bathwater. Virtue is not about perfection, but moral progress. The republic we were given is a more perfect union, not a perfect one, and we can still learn valuable moral lessons from flawed individuals.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, changes to the nation’s land were so profound that American diplomat George Perkins Marsh warned that the unbridled exploitation of natural resources was having a devastating and permanent impact on the land. Fortunately, there were intimations of a fledgling environmental ethic, including, in addition to Marsh, the American Transcendentalist movement centered on Ralph Waldo Emerson that stressed a relationship to nature. Emerson’s concern for nature was developed in the context of mystical insights grounded in the natural world. Sydney Ahlstrom described Emerson as a “new kind of romantic pagan” who abandoned his religious heritage and traditions for a “pantheistic view of man, nature and God.”^[29] Nature, God and mind were one for Emerson as well as the source of virtue.

Fellow Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who was mentored by Emerson, remained grounded to the earth while hoeing beans during his two-year stay at Walden Pond. Thoreau observed nature with the eye of a scientist while writing as a prophet of the wild, pointing out the nation’s moral failures and criticizing the turn towards industrialization. According to Philip Cafaro, Thoreau’s sojourn at Walden Pond was an experiment to “become a better person defining this broadly to include increased knowledge, an enriched experience, character development, creative achievement, and greater personal integrity” making Walden a work of virtue ethics.^[30]

Cafaro identified over one hundred virtues lauded by Thoreau in Walden including bravery, civility, compassion, contentment, economy, gratitude, humility, independence, industry, justice, prudence, purity, self-knowledge, self-reliance, simplicity and wakefulness.^[31] Although most think of Thoreau as separating himself from society to live on the shore of Walden Pond, he did not shy away from the political, having authored the influential essay Civil Disobedience which called on Americans to be persons of good character and conscience before being good citizens.

A few decades after the publication of Walden, John Muir would write of the glory of the American wilderness. In terms of his spirituality, Muir has been identified as “a pantheist, a Transcendentalist, a mystic, an ecocentric evolutionist, an idiosyncratic Protestant Christian, or a post-Christian Romantic.”^[32]

While each representation has its merit, perhaps it is best to say that for Muir nature was his religion. For Muir, the canyons, mountains, and valleys of the American wilderness were sacred spaces where one could develop environmental virtues including reverence, awe, wonder, humility, respect and an ecological consciousness. Although these virtues are grounded in his religious experiences, Muir’s attempts to preserve the wilderness required the classical republican virtue of political participation and as such, Muir is a role model for environmental advocacy, perseverance, and preservation.

But like the founders, his treatment of the indigenous populations who were on the land he wished to preserve was morally problematic, so nuance is required. Together, Emerson Thoreau, and Muir can provide an environmental virtue ethic that also informs civic virtues for Americans who may be spiritual, but less religiously inclined and particularly for those who find their spirituality rooted in nature.

If there was anyone who shaped American attitudes towards preservation and conservation more than Muir and Gifford Pinchot who served as the first head of the US Forest Service, it would be Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a naturalist and prolific writer who connected the health of the republic with the health of its environment. He was hard pressed to put pen to paper without invoking virtue. Roosevelt insisted that character, which he defined as the “assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities,” was the true measure of nation and citizen.^[33]

The virtues that lead to national greatness included “sobriety, steadfastness, the sense of obligation toward one’s neighbor and one’s God, hard common-sense, and, combined with it, the gift of generous enthusiasm toward whatever is right.”^[34] In a 1910 speech titled “Citizenship in a Republic” Roosevelt identified “self-restraint, self-mastery, common sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution” as necessary republican virtues.^[35]

Other virtues extolled by Roosevelt include efficiency, honesty, altruism, justice, moderation, respect, self-reliance, patriotism, hope, frugality, strength, and courage, all of which appear on Van Wensveen’s list of environmental virtues. Roosevelt also demonstrated the environmental virtues of long-range thinking, prudence, ecological sensibility, clarity of vision, endurance, stewardship and collective action

Roosevelt is also responsible for beginning a Progressive Movement that sought reform in American politics. Contemporary with this was the Social Gospel, which was evangelicalism “awakened to the possibilities of a social salvation.”^[36] There had long been a social aspect to evangelicalism in the United States, especially in the form of the Great Awakenings that always had “social, political, and economic overtones and results.”^[37] However, this connection was made more explicit with the Social Gospel which had as its aim the remaking of society by gaining control of social forces and breaking the bonds of evil. The chief concern of the Social Gospel was the virtue of justice so the common good was emphasized in conjunction with the salvation of souls. With their deep concern of battling poverty, the ideas of Social Gospel can be especially pertinent to addressing environmental and social justice.

Virtues got Americans through the Great Depression and World War II. In his inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt explicitly called on the “old and precious moral values” to guide the recovery from the Depression. He invoked the virtues of honesty, boldness, hope, optimism, gratitude, courage, discipline and wisdom. “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly,” he told Americans. Although he claimed, “only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment,” he assured Americans that the nation “will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.” Because “nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it,” he reminded Americans they “have still much to be thankful for.” No problem, he said, is unsolvable if faced “wisely and courageously.”^[38]

In his fireside chats FDR invoked the virtues of honesty, boldness, hope, optimism, gratitude, courage, discipline, wisdom, patience, and cooperation. Likewise, during World War II it was believed that virtue at home would win the war abroad. Americans were urged to come together, to set aside individualism for the common good and embrace the virtues of determination, sacrifice, self-denial, industriousness, courage, endurance, loyalty, and cooperation. All of the virtues of the Great Depression and the Second World War can also serve as environmental virtues.

Much more can be said. My focus in this brief survey has been on prominent individuals, which has unfortunately excluded the voices of women and persons of color, though for a fuller exploration of a tradition of virtue in the United States, it is essential they not be ignored. No accounting of the moral tradition of the United States would be complete without including persons such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington Carver, sojourner truth, Jane Addams, and Rachel Carson.

Recognizing the limitations inherent in a shorter work, the purpose of this essay was to demonstrate a tradition of virtue in the United States that is informed by politics, religion, and nature. Although it is easy to think that Americans have abandoned the republican virtues for the vices of consumerism, the importance of civic virtues have never been entirely lost on the majority of Americans. The language of virtue can cut across political divides and encourage interreligious dialogue. It is an integral ethic that connects individual, community, and environment. The American tradition of virtue can guide political and community engagement as well as environmental activism. I believe it is by reviving and greening the American tradition of virtue that has run through the course of American history, that we can best meet the political, social and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century and beyond.

Footnotes

Wood, Gordon S. 1998. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, viii. ↩︎
Haakonssen, Knud. 1995. “Republicanism.” In A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, edited by Robert Goodin and Philip Pettit, 568–74. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 569. ↩︎
Sandler, Ronald. 2005. “Introduction: Environmental Virtue Ethics.” In Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, 1–12. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1. ↩︎
Ibid, 2. ↩︎
Ibid, 3. ↩︎
Ibid, 6. ↩︎
Van Wensveen, Louke. 2000. Dirty Virtues: The Emergence of Ecological Virtue Ethics. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. ↩︎
Van Wensveen 2000, 163. ↩︎
Ibid, 32. ↩︎
Ibid, 11. ↩︎
Ibid, 5. ↩︎
Holly, Marilyn. 2006. “Environmental Virtue Ethics: A Review of Some Current Work.” Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics 19, no. 4 (August): 393. ↩︎
Barry, John. 1999. Rethinking Green Politics: Nature, Virtue, and Progress. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 5. ↩︎
Treanor, Brian. 2010. “Environmentalism and Public Virtue.” Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics 23, no. 9 (March): 9–28. ↩︎
Ibid, 10. ↩︎
Lane, Melissa. 2012. Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ↩︎
Treanor 2010, 21. ↩︎
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. 2nd edition. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 220. ↩︎
Franklin, Benjamin. (1771) 1997. “Autobiography.” In Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings, edited by J. A. Leo LeMay, 565–729. New York, NY: The Library of America., 664 – 665. ↩︎
Isaacson, Walter. 2004. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 46. ↩︎
Edwards, Jonathan. 1995. A Jonathan Edwards Reader. Edited by John Smith, Harry Stout, and Kenneth Minkema. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 245. ↩︎
Marsden, George M. 2008. A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 129. ↩︎
(Edwards [1725] 2003,14-15). ↩︎
Wood, Gordon S. 1998. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 133. ↩︎
Ibid, 42. ↩︎
Jefferson [1787] 1984, 290. ↩︎
Yarbrough, Jean. 1998. American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 88. ↩︎
Jefferson [1787] 1984, 289. ↩︎
Ahlstrom, Sydney E. 2004. A Religious History of the American People. 2nd edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 604. ↩︎
Lineweaver, Tara T., Richard I. Naugle, Alyce M. Cafaro, William Bingaman, and Hans O. Lüders. “Patients’ perceptions of memory functioning before and after surgical intervention to treat medically refractory epilepsy.” Epilepsia 45, no. 12 (2004): 45. ↩︎
Ibid, 54-55. ↩︎
Gatta, John. 2004. Making Nature Sacred: Literature, Religion, and Environment in America from the Puritans to the Present. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 149-150. ↩︎
Roosevelt, Theodore. (1900) 2009. “Character and Success.” In The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses, edited by Janet Baine Kopito, 53–57. Dover Thrift edition. Mineola, NY: Dover, 53. ↩︎
Roosevelt, Theodore. (1900) 2009. “Grant.” In The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses, edited by Janet Baine Kopito, 97–105. Dover Thrift edition. Mineola, NY: Dover, 102-103. ↩︎
Roosevelt, Theodore. (1910) 2004. “Citizenship in a Republic.” In Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and Speeches, edited by Louis Auchincloss, 778–98. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 783. ↩︎
White, Ronald, and C. Howard Hopkins. 1976. The Social Gospel. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 3. ↩︎
Ibid, 5. ↩︎
F. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, [1933] 2001. ↩︎

Conference on Religion and Bioethics – Call for Proposals

2024-09-26T02:18:17Z

When: Jan. 9-10, 2025

Where: Online

Submission deadline: Nov. 20, 2024

Sponsored by the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory in Collaboration with the University of Denver

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT) invites proposals for an online conference of Religion and Bioethics to be held Jan. 9-10, 2025. The proceedings will be published and developed into a special issue of the JCRT in late 2025.

The conference seeks to explore the complex and evolving intersection between religious beliefs, ethical principles, and bioethical concerns that have grown prominent in contemporary social discourse.

Themes and Topics

We encourage submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following issues:

Genetic Engineering and CRISPR Technology: Ethical implications of genome editing from various religious perspectives. Considerations include the manipulation of human embryos, potential consequences of genetic “enhancement,” and the moral duties toward future generations.
End-of-Life Decisions: Religious and ethical analysis of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Discussions may involve doctrinal stances, cultural practices, and the protection of vulnerable populations.
Reproductive Rights and Technologies: The moral and religious dimensions of assisted reproductive technologies, such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy. Topics can include the status of embryos, parental responsibility, and the implications on family structures.
Healthcare Inequality: Examination of religious teachings on justice and equity in the distribution of healthcare resources. Analyses of how religious groups respond to disparities in healthcare access and outcomes.
Pandemic Ethics: The intersection of religious doctrine and policy-making during global health crises, such as COVID-19. Ethical issues involving vaccine distribution, quarantine measures, and the impact on religious communities.
Transgender Health: Ethical and religious perspectives on transgender medical interventions, including hormone treatment and gender-affirming surgeries. Considerations of bodily autonomy, identity integrity, and religious freedom.
Neuroethics: Religious insights into brain-computer interfaces, cognitive enhancement, and the implications of artificial intelligence in healthcare. Discussions on the nature of human identity, consciousness, and moral agency.
Human Enhancement Technologies**: Theological and ethical perspectives on cybernetics, including prosthetic enhancements, bionics, and brain-machine interfaces. Examination of notions like the human body’s sanctity and integrated wholeness from various religious traditions.

Submission Guidelines

Publication: All conference presenters will be invited to submit finished articles no later than May 1, 2025. Submissions will be peer-reviewed and selected for a special issue in late 2025.

Important Dates:

Abstract Submission Deadline: Nov. 20, 2024
Notification of Acceptance: Dec. 1, 2024
Full Paper Submission Deadline: May 1, 2025
Notification of Acceptance for Publication: Sept. 15, 2025
Expected Publication: December 2025

Submission Process

All proposals should be submitted as email attachments to contact form with the header “Bioethics Conference Proposal – [Title]”.

Sikh Environmental Ethics-Theory and Praxis Part 2 (Harpreet Kaur)

2024-08-24T00:50:15Z

The following is the second installment of a two-part series. The first can be found here.

Kinship with and Gratitude for Nature

Many verses can be retrieved to prompt human beings to be thankful for the bounties of nature. For instance: “The One [who] gave you the invaluable air; The One gave you the priceless water; The One [who] gave you fuel of fire” ਜਿਨਿ ਦੀਆ ਤੁਧੁ ਪਵਨੁ ਅਮੋਲਾ ॥ ਜਿਨਿ ਦੀਆ ਤੁਧੁ ਨੀਰੁ ਨਿਰਮੋਲਾ ॥ ਜਿਨਿ ਦੀਆ ਤੁਧੁ ਪਾਵਕੁ ਬਲਨਾ ॥ (SGGS, M.5, 913).

Such examples inspire a soul to be grateful and care for conserving this precious nature in all forms. It instills a feeling of solicitude for the planet. Capitalizing on spiritual guidance can thus protect nature’s bounty, benefiting all living beings who share this earth with humans.

The universe comprises five primary elements- air, water, fire, earth, and sky. Sikh cosmogony proclaims that air and water were created out of the primal void^[1] ਪਉਣੁ ਪਾਣੀ ਸੁੰਨੈ ਤੇ ਸਾਜੇ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Maaru, 1037). Guru Nanak thus proclaims: “From the True Lord came the air, and from the air came water, and from the water came three regions into existence…” (2) ਸਾਚੇ ਤੇ ਪਵਨਾ ਭਇਆ ਪਵਨੈ ਤੇ ਜਲੁ ਹੋਇ ॥ ਜਲ ਤੇ ਤ੍ਰਿਭਵਣੁ ਸਾਜਿਆ ਘਟਿ ਘਟਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਸਮੋਇ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Sri, 19). He further speaks of the creation of the world: “He created water, fire, and air, and then combined them to form the world” (3) ਜਲੁ ਤਰੰਗ ਅਗਨੀ ਪਵਨੈ ਫੁਨਿ ਤ੍ਰੈ ਮਿਲਿ ਜਗਤੁ ਉਪਾਇਆ ॥ (SGGS. M.1, Prabhati, 1345).

The final passage of the morning Sikh prayer Japji Sahib, which regards air as a guru, water as the father, and the earth as the mother, relays the message that nature sustains life on this planet and that we must treat her with the utmost respect^[2] . However, the passage merits a thorough interpretation to gauge its significance. Air is the medium through which sound flows and makes the chanting of the mantra accessible to the mind.

The consciousness immersed in the Guru’s mantra leads to gnosis (ਸਬਦੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਧੁਨਿ ਚੇਲਾ ॥) (SGGS, M.1, Raamkali Goshti, 943). Breath, the vehicle for the mantra, has no existence without air. Therefore, air must be treated as sacred. Such reevaluation can motivate followers to consider reducing their carbon footprint.

The appellation Mother Earth is universal. It has been frequently used in SGGS. For example, “The womb of Mother Earth births everything”^[3] ਉਦਰ ਸੰਜੋਗੀ ਧਰਤੀ ਮਾਤਾ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Maaru, 1021). Chahal has also explored ecofeminist strands in the scripture along these lines. ^[4] ^[5] Similarly, water deserves the status of a father as it is another vital life force on the earth. The Japji passage continues: “The entire world plays in the lap of the nurses called day and night” ਦਿਵਸੁ ਰਾਤਿ ਦੁਇ ਦਾਈ ਦਾਇਆ ਖੇਲੈ ਸਗਲ ਜਗਤੁ ॥ (SGGS, Jap, M.1, 8). Here, day and night bear the connotation of solar energy (There can be no life without sunlight). They represent yang and yin, respectively.

Singh highlights the kinship among all beings through the following verse of Guru Ram Das: ^[6] “There is only one breath (air), all are made of the same clay, and the light within is the same” ਏਕੋ ਪਵਣੁ ਮਾਟੀ ਸਭ ਏਕਾ ਸਭ ਏਕਾ ਜੋਤਿ ਸਬਾਈਆ ॥(SGGS, M.4, Maajh, 96). An essay’s alternative expression of this interconnectedness reads, “We are the rock and the stars, the leaves, and the trees…we are the eyes through which the universe looks at itself. We are the minds through which the universe contemplates itself.”^[7]

Hence, we must heal the planet by healing ourselves. This discussion of cosmic unity entails the reciprocal relationship between different entities of existence, and many other verses in SGGS articulate this interrelationship. SGGS declares, “What pervades the cosmos dwells in the body; whoever seeks finds it.” ਜੋ ਬ੍ਰਹਮੰਡੇ ਸੋਈ ਪਿੰਡੇ ਜੋ ਖੋਜੈ ਸੋ ਪਾਵੈ ॥ (SGGS, Peepaa, Dhanaasari, 695). Such verses unite panentheism, ecocentrism, and deep ecology themes. Virk remarks that the revelation that we all are born of the same matrix breaks the sense of hierarchical order of existence. It instills feelings of justice and compassion.^[8] The crux of the argument is that tampering with these elements will bring harm to us eventually because we live in an interconnected web of life.

Sustainable Living

Capitalism and neoliberalism are held responsible for the current environmental crisis. This is why activists believe that eco-justice should be viewed within the broader context of social justice and human development. The present situation has presented the challenge of ensuring continuing development at this rate without compromising the needs of future generations. Sahota^[9] et al. reckon that sustainability requires a shift from anthropocentrism, which implies acknowledging the reciprocity of human beings’ relationship with nature.

Drawing a parallel between Sikh gurus’ teachings and Saint Francis’ philosophy, the authors offer a unity-in-diversity approach to developing a sustainable management model. This model assumes embracing diversity in all its complexity and developing a practical kinship through shared interests. Such a model accounts for equality and justice and leads to the value of selfless service in Sikhi.^[10]

Sikhi believes in balancing Seva (service) and Simran (contemplating the name of God). The phrase Sarbat da Bhalaa (welfare of all) from ardaas (the Sikh petitionary prayer) is unequivocally invoked in the context of socioeconomic justice. However, this ideal must be viewed as intertwined with environmental concerns to extend the act of service to planetary well-being.^[11]

The guidance for this reevaluation should be sought in the historical examples where Gurus and their Sikhs protected adversaries, and their altruism included nonhumans. A story has already been discussed in this review before. This is directly related to Hukam*,* which is not seen separately from Naam (the name of God, also the energy of creation). In this regard, the Sikh ideal of communal wellbeing –Sarbat da Bhalaa— is comparable to the African ubuntu philosophy or the Latin American buein vivir.

The three pillars of Sikhi are Naam Japnaa (Contemplating the name of God), Kirt Karnaa (living by the sweat of brow), and Vand Chhaknaa (sharing resources). Sikhi does not approve of asceticism or renunciation.^[12] This one verse by Guru Nanak says it all: “One who eats by earning one’s livelihood by the sweat of their brow and shares one’s fortune with others, finds the path [of righteousness], says Nanak” ਘਾਲਿ ਖਾਇ ਕਿਛੁ ਹਥਹੁ ਦੇਇ ॥ ਨਾਨਕ ਰਾਹੁ ਪਛਾਣਹਿ ਸੇਇ ॥(SGGS, M.1, 1245).

Therefore, some have also stressed the belief in earning an honest living by hard work. Singh draws attention to the fact that a Sikh must actively engage with the world’s affairs by highlighting the blend of Miri (the temporal) and Piri (the spiritual) advocated and practiced by the Sikh gurus.^[13] This is the driving force for all activism, which can be harnessed to adopt a holistic approach to solving environmental issues.

However, the interconnectedness of the three ideals needs to be appreciated more. For instance, those willing to ascend the levels of Naam must do seva. Furthermore, if haumai (ego) persists, sevacannot be called selfless. This implies that one’s spiritual journey is incomplete without actively involving worldly concerns and extending unqualified compassion to all creation. The faith leaders and activists can draw on this understanding to encourage environmental sensitivity and action among the devotees.

Many activists emphasize the role of frugality in saving the environment. It is also a pre-condition for inner happiness and one of the founding principles of eco-philosophy.^[14] This is because choices made in one place have an impact and repercussions for the rest of the world when all are interdependent and interconnected.^[15] A frugal lifestyle and sharing of resources promise sustainable living. Saryal and Saryal^[16] note that water was meant to be a shared resource in the gurdwaras, with large pools built by Sikh gurus.

The Gurus also built towns and cities around gurdwaras, serving as models of social justice and communal living. The fifth Sikh master, Guru Arjan Dev, initiated the practice of dasvandh (the one-tenth share of one’s earnings/resources), which many devout Sikhs follow. The Sikhs do not confine it to the financial resources only. Each Sikh decides, without the mediation of the priests, what and where they want to contribute. Imagine a world where everyone contributed their dasvandh to help the underprivileged!

Moreover, the value of contentment is also critical to realizing these ideals. A lot has been said about this value in SGGS, which can be used as an impetus for sustainability discourses. Suffice it is to quote one line here: “A content mind with compassion for all beings” ਮਨਿ ਸੰਤੋਖੁ ਸਰਬ ਜੀਅ ਦਇਆ ॥ (SGGS, M.5, Gaudi, 299). Compassion is the reason devout Sikhs adhere to a vegetarian diet. Cruelty to animals is strictly condemned in Sikhi. A categorical directive in this can be read in this quote: “Kabeer states that those mortals who consume marijuana, fish, and wine – no matter what pilgrimages, fasts, and rituals they follow, will all go to hell” ਕਬੀਰ ਭਾਂਗ ਮਾਛੁਲੀ ਸੁਰਾ ਪਾਨਿ ਜੋ ਜੋ ਪ੍ਰਾਨੀ ਖਾਂਹਿ ॥ ਤੀਰਥ ਬਰਤ ਨੇਮ ਕੀਏ ਤੇ ਸਭੈ ਰਸਾਤਲਿ ਜਾਂਹਿ ॥ (SGGS, Bhagat Kabeer, 1377).

Recognizing the inalienable rights of all living beings is crucial to achieving sustainability targets and building a harmonious world society. The foundation of the sovereign commonwealth of Khalsa by the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699 was a momentous step in this direction. Guru Gobind Singh included people from different castes, regions, and occupations in this new socio-political fold.

The Khalsa was ordained to follow Sikh spiritual discipline and stand up for the rights of the oppressed and disenfranchised. It was thus a radical model of political autonomy and solidarity, wherein all members lived as saint soldiers. Singh^[17] writes that the Khalsa army fought the tyrant Mughal rulers in the 17th and 18th centuries and against the atrocities of the British colonists and Indian government subsequently. The ideal was to strive for justice for all.

The Sikh gurus condemned casteism and class distinctions and upheld the intrinsic worth of all beings. The tenth master, Guru Gobind Singh, asked his Sikhs to recognize all human races as the same. The Sikh scripture contains verses from saints affiliated with different spiritual traditions (with a unified philosophy) who were treated as outcastes, like Naamdev, Kabeer, and Ravidas. Guru Nanak started the tradition of langar, serving food to the needy and the visitors, where all classes and castes sat together. It was a revolutionary step toward creating an egalitarian society in those times as caste divisions were rigidly followed. Saryal and Saryal^[18] describe this as a spiritual and political practice because it historically allowed the Sikhs to practice food sovereignty. Gurdwaras thus supported local farmers.

Sikh Gurus also accorded high respect to women. Celebrating femininity, all Sikh Gurus depicted human souls, regardless of gender, as brides/females longing for the Beloved Lord in their verses. Guru Nanak reminded us that all great men were born of women. The Sikh historical narratives honor the contribution of women as saints and warriors. The Sikh history offers many examples of what Arturo Escobar calls “politics in the feminine.”^[19]

The Khalsa honors Sahib Kaur, the wife of Guru Gobind Singh, as their mother. She played a crucial role in inspiring the Khalsa to blend valor with compassion. She embodied this ideal by adding sugar to the holy water churned by a sword during the first initiation ceremony of the Khalsa. The tradition continues to this day. Therefore, the principles of bio-civilization—diversity, autonomy, solidarity, collective action, simplicity, justice, equity, etc.—as outlined by Kothari are enshrined in Sikh history and scripture.^[20]

Historical and Modern Praxis

This section examines how Sikh Gurus embodied the themes of kinship, community, biocentric equality, or reverence for nature and how these memories were historically constructed. It gives examples of reconstructing those memories and traditions in alignment with the ecological themes. These examples include initiatives by the spiritual leaders and organizations in the community. Further, it critiques why and where there are disjuncts when living the ideals laid down by the Gurus and endorsed by the spiritual leaders.

Sikh spiritual leaders have judiciously reconstructed the story of trees in various environmental campaigns. Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Master, describes the Creator as a grand tree and the creation as its branches (SGGS, M.5, Maajh, 102; M.5, Aasaa, 387). Guru Har Rai, the seventh Master, planted many trees and plants. There are 58 historic Sikh shrines named after 19 species of trees. Each has a saakhi (historical account or anecdote from the life of Gurus) centering on the tree it is named after.^[21] One quote from SGGS sums up the status of trees in Sikhi: “ [If ] aspiring to be a dervish, bear the patient endurance like a tree” ਦਰਵੇਸਾਂ ਨੋ ਲੋੜੀਐ ਰੁਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਜੀਰਾਂਦਿ ॥ (SGGS, Fareed, 1381).

Guru Har Rai is often cited for his eco-sensitivity. One of the stories recounts his remorse at breaking a flower from brushing his cloak against it. The young Har Rai expressed remorse for the inadvertent harm to the plant and carefully gathered his clothing around him for the rest of his life. His native place, Keeratpur Sahib, was a town of parks and gardens and was an idyllic place in his lifetime, which attracted many birds and animals to it. Here, he also built a large garden with medicinal plants. It was called Naulakhaa Baagh, meaning a garden with 900,000 trees.

Many agencies have collaborated to research those ancient plants and revive the garden and the indigenous medicine.^[22] The Sikh Environment Day, March 14, is dedicated to Guru Har Rai, who ascended to the position of Guru on this day.^[23] Similarly, the Tri-cultural Sikh Society, a gurdwara near Pittsburgh, named their arboretum after Guru Har Rai in 2013. The arboretum features plant species native to Pennsylvania.^[24]

Sant Seva Singh from Khadoor Sahib, a historic town in Punjab graced by the visit of eight Sikh Gurus, is a much-respected religious figure in the region. Known as The Tree Man, he was appointed the Faith for Earth counselor by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2021. He presented the Sikh Plan on Environment to Ban-ki-Moon at Windsor Castle in 2009. On the 550th anniversary of Guru Nanak’s avatar in 2019, he set up a goal of planting 550 small dense forests, called Guru Nanak Memorial Forests, with 50 different varieties of trees.

He has planted 272 so far. He has planted 6.5 million trees all over India.^[25] Comparing his environmental venture to langar (the Sikh tradition of serving food to the needy), he believes these initiatives serve the environmentally sick generation.^[26] He distributes saplings among devotees as a Prashad (a gift of grace usually offered as food). He has worked tirelessly to reclaim the green zone in Punjab. He has revived many native species of plants and persuaded farmers to prefer orchard farming to less sustainable crops.^[27] He runs a charitable organization, Nishan-e-Sikhi, which works for education and social welfare besides environmental causes.

Another excellent example of reconstruction is the Museum of Trees in the capital of Punjab, Chandigarh, which was established in 2020. It was conceived and curated by DS Jaspal on his personal property and promoted by the Chandigarh Nature and Health Society. Inspired by his book ‘Tryst with Trees-Punjab’s Sacred Heritage,’ this storytelling museum recounts customs, traditions, and historical events associated with every tree planted here. As a former high-ranking civil servant with a background in forestry, Jaspal employs both scientific and marketing techniques to conserve genetic clones of 12 sacred trees associated with historical Sikh shrines. Besides, it has a section devoted to medicinal plants. Environmental education for school children and the community is part of this conservation project, particularly on endangered species.^[28]

A similar eco-aesthetic endeavor can be found at a place sanctified by the visit of four Sikh Gurus— historical gurdwara (Sikh place of worship), Guru-Sar Sahib, in Patto Hira Singh village in the Moga district of Punjab. It is a botanical garden (baagh) featuring more than 58 species of trees mentioned in SGGS. EcoSikh, a US-based Sikh environmental organization in collaboration with a local non-profit, PETALS, inaugurated it in 2021. Named Guru Granth Sahib Baagh, it has about 6,000 trees and shrubs spread over 5 acres of land.

Each tree carries relative references from the scripture calligraphically inscribed on big round stones. This environmental initiative aims to highlight the message of the Sikh Gurus to connect with nature. Dedicated to the 550th anniversary of Guru Nanak’s avatar, it aims to offer a platform for environmental education.^[29]

Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal is another saintly figure in the Sikh community who has lived the ideals of Sikh ecosophy. He was named one of Time magazine’s ‘Heroes of the Environment’ 2008 for his monumental river-cleaning project in 2000. He spearheaded the community enterprise of cleaning the 170-kilometer-long river Kali Bein, a tributary of the longer river Beas in Punjab. He took the initiative by entering the river and manually removing the water hyacinth.

This river holds a deep significance in Sikh history because Guru Nanak took a dip here, disappeared for three days, and reappeared after being enlightened. The river, however, had become polluted over time with an overgrowth of water hyacinth, industrial effluents, and agricultural run-off. Its successful cleaning by the local community, without any help from the government, is an excellent example of ecosystem conservation. The project has now been extended to other rivers in Punjab.^[30] So, Sant Seechewal, known as the Eco-baba, exemplified Gurbani’s ideals to restore rivers. He addressed the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 and spoke of how Sikhi is an ecological religion that teaches holding natural elements in deep reverence.

No Sikh environmentalism discourse is complete without reckoning the far-sighted activism of Bhagat Puran Singh ji, the bearded Mother Teresa of Punjab. Bhagat ji, who practiced the discipline of Naam, believed in transforming the face of the earth through work on both mind and matter. The prefix Bhagat (an imbued devotee) was assigned to him because of his exalted spiritual state. He was the epitome of the Sikh ideals who carried the legacy of eco-philosophy forward. He spoke about the denudation of the Himalayas as early as 1928.

Making people aware of the impending ecological hazards was his spiritual mission. He published extensively and raised red flags about the environmental crisis.^[31] Bhagat ji published his pamphlets on recycled paper and distributed them free of cost. He also organized many tree plantations and environmental awareness campaigns.^[32]

Bahgat Ji founded a charity home called Pingalwara, which means home for the destitute. He died in 1995, but the Pingalwara Society carries his legacy forward. Pingalwara is running a zero-budget farm and collaborating with farmers on organic farming. It has planted 90,000 trees in India.^[33] The Kheti Virasat Mission (meaning Agricultural Heritage Mission), a civil society group dedicated to organic farming and founded in 2005, is another organization that has invoked the Sarbat da Bhalaa ideal and established a holistic model of advocacy working with various stakeholders to promote agroecology in Punjab.

Their work extends beyond farming to women empowerment, forests, ecology, and resource management. Their focus is sustainability within the socio-cultural framework of Punjab.EcoSikh, which came into existence in 2009 in response to an initiative of the United Nations Development Program and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, works globally and has built an impressive network of environmental programs. It provides guidelines for environment-friendly religious processions and biodegradable plates for customary food distribution. Besides working with the Green Pilgrimage Network (GPN), a global collaboration of 28 pilgrimage sites worldwide to promote environmental care by reclaiming the sense of place, it is also active in interfaith environmental initiatives.

Disjuncts and Gaps

Punjab is primarily an agrarian economy. According to the official statistics of the Punjab Government’s Department of Forests and Wildlife Preservation, the state’s forest coverage is 6%. Expansion of agricultural land and developmental projects are responsible for this dismal proportion. Environmental organizations are, therefore, working earnestly to restore the green zone. However, many other severe environmental challenges need urgent attention.

One of the most pressing issues facing Punjab, the breadbasket of India, is the depletion of groundwater and unsustainable farming practices resulting from the Green Revolution of the 1970s. According to Saryal and Saryal, state farmers were misled by subsidies and federal food procurement policies to rely heavily on water-intensive wheat and paddy farming.^[34] This overuse of groundwater, fertilizers, and pesticides has resulted in soil and water contamination, as well as a water crisis, high cancer rates, and an alarming number of farmers’ suicides. Prill also points out the incongruity of social practices like lavish weddings, materialistic lifestyles, and the growth of motor vehicle usage among Sikhs.^[35] She adds that expensive tractors and combine harvesters contribute to high fossil fuel combustion.

The rise of plastic pollution results from a mindless consumption culture, which is opposed to the ideas of restraint and contentment. While the tradition of washing dishes manually is intact in Punjab’s gurdwaras, plastic plates, cups, cutlery, and mineral water bottles are comparatively more prevalent in events outside gurdwara and among diaspora Sikhs. The devotees quote numerous verses extolling nature but inadvertently overlook the impact of their plastic use on land, air, water, and other earth species.

Prill observes that Sarbat da Bhalaa has often been quoted in socio-economic justice but not explicitly in the ecological context.^[36] This vast gap needs to be filled with the help of religious leaders by emphasizing the direct relation between our consumption habits and the environmental state. An environmental activist from Punjab confided in the author how challenging it was to fight the plastic demon compared to organizing tree plantation campaigns. Her NGO, Action Group Against Plastic Pollution (AGAPP), submitted a letter of appeal to the Akal Takht Jathedar—the supreme Sikh authority, like the archbishop— and Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee—the organization managing gurdwaras in Punjab—in this regard in November 2023. The AGAPP, invoking the Sikh ideal of Sarbat da Bhalaa, has requested these authorities to lead the Sikh community in refraining from using single-use plastic.

Sri Harmandir Sahib (known as the Golden Temple) is the pre-eminent Sikh spiritual site in Amritsar— one of the prominent sites in the GPN. It holds the same place in the Sikh community as the Vatican does for the Catholics or Mecca for the Muslims. The fireworks display in its arena conflicts with the interests of the GPN since it causes air and noise pollution, besides eroding its gold plate and marble.

Although the number of occasions and fireworks has downscaled over the last decade, the idea of fireworks is still questionable and has implications for the community. The supreme religious authority figure in Sikhi is Jathedar of Akaal Takht, the Sikh spiritual and temporal center located in the precincts of Sri Harmandir Sahib. If he issues a proclamation to abandon the fireworks display in Sri Harmandir Sahib and urges the Sikh community to refrain from crackers, it will serve as a great example of upholding Sikh environmental ethos. Both Sikh and Hindu communities cause obnoxious air pollution in Punjab on the night of Divali/ Bandi Chhod Divas by exploding firecrackers, which can be curbed by sending a practical, positive message of cracker-free holiday from the holy shrine.

Future Directions

The sense of mystique and beauty associated with the creation has been superseded by the modern, reductionist view of the capitalist culture today.^[37] Many spiritual traditions, however, use wonder and enchantment as ways of knowing. Therefore, they can play a significant role in reviving the full appreciation of nature. This appreciation, or eco-aesthetics, must extend beyond the sensual experience. The sense of wonder and awe (*Vismaad)*in Sikh scripture holds epistemological value.

Nature symbolism has been profusely employed to induce Vismaad in Sikh scriptures. It is important to emphasize this interconnection between all manifestations of nature and Vismaad. A rift implies serious environmental repercussions. For example, Prill describes Guru Nanak’s composition Barah Maha (poetry on the theme of months) as an impressive portrait of the pre-modern Punjab ecosystem.^[38] Each passage, corresponding to a month, vividly paints the ambiance, flora, and fauna: “We hear of the blossoms and the bumblebees of springtime and the greenery, snakes, and mosquitoes of the monsoon season; in the summer, the blazing sun scorches the ground.”^[39] However, the difference between this imagery and the current Punjab climate is noticeable. This distorted state of nature reflects the erosion of the human mind.

The law of reciprocity and symbiosis sustaining the complex web of life has not yet been deconstructed fully and explicitly by Sikh religious leaders. As pointed out in an earlier section, Sikh theology can be understood around Hukam and haumai. Prill^[40] observes that haumai, or egocentrism, is the root cause of environmental destruction, but this aspect has not been fully integrated into the Sikh environmental rhetoric.

Shiva remarks that separation is the key feature of capitalist values.^[41] It not only alienates humans from nature but also humans from each other on the lines of race, gender, ethnicity, etc. This alienation causes all violence in mind and actions. The leaders and educators engaging with Sikh environmentalism must place haumai, or the idea of separation, in the center stage of capitalism and consumerism.

Ecological catastrophes are born of short-sightedness. McMichael contrasts the short-term ‘economic time’ with ‘geochemical-biological time controlled by the rhythms of nature’ by showing how shrimp aquaculture destroys coastal mangroves. ^[42] He concludes that the seed of the past is always buried in the present. Gurbani echoes this insight: “Do not indulge in the wrongdoing at all; use thy foresight to see [the consequences].” ਮੰਦਾ ਮੂਲਿ ਨ ਕੀਚਈ ਦੇ ਲੰਮੀ ਨਦਰਿ ਨਿਹਾਲੀਐ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Aaasaa, 474).

It will, therefore, be a great initiative to have emerging Sikh scholars and leaders in seminaries study basic environmental science, political discourses on the environment, policies, and different eco-philosophical traditions. They can then explicitly address the environmental crisis by presenting Sikh environmental ethics more eloquently and persuasively. Their social and political clout in the community will make a huge difference in saving the planet.

Educators in Sikh schools in Punjab and beyond and those engaged in non-formal sectors can also use faith-based approaches in their critical pedagogies. They can use ecocriticism from the lens of Sikh philosophy. Singh and Kaur define ecocriticism as a theory that makes people aware of their contribution to environmental devastation.^[43] It examines literature from an ecological perspective.

The authors clarify that ecocriticism is not confined to how a lion, a tree, or a flower is depicted in literature. Instead, it focuses on the overall representation of nature in cultures and communities. They conducted an ecocritical study on William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Bhai Veer Singh (1872-1957) – The giants of English and Punjabi poetry, respectively. Though they lived apart in time and space, their poetry is a lighthouse for all nature lovers and those who seek ecological awareness in literature. William Wordsworth profusely registered his protest against distance from nature in the wake of industrialization in ‘The Excursion’:

When on the darker side

Of this great change, I look, and there

Behold such outrage done to nature as compels

The indignant power to justify herself;

Yea, to avenge her violated rights,

For England bane (412).

In Bhai Veer Singh’s poetry, one cannot help but notice his deep fascination with nature.

In the vein of Saint Francis of Assisi, he addresses Mashobra— a hilly paradise in the Himalayas—as a brother. In another poem, Brichh (the tree), he gives voice to a tree to criticize deforestation:

O selfish owners of the land,

Why do you fight us?

We don’t grow out

We grow tall and straight.

Our rings and breadth

Extend only in space;

We take but a palm of land,

Even then, you grudge us?” (415)

Bhai Veer Singh is deeply revered in Sikh circles. He was a soul imbued in divine love. His poetry can inspire the masses to protect nature. More scholars need to look in this direction, as the interdisciplinary nature of ecocriticism can be a creative mode of environmental education.

Conclusion

Although a gap between theory and practice has existed in all ages and civilizations, it cannot be a ground for rejecting ideals and values advocated by different faith systems worldwide. The fact that people have not always lived up to these ideals cannot and should not negate the significance and implications of these lofty ideas.^[44] The fact that a large section of society still draws their inspiration from religion has significant implications for solving the challenges of the 21st century.

Therefore, Sikh religious leaders, scholars, and teachers must respond proactively and creatively in working with activists, scientists, lawyers, politicians, and educationists to mobilize resources and motivate people for environmental action. This requires a systematic collaboration among all stakeholders to rewrite and propagate Sikh environmental ethics in the new age language for the action to gain momentum.

Sikhi encompasses more than individual liberation and does not promote denial of the world around us. Its rich traditions and history reflect the belief that true transcendence can only be achieved by embracing the realities of our world and actively participating in its evolution. This is why religious fervor has often been present in social and political movements from Punjab, such as the massive 2020 farmers’ protest. There is a tremendous opportunity for Sikh leaders and scholars to tap into this faith-based approach and leverage spiritual resources to benefit our environment. They can make a meaningful and lasting impact by inspiring new ways of thinking, being, and acting rooted in the care of our shared planet.

Guru Nanak called the earth a place to practice righteousness (dharma). In many Indic languages, the word ‘dharma’ is used to denote both religion and righteousness. It serves as a reminder that many Eastern spiritual traditions, including Sikhi, believe that the essence of a religion lies in the practice of its vision of cosmic unity. Guru Nanak emphasized the importance of dharma in human life and did not simply refer to the Earth as a metaphor. It is his reminder to all of us to recognize the presence of the spirit in every life form, from the smallest unit (cell) to the most complex ecosystem, and to re-establish our connection with the Earth.

Harpreet Kaur is a Business and Human Rights Specialist at the UNDP’s Regional Bureau of Asia and the Pacific, where she oversees a regional project aiming at promoting responsible business practices through partnerships in Asia. She provides technical and advisory support to governments and businesses on how to mitigate and address human rights risks and impacts in operations and supply chains in Asia.

Footnotes

Singh 2021a, 1-2 ↩︎
Singh 2021a, 10; Prill 2015, 227; Singh 2010, 2. ↩︎
Chahal 2015, 4. ↩︎
Chahal 2015. ↩︎
Ibid, 11. ↩︎
Singh 2021a, 8. ↩︎
Skolimowski, Henry. 1997. “The World Is a Sanctuary.” The UNESCO Courier, March 1997, 48. ↩︎
Virk 2014. ↩︎
Sahota, Parminder Singh, Maurizio Sajeva, Mark Lemon, and Mehar Brar. 2016. Philosophy of Management 15: 21-34. ↩︎
Ibid, 31-32. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 234-235 ↩︎
Prill 2015, 235 ↩︎
Singh 2001. ↩︎
Skolimowski 1997, 48 ↩︎
Singh 2010, 7 ↩︎
Saryal, Sutapa, and Rajnish Saryal. “Environmental Crisis and Religion: An Analysis of Textual Source and Practices of Sikhism.” 2023. Research Review International Journal of Multidisciplinary 8, no. 12 (December): 50–59. ↩︎
Singh 2010, 15. ↩︎
Saryal and Saryal 2020, 55. ↩︎
Escobar, Arturo. 2020. “Thinking about the Pot/Pandemia- Notes from Latin America.” Global Tapestry of Alternatives, October 2, 2020. https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/newsletters:02:arturo. ↩︎
Kothari, Ashish, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Frederico Demaria, and Alberto Ecosta. Introduction. 2019. In Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, xxi–xl. New Delhi, India: Tulika Books and Authorsupfront Publishing Services Pvt. Ltd. ↩︎
Singh 2021b, 23. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 231. ↩︎
Ibid, 238. ↩︎
Ibid, 234. ↩︎
“Environment Conservation Project.” Nishan-e-Sikhi, 2023. http://environment.nishan-e-sikhi.org/archives/1919. ↩︎
“Baba Sewa Singh– The Tree Turbanator.” Punjabis4BetterWorld (blog), March 15, 2017. <https://punjabis4betterworld.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/baba-sewa-singh-the-tree-turbanotor/. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 237. ↩︎
Singh 2021b, 23; Prill 2015, 232-233. ↩︎
“Guru Granth Sahib Bagh.” EcoSikh, 2021. https://ecosikh.org/guru-granth-sahib-bagh/. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 236-237. ↩︎
Pirta 2013, 149. ↩︎
Singh 2021b, 22; Prill 2015, 236. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 236. ↩︎
Saryal and Saryal 2023, 53. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 225. ↩︎
Ibid, 235. ↩︎
Tucker and Grim 2017, 4. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 230. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Shiva, Vandana. 2019. “Development– for the 1 per cent.” Essay. In Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, edited by Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Frederico Demaria, and Alberto Ecosta. 6–8. New Delhi, India: Tulika Books and Authorsupfront Publishing Services Pvt. Ltd. ↩︎
McMichael, Philip. 2019. “The Development Project.” Essay. In Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, edited by Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Frederico Demaria, and Alberto Ecosta.12–14. New Delhi, India: Tulika Books and Authorsupfront Publishing Services Pvt. Ltd. ↩︎
Singh and Kaur 2017, 411. ↩︎
Ikeke 2020, 88. ↩︎

Sikh Environmental Ethics-Theory and Praxis Part 1 (Harpreet Kaur)

2024-08-07T00:43:28Z

The following is the first installment of a two-part series.

Eco-philosophy, or ecosophy, offers insight into the relationship of living beings with their environment. The intersection of faith and eco-philosophy is known as religious environmentalism. This alliance of religion and ecology has been gathering momentum lately. Ikeke^[1] notes that science and policy alone cannot tackle environmental challenges. One must act responsibly with conviction, primarily rooted in philosophical ethics. So, he makes a case for mobilizing religious resources to solve the grand challenges of the environmental crisis. Tucker and Grim^[2] also support incorporating cultural and religious values as critical aspects of environmental discussions.

The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess introduced Deep Ecology, an eco-philosophy, in the 1970s. It is a holistic view of ecology based on harmony and equilibrium. This ecosophy challenges the mechanist and reductionist worldview and lends a transcendent dimension to the understanding of ecology. Naess advocates for wisdom focused on ‘deep experience, deep questioning, and deep commitment’ and situates the philosophy of ecology in ‘being, thinking, and acting.’ (What is Deep Ecology, n.d.).

These are all hallmarks of religion, which has always acted like a lighthouse for human civilization. The existential wisdom about the connection among different entities of the cosmos has long been enshrined in world religions and other ancient spiritual traditions.

Although much has been written about the eco-philosophy of different religions, it is a pity that some philosophies have either been omitted or inadequately and inaccurately represented in scholarly literature. It is a severe loss and epistemic injustice when people are deprived of particular ideological wisdom. For instance, despite being the fifth-largest religion in the world, Sikhi^[3] is still not very well represented in academic discourses. According to Prill, Sikh environmentalism has received scant scholarly attention despite its potential to contribute significantly to ecological rhetoric. ^[4]

Donaldson points out that Jainism and Sikhi are conspicuously absent from the Norton Anthology of World Religions. ^[5] She remarks that these traditions have typically been relegated to the “footnote” status. Likewise, Sikhi is inadequately represented in Houston Smith’s The World Religions as a three-page appendix to the 75-page chapter on Hinduism. Jainism is missing altogether in this volume. The scholars are yet unprepared to address their philosophical insights.

Therefore, this essay explores Sikh environmental ethics as deduced from its eco-philosophy. It follows a thematic organization to discuss various aspects of its ecological theology. It attempts to retrieve wisdom enshrined in Sikh theological sources to examine and reevaluate their environmental significance and implications. It further critiques the reconstruction of this wisdom in practice to meet the current environmental challenges. Finally, reviewing all the gaps and misinterpretations, it offers suggestions for examining the intersection of Sikh ecosophy with other disciplines, such as education, science, politics, and literature.

Historical Context of the Sikh Faith and Scriptures

The Sikh religion, with an estimated 26 million followers, originated in Punjab in the 15th century. Following the division of Punjab between India and Pakistan in 1947, it is now the world’s fifth-largest religion. Its origin dates back to Guru Nanak’s avatar*^[2:1] *** in 1469, and it flourished under nine successors (Gurus). In 1708, the tenth spiritual master, Guru Gobind Singh, installed Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS), the compilation of revealed teachings, as the eternal living guru.

The verses of this holy text*,* a collection of the compositions of six gurus and other saintly figures alluding to Hindu and Muslim traditions, are called Gurbani. It is a multilingual text in Gurmukhi, the literaryscript of the Punjabi language in India. As a living embodiment of the founder masters, it is ceremoniously enthroned on a high seat under a canopy.

Singh defines Sikhi as an independent and autonomous prophetic religion, not a blend or mix of other creeds or religions.^[6] . He establishes its validity as a complete and whole faith using scientific inquiry, thereby rejecting the arguments that it is a derivative of Hinduism or Islam. According to Singh, Sikhi is the only prophetic religion of the East. In his scholarly essay about the basics of the Sikh faith, he explains the three principles that define Sikhi’s essence.

He argues that the absence of a separation between matter and spirit, the ability of humans to participate in evolution consciously, and the ultimate goal of aligning God-consciousness with earth consciousness make Sikhi unique.^[7] These principles ensure that Sikh ontology and theology are relevant to worldly matters.

Many theological sources, including SGGS, Dasam Granth authored by Guru Gobind Singh, Janam Saakhis (historical accounts and anecdotes from the lives of the Gurus), compositions of Bhai Gurdas ji, and others, are in the Gurmukhi script. These texts cover Punjabi, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other vernacular languages. English translations may not capture the original texts’ true spirit and subtleties. However, efforts have been made to convey the general meaning faithfully. The translations have been sourced from reliable sources and occasionally modified to retain the original connotation.

Methodological Approach and Conceptual Framework

Tucker and Grim observe that the scale and complexity of the environmental crisis require a fresh approach to understanding religious traditions, teachings, and ethics and applying them to contemporary situations.^[8] They suggest a threefold methodological approach to resolve this matter—retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction. Retrieval is a scholarly investigation of scriptures or historical sources to discover religious perspectives on the environment. It clarifies how ethics have been translated into practice through rituals, customs, and traditions.

Reevaluation evaluates the relevance of traditional teachings to contemporary circumstances: What is the significance of nature? What is the worldly versus transcendent orientation of the faith? What ideas promote ecologically sensitive attitudes and behaviors? Reconstruction is the creative adaptation of traditional ideas to the current circumstances, using modern modes of expression without challenging the essence.

It must be noted, however, that reconstruction is the most sensitive part of religious environmentalism since who interprets what and how is the most critical part of the creative dialogue between the practitioners and scholars of religion.^[9] Singh suggests that auto-interpretation is a valid way to comprehend and value religious wisdom. ^[10] This approach involves analyzing the religion’s central precepts, practices, and history without relying on external theories.

Sikhi does not endorse any hetero-interpretation based on ideas not aligned with its core teachings. Therefore, the author, a practicing Sikh, has leveraged her study of the scriptures, oral discourses by Sikh scholars, and academic papers in deference to the essence of Sikh doctrines to research the topic hermeneutically.

Ecological Inspiration in Sikh

Although there is no direct allusion to environmental ethics or ecology in SGGS, the scripture is prolific in nature symbolism and explicit references to natural phenomena, forces, and various species. Therefore, the verses enshrined are a rich source of ecological wisdom. Prill affirms that Sikhs find their ecological inspiration from SGGS by recovering wisdom from the verses and life stories of the Gurus, which serve as a parallel body of religious knowledge. ^[11]

She adds that the hagiographical accounts are conveyed orally, though multiple textual sources are available. Pointing to the observation of Roger Gottlieb that the resource of eco-theology is “neglected parts of the tradition, reinterpretation of the familiar, the adaptation of the old to the unprecedented demands of the present, or radical innovation,”^[12] she emphasizes how certain verses and historical events in Sikhi are highlighted for environmental advocacy.^[13]

Singh presents the environmental orientation of the Sikh faith compendiously. ^[14] He remarks that Sikhi does not view ecology and ethics as disjunct. They must be understood in the broader dharma (righteousness) context that enjoins humans to treat all creation respectfully. The premise of retrieval is best understood through a quote from the first Sikh morning prayer composed by the first master, Guru Nanak: “Dharma is the progeny of compassion that holds the earth patiently in place” ਧੌਲੁ ਧਰਮੁ ਦਇਆ ਕਾ ਪੂਤੁ ॥ ਸੰਤੋਖੁ ਥਾਪਿ ਰਖਿਆ ਜਿਨਿ ਸੂਤਿ ॥ (SGGS,Jap, M.1, 3)^[15] . Sikhi’s explanation of the interconnected web of life can be interpreted in this context.

Deep Ecology Characteristics

The theory of deep ecology proposed by Arne Naess in 1973 rejects the notion of nature as inanimate and subordinate. It sees intrinsic value in all things of nature and places humans in the organic scheme of a participatory universe. It calls for reevaluating our understanding of nature and the conception of the human self so that humankind can address environmental degradation at the grassroots level. Naess urges us to identify our ego self with the larger ecological self. Drengson^[16] clarifies that this is achievable by identifying with other living beings.

In other words, we must recognize the cosmic unity that binds all life and matter. Sikhi calls this cosmic principle or Divine Will/Command/Order as Hukam. It is Hukam that maintains harmony and equilibrium in the universe. When an individual functions in the ego mode, assuming a separation from other independent ego selves, it lays the ground for anthropocentrism. This intersects with the idea of haumai (egocentrism) in Sikh theology. Sikh ecology can, therefore, be studied through the [antagonistic] concepts of haumai and Hukam.

Since Hukam is the cornerstone of Sikh belief, Lourdunathan^[17] describes Sikhi as an ecosophical tradition. He points to the repeated assertion of the self-conceited nature of the human mind in SGGS. He elaborates that as the mind sees itself as separate from the rest of the creation, it loses the sense of integrity, which is at the root of ecological imbalance. Furthermore, he writes that SGGS obligates humans to live the ideals of justice and equality by declaring the earth a place for practicing dharma.

Declaring the earth thereby a sanctuary echoes the tenets of eco-philosophy.^[18] This world is a sacred place to be treated with reverence and care. The Sikh morning prayer Jap expresses it thus: “Nights, days, weeks, and seasons; Wind, water, fire, and nether regions; In the midst of these, He installed the earth as an abode for dharma. Upon these are placed the various species of beings; Countless are their names; their deeds and actions shall be judged” ਰਾਤੀ ਰੁਤੀ ਥਿਤੀ ਵਾਰ ॥ਪਵਣ ਪਾਣੀ ਅਗਨੀ ਪਾਤਾਲ ॥ਤਿਸੁ ਵਿਚਿ ਧਰਤੀ ਥਾਪਿ ਰਖੀ ਧਰਮ ਸਾਲ ॥ ਤਿਸੁ ਵਿਚਿ ਜੀਅ ਜੁਗਤਿ ਕੇ ਰੰਗ ॥ਤਿਨ ਕੇ ਨਾਮ ਅਨੇਕ ਅਨੰਤ ॥ਕਰਮੀ ਕਰਮੀ ਹੋਇ ਵੀਚਾਰੁ ॥ (SGGS, Jap, M.1,7).

Nature as a sacred and living entity is another deep ecology principle that resonates with Sikh cosmology. Prill^[19] and Singh^[20] write that God is the Creator of the universe, who is immanent and transcendent simultaneously, according to SGGS. Therefore, nature is sacred and real, not illusory, as believed by some schools of thought on the Indian subcontinent. While Prill^[21] seems unable to resolve the apparent ambiguity of ‘the world as a palace of smoke’ referenced in SGGS and the reality of the creation, Singh clarifies that the Creation (nature) is real by the immanence of her Creator. Still, it is subject to decay and death.^[22]

The intrinsic value of nature, human and nonhuman life included, and the biocentric equality is a direct corollary of the holistic view of the living environment. Singh asserts that the expansion and regression of the Creation are governed by Hukam(the divine law), which ensures equilibrium in the cosmos.^[23] He narrates an anecdote to illustrate this: A devotee, Bhai Jiva, cooked and served food daily to Guru Angad Dev, the second guru. One evening, when a storm rose, he became anxious because he could not light a fire to cook.

He beseeched Guru to halt the storm, and the prayer was answered. However, the Guru turned His face away when the devotee brought Him a fresh meal the following day. The Sikh begged to know where he had erred. Upon this, Guru revealed that storms and rain bring sustenance to many living beings. God had intended to spread food grains through the wind to a remote place where many insects were starving. The devotee understood that he dared to violate the Hukam*, preventing* those beings from receiving nourishment.

SGGS illustrates the integrated web of life by describing the food webs and ecosystems: “Some eat meat, while others eat grass. While some relish delicacies, others live in soil and eat particles in it; Some live on air, and their food is in the air” ਇਕਿ ਮਾਸਹਾਰੀ ਇਕਿ ਤ੍ਰਿਣੁ ਖਾਹਿ ॥ਇਕਨਾ ਛਤੀਹ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਪਾਹਿ ॥ਇਕਿ ਮਿਟੀਆ ਮਹਿ ਮਿਟੀਆ ਖਾਹਿ ॥ਇਕਿ ਪਉਣ ਸੁਮਾਰੀ ਪਉਣ ਸੁਮਾਰਿ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Maajh, 144). This is a magnificent example of the scientific vision of religion since it classifies species as herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, autotrophs, and chemotrophs.^[24]

One can also discover the food chain concept in another composition: “Nanak, do not be anxious; you are in the care of the Lord. He created organisms in the water and nourished them; There are no stores nor anyone farms there, no business is ever transacted there; no one buys or sells; One animal eats another; this is His provision of food. He provides for the creatures of the ocean” ਨਾਨਕ ਚਿੰਤਾ ਮਤਿ ਕਰਹੁ ਚਿੰਤਾ ਤਿਸ ਹੀ ਹੇਇ ॥ ਜਲ ਮਹਿ ਜੰਤ ਉਪਾਇਅਨੁ ਤਿਨਾ ਭਿ ਰੋਜੀ ਦੇਇ ॥ ਓਥੈ ਹਟੁ ਨ ਚਲਈ ਨਾ ਕੋ

ਕਿਰਸ ਕਰੇਇ ॥ ਸਉਦਾ ਮੂਲਿ ਨ ਹੋਵਈ ਨਾ ਕੋ ਲਏ ਨ ਦੇਇ ॥ ਜੀਆ ਕਾ ਆਹਾਰੁ ਜੀਅ ਖਾਣਾ ਏਹੁ ਕਰੇਇ ॥ ਵਿਚਿ ਉਪਾਏ ਸਾਇਰਾ ਤਿਨਾ ਭਿ ਸਾਰ

ਕਰੇਇ ॥ (SGGS, M.2, Raamkali, 955).

Incredible natural shifts occur when human activity tampers with cosmic order and balance. For instance, a YouTube video shows a goat-eating fish. ^[25] We also know that the Sahara Desert was once an ocean. An explicit description of these phenomenal changes is recorded in SGGS:

Tigers, hawks, eagles, and falcons- the Lord could make them eat grass. Those who eat grass- He can make them eat meat; He thus makes them follow the way of life. He could raise dry lands from rivers, and turn the deserts into bottomless oceans” ਸੀਹਾ ਬਾਜਾ ਚਰਗਾ ਕੁਹੀਆ ਏਨਾ ਖਵਾਲੇ ਘਾਹ ॥ ਘਾਹੁ ਖਾਨਿ ਤਿਨਾ ਮਾਸੁ ਖਵਾਲੇ ਏਹਿ ਚਲਾਏ ਰਾਹ ॥ ਨਦੀਆ ਵਿਚਿ ਟਿਬੇ ਦੇਖਾਲੇ ਥਲੀ ਕਰੇ ਅਸਗਾਹ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Maajh, 144).

These colossal changes in geological time can be construed as consequences of ecological imbalance and the breaking of the food chain. Therefore, Guru Nanak ordains living in harmony with the Hukam, and interference in natural affairs is considered folly*.* This is an illustration of the reevaluation of Hukam applied to ecological conservation.

Panentheism

Sikhi is a panentheistic faith that does not worship natural elements. The Sikhs are ordained to worship only one Timeless Creator, although they consider everything a manifestation of the Creator. SGGS has numerous verses that speak of the Lord’s presence in one and all. One, for instance, says, “Out of the same clay, the elephant, the ant, and many sorts of species are formed. In stationary life forms, moving beings, worms, moths, and within every heart Lord is contained” ਏਕਲ ਮਾਟੀ ਕੁੰਜਰ ਚੀਟੀ ਭਾਜਨ ਹੈਂ ਬਹੁ ਨਾਨਾ ਰੇ ॥ ਅਸਥਾਵਰ ਜੰਗਮ ਕੀਟ ਪਤੰਗਮ ਘਟਿ ਘਟਿ ਰਾਮੁ ਸਮਾਨਾ ਰੇ ॥ (SGGS, Naamdev, Maali Gauda, 988).Prill^[26] (2015) cites a passage from the daily Sikh prayer recited at sunset, wherein Guru Nanak praises the Lord Almighty: “Your Light is in Your creatures and Your creatures in Your Light; Your almighty power is pervading everywhere” ਜਾਤਿ ਮਹਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਮਹਿ ਜਾਤਾ ਅਕਲ ਕਲਾ ਭਰਪੂਰਿ ਰਹਿਆ ॥ (SGGS, M.1. Aasaa, 469).

Singh extends a few more insightful examples for our consideration: “You (The Creator) are the bumble bee, the flower, the fruit, and the tree. You are the water, the desert, the ocean, and the pool. ^[27] You are the great fish, the tortoise, the Cause of causes; Your form cannot be known” ਆਪੇ ਭਵਰੁ ਫੁਲੁ ਫਲੁ ਤਰਵਰੁ ॥ ਆਪੇ ਜਲੁ ਥਲੁ ਸਾਗਰੁ ਸਰਵਰੁ ॥ ਆਪੇ ਮਛੁ ਕਛੁ ਕਰਣੀਕਰੁ ਤੇਰਾ ਰੂਪੁ ਨ ਲਖਣਾ ਜਾਈ ਹੇ ॥ (SGGS, M.1. Maaru, 1020). The next verse expresses the same theme: “You are the River of Life; all are within You. There is no one except You” ਤੂੰ ਦਰੀਆਉ ਸਭ ਤੁਝ ਹੀ ਮਾਹਿ ॥ ਤੁਝ ਬਿਨੁ ਦੂਜਾ ਕੋਈ ਨਾਹਿ ॥ (SGGS, M.4, 11).

Even the natural forces are not considered outside of that Presence. The Lord abides in all elements: “Air, water, earth, and sky are the Lord’s home and temple” ਪਉਣ ਪਾਣੀ ਧਰਤੀ ਆਕਾਸੁ ਘਰ ਮੰਦਰ ਹਰਿ ਬਨੀ (SGGS, M.4, Tilang,723). Alternatively, consider this one: “The Lord infused His Light into the dust and created the world, the Universe. The Sky, the Earth, the trees, and the water – all are the Creation of the Lord” ਖਾਕ ਨੂਰ ਕਰਦੰ ਆਲਮ ਦੁਨੀਆਇ ॥ ਅਸਮਾਨ ਜਿਮੀ ਦਰਖਤ ਆਬ ਪੈਦਾਇਸਿ ਖੁਦਾਇ ॥ (SGGS, M.5, Tilang, 723).

Chahal proffers another example to expand on the concept of Sikh panentheism**:** “From His state of absolute existence, He assumed the immaculate form; from formless, He appeared in the form” ਅਵਿਗਤੋ . ^[28] However, the ability to recognize the One creative force in all requires the dissolution of ego: “Knowing the True Lord as the One and only, egoism and duality are done away” ਏਕੇ ਕਉ ਸਚੁ ਏਕਾ ਜਾਣੈ ਹਉਮੈ ਦੂਜਾ ਦੂਰਿ ਕੀਆ (SGGS, M.1, Raamkali, 940).

The most recited quote from Guru Nanak’s composition Jap with an explicit environmental lesson is: “Air is Guru, Water is father, and the great Earth our mother” ਪਵਣੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਪਾਣੀ ਪਿਤਾ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ (SGGS, Jap, M.1, 8). Such spiritual affiliation with nature has implications for the ecological footprint of the Sikhs. It is meant to inspire Sikhs to act in an environmentally sensitive manner to avoid violating their sacred and tender relationship with nature.^[29] Virk has elaborated on the concept of nature in his treatise Man-Nature Relationship: The Sikh Perspective.^[30]

He gives a historical background for Guru Nanak’s selection of the Arabic term qudrat over the Sanskrit one prakriti to speak of nature. He asserts this is a clear rejection of the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy, comparable to the Cartesian dualism of object and subject. He avers that Guru Nanak rejected the Vedantic philosophy that only God is real and His creation is only Maya or an illusion. Sikhi esteems nature as real and an abode of God. He notes that all species originating from the same source is a constant reminder of equality in SGGS, and this theological data is a pathway to intimacy with the Infinite and a springboard to ethical behavior.

Anthropocentrism or Ecocentrism?

As an ideology, anthropocentrism believes in the centrality of human beings in the scheme of existence.^[31] Conversely, ecocentrism values all nonhuman forms for their worth. Thus, ecocentrism assigns a meaningful identity to humans who are “in awe of life and part of the greater planetary existence.” Therefore, an ecocentric approach respects the web of life and attributes values to animals, trees, rivers, and landscapes. Anthropocentrism, by contrast, is an egotistical stance.^[32]

As discussed before, the verses in SGGS explain the intricate web of life delicately balanced by Hukam. How can humans be supreme in this philosophy when God permeates all forms in the Universe, and the same Hukam governs everything in the cosmos? However, mentioning Sikhi’s comparative emphasis on the human body is crucial. This body is considered sacred and a privileged means to ascend consciousness and merge with the Supreme. So much so that, according to SGGS, even angels long for this body (ਇਸ ਦੇਹੀ ਕਉ ਸਿਮਰਹਿ ਦੇਵ ) (SGGS, Kabeer, Bhairo, 1159). At the same time, there is a constant reminder from the Guru that this lofty aim is unattainable without acknowledging the presence of the Divine Light through all forms, without any distinction whatsoever.

Though the human is painted as a summum bonum of creation in Sikhi, it comes with a caveat. The Sikh scripture frequently reminds the mind of the inherent flaws that constantly threaten the vast potential of this gifted body. One example would suffice to drive home this message: “The deer, the fish, the bumble bee, the moth, and the elephant–each is destroyed by one flaw; what can be hoped for one [human] who houses five incurable (lust, rage, greed, attachment, and ego) vices within oneself?” ਮ੍ਰਿਗ ਮੀਨ ਭ੍ਰਿੰਗ ਪਤੰਗ ਕੁੰਚਰ ਏਕ ਦੋਖ ਬਿਨਾਸ ॥ ਪੰਚ ਦੋਖ ਅਸਾਧ ਜਾ ਮਹਿ ਤਾ ਕੀ ਕੇਤਕ ਆਸ ॥ (SGGS, Sri Ravidas, Aasaa, 486). It is the agency that places human beings in an advantageous position and necessitates ethical behavior on their part. Hence the warning: “As you sow, so shall you reap. Such is the field of karma.” ਜੇਹਾ ਬੀਜੈ ਸੋ ਲੁਣੈ ਕਰਮਾ ਸੰਦੜਾ ਖੇਤੁ ॥ (SGGS, M.5, Majh, 134).

The only exception among Sikh scholars, Chahal, offers a statement of qualified anthropocentrism in Guru Nanak’s philosophy that warrants censure.^[33] He reasons that Guru Arjan declares man to be the ruler of the earth in one of His verses: “Other species may be at your service; you may be a ruler on this earth and possess all the wealth…but your carnal instinct causes your downfall” ਅਵਰ ਜੋਨਿ ਤੇਰੀ ਪਨਿਹਾਰੀ ॥ ਇਸੁ ਧਰਤੀ ਮਹਿ ਤੇਰੀ ਸਿਕਦਾਰੀ ॥ (SGGS, M.5, Aaasa, 374). Unlike other scholars, Chahal has not inserted the modal [may] in his interpretation.

He probably wanted to highlight man’s anthropogenic behavior when he remarked, “Although anthropocentrism is respected…it is discussed in a different sense”^[34] because he does take note of human failure in the face of irresponsible behavior. Kopnina^[35] comment that since humans are the only species with an evolved consciousness to recognize morality, the focus on values is anthropogenic. Still, it does not inevitably imply anthropocentric overtones.

Even if the quote used by Chahal is inferred to imply that a human being is a king of the earth, the hermeneutical approach requires a scholar to extend their investigation to the concept of a king in Sikhi.^[36] The Sikh scripture is replete with examples of worldly kings acting corruptly. Ideally, a king is responsible for providing for his subjects, like a guardian or steward. In this regard, Guru Nanak declares: “There is no other king, except Him” ਤਿਸੁ ਬਿਨੁ ਰਾਜਾ ਅਵਰੁ ਨ ਕੋਈ ॥ (SGGS, M.1, Raamkali Oankar, 936).

In his composition, Akaal Ustat, under the title Savvaiye (34), Guru Gobind Singh writes: “At all times, He (God) sustains all—animals, birds, mountains, trees, serpents, and men; In an instant, He nourishes all living beings in water and doth not judge their actions. The Merciful Lord sees the blemishes but doth not fail in His bounty.” ਪਛ ਪਸੂ ਨਗ ਨਾਗ ਨਰਾਧਿਪ; ਸਰਬ ਸਮੈ, ਸਭ ਕੋ ਪ੍ਰਤਿਪਾਰੈ ॥ ਪੋਖਤ ਹੈ ਜਲ ਮੈ ਥਲ ਮੈ; ਪਲ ਮੈ, ਕਲਿ ਕੇ ਨਹੀ ਕਰਮ ਬਿਚਾਰੈ ॥ ਦੀਨ ਦਇਆਲ ਦਇਆਨਿਧਿ; ਦੋਖਨ ਦੇਖਤ ਹੈ, ਪਰੁ ਦੇਤ ਨ ਹਾਰੈ ॥ Let us consider another example. As part of their daily morning prayer, Sikhs recite this line too: “Even kings and emperors, with heaps of wealth as tall as mountains and empires vast as oceans, cannot equal an ant that does not forget the Lord” ਸਮੁੰਦ ਸਾਹ ਸੁਲਤਾਨ ਗਿਰਹਾ ਸੇਤੀ ਮਾਲੁ ਧਨੁ ॥ ਕੀੜੀ ਤੁ ਲਿ ਨ ਹੋਵਨੀ ਜੇ ਤਿਸੁ ਮਨਹੁ ਨ ਵੀਸਰਹਿ ॥ (SGGS, Jap, M.1, 5). This implies that a life’s value lies in its complete identification with the Hukam.

Singh^[37] refutes all arguments of anthropocentrism by clarifying that notwithstanding a man’s privileged position in the universe, he can still not claim to be better than an animal. He cites Bhagat Kabeer: “When a man dies, he is useless, but an animal serves in many ways even after death.” ਨਰੂ ਮਰੈ ਨਰੁ ਕਾਮਿ ਨ ਆਵੈ ॥ ਪਸੂ ਮਰੈ ਦਸ ਕਾਜ ਸਵਾਰੈ ॥ (SGGS, Kabeer, Gond, 870). A religion that fairly weighs an animal’s merits against a man’s vices can, by no means, be labeled as anthropocentric.

Footnotes

Ikeke, Mark Omorovie. 2020. Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 19, no. 57 (Winter 2020): 81–95. ↩︎
Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and John Grim. 2017. “The Movement of Religion and Ecology.” Essay. In Routledge Handbook of Ecology and Religion, edited by Willis Jenkins, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and Joh Grim. 3–12. New York: Routledge. ↩︎ ↩︎
I refer to the Sikh faith and wisdom as Sikhi, unlike the usual practice of calling it Sikhism, for two reasons. One, it retains the original flavor of the tradition by using a Punjabi equivalent. Two, it renders the discipline free from the usual connotations of isms. ↩︎
Prill, Susan E. 2015. “Sikhi and Sustainability: Sikh Approaches to Environmental Advocacy.” Sikh Formations 11, no. 1–2: 223–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2015.1023112. ↩︎
Donaldson, Brianne. 2015. “Jainism and Sikhism: The Value of Being ‘Footnote’ Traditions.” Patheos, March 9, 2015. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionnow/2015/03/jainism-and-sikhism-the-value-of-being-footnote-traditions/. ↩︎
Singh, Devinder Pal. 2021a. “Air- A Classical Element of Life in Sikh Theology.” Asia Samachar. September 19, 2021. https://asiasamachar.com/2021/09/19/40575/. ↩︎
Ibid, 56 ↩︎
Tucker and Grimm 2017, 8. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Singh, Kapur. Sikhism and The Sikhs. Kapurthala, Punjab (India): Baldev Singh: 2011, 34-35. ↩︎
Prill, Susan E. 2015. “Sikhi and Sustainability: Sikh Approaches to Environmental Advocacy.” Sikh Formations 11, no. 1–2: 223–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2015.1023112. ↩︎
Ibid, 240. ↩︎
Ibid, 224. ↩︎
Singh 2021a., 3. ↩︎
The notation in this paper (SGGS, M.1, 3) should be read as the verse composed by the first guru and enshrined on page 3. If the verse is from another saint, their name replaces M.1. In other verses, raga is also mentioned. The raga is the specific melodic composition in which the verse can be sung. Except for a few verses at the beginning and end of the scripture, all verses have been arranged under 31 ragas. Therefore, the raga’s name and page number can be used to look up verses. The printed scripture does not mention the publication year. ↩︎
Drengson, Alan. 1999. “Ecophilosophy, Ecosophy and the Deep Ecology Movement: An Overview.” Ecocentrism Homepage. http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/DrengEcophil.html?i=1. ↩︎
Lourdarnathan, S. 2012. “Sikhism and Global Living.” In Many Heavens, One Earth: Reading on Religion and Environment, edited by Clifford Chalmers Cain. 165–70. Lanham: Lexington Books. ↩︎
Skolimowski, Henry. 1997. “The World Is a Sanctuary.” The UNESCO Courier, March 1997, 48. ↩︎
Prill, Susan E. 2015. “Sikhi and Sustainability: Sikh Approaches to Environmental Advocacy.” Sikh Formations 11, no. 1–2: 223–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2015.1023112. ↩︎
Singh, Nirmal. 2013. “Environmental Stewardship: Sharing Sikh Thought and Some Sikh Perspectives.” In Exploring Sikh Spirituality and the Paradox of Their Stereotyping in Contemporary American Setting, 71–80. Hartford: Sanbun, 2003. https://www.sikhnet.com/news/environmental-stewardship-steps-and-mis-steps. ↩︎
Prill, Susan E. 2015. “Sikhi and Sustainability: Sikh Approaches to Environmental Advocacy.” Sikh Formations 11, no. 1–2: 223–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2015.1023112. ↩︎
Singh, Nirmal. 2013. “Environmental Stewardship: Sharing Sikh Thought and Some Sikh Perspectives.” In Exploring Sikh Spirituality and the Paradox of Their Stereotyping in Contemporary American Setting, 71–80. Hartford: Sanbun, 2003. https://www.sikhnet.com/news/environmental-stewardship-steps-and-mis-steps. ↩︎
Singh, Nirmal. 2001. “A Forum on Religion and Environment.” Proceedings of A forum on Religion and Environment,October 4, 2001. Hartford, CT: Hartford Seminary. ↩︎
Chahal, Devinder Singh. “Environmental Ethics Perspective from Nanakian Philosophy.” 2015. Understanding Sikhism-The Research Journal 17, no. 1 (December): 3–15. ↩︎
“Goat eating fish – only in India, WildFilmsIndia, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzFQkSEgGck. Accessed June 3, 2024. ↩︎
Prill, Susan E. 2015. “Sikhi and Sustainability: Sikh Approaches to Environmental Advocacy.” Sikh Formations 11, no. 1–2: 223–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2015.1023112. ↩︎
Singh, Devinder Pal. 2021b. “Prime Environmental Teachings of Sikhism,” Sikh Philosophy Network. April 9, 2021, 13. ↩︎
Chahal 2015, 7. ↩︎
Prill 2015, 228 ↩︎
Virk, Hardev Singh. 2014. Man-Nature Relationship: The Sikh Perspective. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260790809_Man_Nature_Relationship_The_Sikh_Perspective ↩︎
Kopnina, Helen, Haydn Washington, Bron Taylor, and John J Piccolo. “Anthropocentrism- More than Just a Misunderstood Problem.” 2018. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (January 18, 2018): 109–27. ↩︎
Ibid, 123. ↩︎
Chahal 2015, 9. ↩︎
Ibid, 9. ↩︎
Kopning 2018, 122. ↩︎
Chahal 2015, 9. ↩︎
Singh 2001. ↩︎

Religious Faith In Pursuit of Environmental Justice (Chris Durante)

2024-07-25T23:59:15Z

Introduction

In recent years, the world’s religions, including the Abrahamic faiths as well as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and various indigenous forms of spirituality, have been increasingly turning their ethical gaze toward the intersection of social, economic and ecological justice issues. This gives me hope because I believe many environmental injustices persist because the values of the neoliberal capitalist ethos have become so ingrained in our global social systems over the course of the past few generations that for most people today, it is the values of this economic paradigm, rather than the values of their faith traditions, that are predominant in governing their social lives and molding their daily lifestyles.^[1]

The neoclassical paradigm of economics that now dominates global society in its neoliberal manifestation ultimately aims for perpetual profit via perpetual financial growth and material expansion and functions according to a utilitarian mindset that seeks to commodify both an array of living beings as well as all forms of creative human activity in the process.^[2] It posits a view of the human person as an intrinsically self-interested and rationalistic individual seeking to maximize her own benefits and satiate her own desires, at almost any cost.^[3]

As such, this dominant socio-economic paradigm envisions the natural world as being replete with interchangeable resources for consumption and manipulation with the ultimate goal of social life as the competitive maximization and accrual of individual capital and wealth, which is to be used for the satiation of unmitigated desire. These elements of the neoclassical/neoliberal paradigm of socio-economic thought stand in stark contradiction to the relational view of personhood, the view of the natural world as kindred being, and communal life as striving for excellence in a state of mutual well-being that are to be found within most of the world’s religious traditions.

Many of the world’s faiths denounce the vices of gluttony and greed that drive this socio-economic system and uphold the view that persons flourish when they live in community with other persons, and when we hold a proper degree of respect, if not reverence, for the natural world.

Toward an Interfaith Integral Ecology

Despite the fact that some environmentalists, following Lynn White’s *“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,”^[4] * have accused the Judeo-Christian tradition for promoting the exploitative domination of nature, many Christian eco-theologians have noted that the term “dominion,”^[5] found in Jewish and Christian scriptures, is more accurately translated as “stewardship” and have argued that care for the poor and for the earth are interrelated insofar as an attitude of domination underpins exploitation and mistreatment of humans, animals and ecosystems alike.^[6]

While this was a perspective that may have been considered marginal in decades past, such views are no longer to be found within the periphery of Christian thinking, as they have been espoused by Christianity’s most senior hierarchs. For example, the concept of “environmental sin,” first expressed in 1997^[7] by Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Orthodox Christian tradition, was more recently adopted by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical *Laudato Si’,^[8] * where he promotes an integral ecology in which the social, economic, cultural and ecological dimensions of reality are understood holistically as inter-related aspects of life on planet earth.In Laudato Si’, and in his 2023 companion encyclical: Laudate Deum,^[9] Pope Francis criticizes the individualism, consumerism, and perpetual growth economics that he correctly views as driving the ecological catastrophes currently taking place, and which are predominantly affecting the poorest people and poorest nations most dramatically.^[10] So how should we reform and redesign our economy?

Prohibiting the Sin of Usury

To begin, we must grapple with the fact that the global economy pursues infinite growth on a finite planet and is intimately intertwined with financial systems that rely upon interest to fuel this exponential process of economic growth. However, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all traditionally been critical of the practice of charging interest, with both Christian and Islamic civilizations having historically even gone so far as to legally prohibit usury — or charging interest on monies loaned — in one form or another.

Up until recently, laws regulating interest on loans, sometimes referred to as “usury bans,” were commonplace even within the secular legal paradigms of many States in the U. S.; with most usury laws unfortunately being overturned at the behest of credit card companies during the mid to late twentieth century. Sadly, the majority of Christians are not even aware that their faith tradition has historically condemned this practice since most denominations no longer hold this view; for instance, the Catholic Church overturned its prohibition on usury during the nineteenth century as a means of accommodating the industrial capitalist paradigm that had come to dominate social life.

While many Muslims are also accommodating of the practice of usury, it is still considered to be a sin in Islam and therefore some Muslims still engage in an Islamic form of banking in which riba (interest) is still deemed haram(prohibited), and hence, do not practice usury.^[11]

Given the fact that our ecological crisis is so deeply wedded to the infinite growth model of economic ‘development’ in which interest plays a crucial role, especially in the financial sector, as the world’s largest religious tradition, Christianity might re-consider its modern acceptance of usury and once again begin to take the sin of usury seriously. Christian organizations may consider developing alternate forms of banking, as some Muslims have done, and may even be able to forge interfaith economic collaborations and banking partnerships with Muslims as they mutually adopt the dual cause of combatting socio-economic inequities while enacting more ecologically sustainable modes of economic behavior.

While on its own this will certainly not solve the aforementioned problems, it may however, help create global networks of anti-usury banking systems that could potentially serve as a solid foundation upon which to build an alternate global socio-economic system. One that it is not tied to the goal of perpetual growth and which may uphold an ideal of the common good shared amongst many of the world’s faiths.

Work as Serving the Common Good

In the 1970s, the Buddhist economist E.F. Schumacher had argued that a good economy ought to be designed in such a way as to provide all members of society with a sufficient degree of well-being and livelihoods that do not cause harm to others, and which promote service to the public good of the communities in which they live. Schumacher’s Buddhist economics shares much in common with Catholic Social Teaching and many of the ideas he espoused foreshadow those expressed by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’.

For instance, Schumacher argued that work should not be conceived of solely as a means to acquire wealth but should also serve the common good, promote communal solidarity and help cultivate virtue, as he critiqued excessive consumerism, promoted moderate consumption practices, argued for sustainably produced and locally sourced products and endorsed renewable forms of energy.^[12]

Performing certain types of work, or engaging in certain types of professions, can be inherently antithetical to the Buddhist conception of the ethical life, which is primarily informed by the notions of karuna (compassion for all beings), ahimsa (avoid causing harm to sentient life), and nirodha, or the idea that we must attempt to overcome our materialistic desires if we are to free ourselves and others from anguish and suffering; which are all part and parcel of striving to attain the ultimate goal of nirvana, or liberation from suffering, especially as conceived in the Mahayana tradition.

Without going into too much detail, one of the principles of the eight-fold path that is to govern and guide a Buddhist’s life is “right livelihood.” Consequently, to hold professions that intentionally aim to manufacture desire for unnecessary items for the sole aim of creating profit while intentionally neglecting the harms that certain products and modes of production may cause to ecological and human health and well-being, would be to fail to maintain the principle of “right livelihood,” and thereby would divert one from the path toward nirvana.

Expressing views that I believe resonate well with the Buddhist concept of right livelihood, Basil the Great of Caesarea (a saint recognized and revered by the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican branches of Christianity) wrote, “we should serve through our skill those who seek to satisfy their real needs,” believing that the “aim is simplicity and frugality” and argued that “we must avoid pandering to the foolish and harmful desires of men by working for the ends sought after by them”.^[13]

In other words, Basil is saying that through our work we should not be attempting to satiate people’s unreasonable desires nor seek to supply them with the objects of their impetuous wants. Instead, through our work we ought to seek to provide them with the highest quality of goods and services that genuinely satisfy their needs and contribute to their wellbeing. Basil endorses livelihoods capable of earning a sufficient amount of profit while simultaneously contributing to the common good of society and the welfare of the local community in which one lives; a view which foreshadows the ideas of Schumacher and Francis.

Living in the fourth century, St. Basil is best remembered for pursuing a life committed to the ideal of philanthropia, or love of humanity, grounded in active service and for establishing the world’s first hospitals, hospices, orphanages, soup-kitchens and old-age homes in complexes he called “the New City” that eventually became know as “Basileads.”^[14] As a bishop who engaged in the socio-political world of his day, and as an abbot of monks who was responsible for the creation of a communal and socially transformative model of monastic-lay cooperation, Basil is one of the best historical models we have for understanding how religious communities can create alternate cooperative socio-economic systems in pursuit of economic and ecological justice.

With the sole goal of perpetual growth in profits at the expense of all other values, our current neoliberal/neoclassical economic system is designed to achieve precisely the opposite of the type of society Basil developed and is grounded upon principles that are diametrically at odds with either Schumacher’s or Francis’ visions of the good society.

With its dual obsession with novelty and profit, the current neoliberal economy pressures companies to produce inexpensive disposable products that are intentionally designed to fail in order to create a fabricated ‘need’ for individuals to replace them in a strategy known as “planned obsolescence” for products that are often not even remotely required for human flourishing and which may even be harmful to us or negatively impact our overall wellbeing. Smartphones and computers, for example, are designed in such a manner that ‘consumers’ are forced to dispose of, or ‘upgrade,’ their ‘outdated’ models in order to continue to use the electronic devices that are demanded of them in the modern workplace.

Aside from the non-durability of electronic products, everything from the industrial garment industry to the automotive industry has come to employ the rationale of “planned obsolescence” as a means of creating a need where one did not previously exist. While this applies to items that have become requirements for social functionality in the modern world, most of the products produced and sold satisfy no actual biological or psychological human need nor are they actually required for social functionality, even in the modern world. We must pursue work that contributes to our earthly flourishing and find ways to resist the insidious global encroachment of neoliberalism. But, how?

Re-localizing our Global Economy

Both secular and religious environmentalists have called attention to the need for global society to reform our unjust global (neoliberal) economic system, with many arguing for forms of localism as a solution. They do so because in addition to ecological and health benefits, enacting forms of economic localism may also help empower regional communities by fostering local entrepreneurial endeavors as well as collaborations amongst local businesses, which would help prevent the extraction of wealth from smaller locales by transnational corporate conglomerates and contribute to the local retention of wealth creation. While these ideas have been promoted by ecological economists and social justice advocates, they may also find support in traditional religious principles and practices as well.

One example is the principle of subsidiarity found within Catholic Social Teaching (CST), which maintains that local communities ought to be afforded the power and authority to manage their own affairs when they are capable of doing so, rather than have a centralized governing body attempt to manage the affairs of distant regions. Subsidiarity entails the empowerment of local communities because it upholds a social vision in which society is comprised of smaller local and regional communities, which are in turn comprised of even smaller units, until we reach the level of the family, which is the foundation of society in CST.

If implemented in the context of ecological justice, the principle of subsidiarity could be used to support local family and cooperatively owned businesses, especially small-scale sustainable farms, and empower local farming cooperatives as well as farmers’ markets and other such organizations that enable small local producers to bring their goods to market.

This is of utmost importance because the industrialization of agriculture is one of the primary contributors to the ecological crises we face. By using energy intensive machinery industrial agriculture is one of the largest producers of carbon emissions, far exceeding even automotive emissions. Further, with its reliance on a monocultural paradigm of cultivation, industrial agriculture is deteriorating soil quality due to its lack of crop diversity, which helps keep soils fertile.

As a result, this monocultural paradigm requires the constant use of chemical fertilizers that not only pollute groundwater but which are also polluting the bodies of the humans that consume food items produced with the use of these toxic chemicals. Additionally, industrial agriculture is also contributing to deforestation, due to the rampant destruction of forestlands so that they may be converted into farmlands, as well as water-waste, as a result of turning deserts into farmlands and the high levels of freshwater required for food production. This is a shame because, agriculture was a profession that Saint Basil believed was the noblest of all because it provides the necessities of life.^[15]

Unfortunately, like almost every other form of livelihood in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, agriculture has succumb to the pressures of the neoclassical economic system’s demands for overspecialization and perpetual growth that has transformed farming from a life-sustaining practice that helped contribute to local prosperity and empowerment into the food production arm of the global capitalist system. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of meat production. Corporate food production conglomerates are constantly creating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), colloquially referred to as “factory farms,” in order to produce enough meat, often beef, to meet rising global demands as a result of the proliferation of the “western,” or “American,” diet and excessive consumerist lifestyle.

The global proliferation of CAFOs and monocultural industrial farming, that goes hand in hand with the heightened demand for unsustainably produced animal products, is in direct opposition to the virtues and values of moderation, prudence, temperance, and respect for nature that the world’s faith traditions hold out to us as ideals of excellence.

One source of insight into how the agricultural industry can be transformed via sociopolitical action may be found within Islamic ideas pertaining to the distribution of zakat, or charitable taxation, and would involve targeting the ways in which our taxes are redistributed in society. Like the Roman Catholic idea of subsidiarity, Islamic principles governing the distribution of zakat also endorse a form of localism, insofar as it is taught that such monies ought to remain within the local communities from which they are taken as a means of increasing local solidarity and preventing exploitative extraction of wealth from a local community.

The idea here is that when zakat monies were not used locally, transparency and accountability diminished and hence, the chances for corruption increased. This is currently the case with government subsidies for corporately owned industrial methods of farming that not only harm the earth but which also oppress laborers^[16] as they extract resources^[17] from local communities. The same type of monies that CAFOs and other corporately owned farms receive as government subsidies are not available to small-scale farms, and are especially not offered for ecologically sustainable farming practices such as regenerative agriculture, permaculture or agroforestry.

Implementing the logic involved in the distribution of zakat to farming in the United States, for example, could be used to support reforming what gets included into congressional Farm Bills as well as for endorsing the enactment of State-level subsidies for local small-scale farming operations engaged in sustainable agricultural methods and fair labor practices.

Conclusion

If we continue to allow it to self-perpetuate, the global neoliberal system will be our demise because it fails to realize how intimately connected the well-being of our natural world is with our own and misunderstands what it means for our species to flourish together with other living beings as an earthly community. Ultimately, there is much ethical wisdom that global civilization can learn from the world’s religions in regard to how we can transform our global neoliberal system and begin to adopt alternative socio-economic systems that promote rather than stifle environmental justice. Therefore, what is required is an active reevaluation of our values that leads to a transfiguration of our consumption and production practices, forms of work and modes of living so that we can come to collectively embody resistance to the neoliberal order.

Chris Durante, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at Saint Peter’s University in NJ as well as a Fellow of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics & Human Rights, where he serves on the Organizing Committee of the Bioethics, Multiculturalism & Religion workshops. His publications have appeared in a number of academic journals such as: the American Journal of Bioethics; the Journal of Medical Ethics; Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy; the Journal of Global Ethics; the Journal of Religious Ethics; and the Journal of Church & State.

Footnotes

Sallie McFague. Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril. (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2001), 84. ↩︎
Philip Cafaro. 2011. Taming Growth and Articulating a Sustainable Future: The Way Forward for Environmental Ethics. Ethics & the Environment, 16(1): 10. ↩︎
Herman Daly & John Cobb Jr. For the Common Good: redirecting the economy toward community, the environment and a sustainable future. Second Edition (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1994), 87. ↩︎
Herman Daly, “Economics for a Full World,” Great Transition Initiative (June 2015). ↩︎
Herman Daly & John Cobb Jr. For the Common Good: redirecting the economy toward community, the environment and a sustainable future. Second Edition (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1994), 159. ↩︎
Sallie McFague. Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril. (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, Minn: 2001), 81. ↩︎
Sallie McFague. A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming. (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, Minn: 2008), 83. ↩︎
White, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155.3767 (1967): 1203-207. ↩︎
The term “radah” in Hebrew. ↩︎
Boff, Leonardo. Liberation Theology & Ecology in: Ecology & Poverty: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1995). ↩︎
Address of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Environmental Symposium, Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, Santa Barbara, California. November 8, 1997. ↩︎
Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ Of The Holy Father Francis On Care For Our Common Home (official English-language text of encyclical)”. June 2015. ↩︎
Encyclical Letter Laudate Deum Of The Holy Father Francis On Care For Our Common Home (official English-language text of encyclical)”. October 2023. ↩︎
In a sad irony, these people and nations tend to be those who have contributed the least to either causing or exacerbating the ecological crises currently unfolding. ↩︎
Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee. The Concept of Riba’ and Islamic Banking. (Malaysia: The Other Press: 2016) ↩︎
E. F. Schumacher. Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. (London, U.K.: Blond & Briggs 1973) ↩︎
Basil. The Long Rules. The Ascetical Works. The Fathers of the Church. M. Monica Wagner, C.S.C., Trans. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1950), 311. ↩︎

What Black Disabled Bodies Can Teach Us About Environmental Justice (Robert Monson)

2024-07-10T12:13:39Z

As early as 2014, governmental officials in the city of Flint, Michigan made a series of decisions that would prove to have deleterious effects on the people and environment of Flint. As officials sought to make room in the budget, they decided to switch the city’s water supply to the polluted Flint River without a plan to treat the water appropriately. The fallout from citizens being poisoned has largely impacted the city’s Black population in disastrous ways. In fact, one study has found that:

Analyzing health records from 2008 to 2015, researchers found that fertility rates in Flint dropped by 12 percent and fetal deaths rose by 58 percent after the water was switched to the Flint River in 2014. Additionally, babies who were born at full-term during the water crisis had lower birth weights. The lead exposure also increased the risk of hypertension for pregnant women and may have interfered with their choice of whether or not to breastfeed. Moreover, the health effects of lead exposure in children in Flint increased the risk of impaired cognition, behavioral disorders, hearing problems and delayed puberty.”^[1]

It is clear that budget concerns were deemed more important than the health of Flint citizens, animals, and infrastructure. In this way, it seems that various levels of disabling events were enabled to take place.

Since the inception of this country, Black people have found themselves disabled for a variety of reasons. Some of these factors include genetics, environmental issues, brutality of all sorts, as well as systemic racism. This paper will primarily analyze the social implications of Black disabled people here in America, Christian messaging, and how they should shape environmental justice discourse. It is important to note that while Christianity is not the only religion that Black people practice here in America, it still represents a religion that the majority ascribe to (I will share more on this later in the paper.).^[2]

It is sufficient to say here that, while many Black Americans, while holding space for nuance, say that “they believe in God as described in their religion’s holy scripture (such as the Bible for Christians or the Quran for Muslims).”^[3] As a Black, disabled, theologically trained man, I will utilize Black theologians, scholars, and artists to point to a model of environmental justice that includes those who are most marginalized by this ableist society. First, I will go more in-depth on my own positionality and the tools that I use to analyze Black disability. Next, I will talk about Black disabled bodies and environmental justice, and lastly, I will turn to looking closely at what is “Good News” to Black disabled bodies.

My positionality

It is always important for me, when writing or speaking on a given topic to note my social location. It is my hope that doing so allows for others to locate themselves and to note that I am absolutely biased in what I am thinking through. First, I am a disabled Black man who grew up in the southern part of Chicago. This is especially important because often there are assumptions that are made when Black folks speak about God and the universe.

Despite most of the people I grew up around having loyalty to the systems of the church, I did not. I did have ethics and a form of spirituality that I could never quite label though. I prided myself on being more moral than the Christians I knew around me. Second, after becoming a Christian later in life, I went on to study theology in a few different spaces and obtained Bible certificates, an MA concentrated on womanism/Black liberation theology, and am now in a PhD program for Religious Studies.

As a Black theologian that has been positively impacted by womanist theology, I ground many of my observations with knowledge that I have gained from womanist ethicists and womanist theologians. Womanist scholar Delores S. Williams defines womanism in this way: “Womanists not only concern ourselves about the liberation of women, we also struggle along with Black men and children for the liberation, survival and positive quality of life for our entire oppressed Black community.”^[4] This definition is beneficial to me as I write about Black disabled bodies, and environmental justice. I am clear, in approaching the topics of environmental justice and Black disability, that I am seeking for the liberation and thriving of all people. A womanist lens helps to keep me grounded in my research and writing. I bring forth the knowledge and beauty of Black disability even as I strive alongside other Black bodies to create a future that is full of liberation and life.

Definitions of Environmental Justice and Disability

In the quest for environmental justice, it is essential that we start from some sort of working definition of the term as well as how we think of disability. According to the United States Protection Agency, environmental justice is defined as

Environmental justice means the just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other Federal activities that affect human health and the environment so that people:

are fully protected from disproportionate and adverse human health and environmental effects (including risks) and hazards, including those related to climate change, the cumulative impacts of environmental and other burdens, and the legacy of racism or other structural or systemic barriers; and
have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment in which to live, play, work, learn, grow, worship, and engage in cultural and subsistence practices.^[5]

This definition serves to ground us because it points to an equitable outcome for all human beings. Environmental justice work should be about providing an equitable world that allows every person, regardless of status, to have a healthy environment. Human beings being able to enjoy the benefits of an environment that allows them to work and play in a sustainable way should be paramount to how we define the contours of environmental justice.

Now that we have a starting place to consider environmental justice, it is also important to note how we think of disability for the rest of this paper. According to the CDC, disability can be defined as “any condition of the body or mind (impairment) that makes it more difficult for the person with the condition to do certain activities (activity limitation) and interact with the world around them (participation restrictions).”^[6]

This definition is crucial as we consider invisible and visible disabilities. While our society is just now beginning to make headway in considering the ways that visible disabilities impact our society and one another, there is so much work to be done in considering the full spectrum of disabled bodies. Some live in immense pain while others do not. Some experience their disability as a superpower while others are ashamed of their disability. No two people are the same and as such, we must consider nuance when we speak of disabled peoples: particularly Black disabled people.

Black people are disabled at a higher rate in the United States than any other ethnic group. Recent studies show that one out of every four Black people live with some sort of disability.^[7] Sometimes, when I speak at academic conferences, I like to poll the crowd before I give this statistic. I ask people what they would guess our disability rates are. I also poll the crowd and try to get them to name the amount of Black disabled people they know in academia, in movies, and personally.

I do this exercise to frame the disparity between the statistics rates of Black bodies and the representation/space that Black disability takes up in the imaginations of people. Black people being disabled in such a way is massive for realizing that in a crowd of Black people, quite a bit are disabled in one or multiple ways. Some would label this positively. Still others are reeling from systems and environments that have disabled them.

What does all of this have to do with environmental justice? In the journey to create policies that seek to remedy the damage that humans have done to the planet, it is imperative that we consider all bodies when we protest, write, and legislate. In my earlier exercise to poll different crowds about Black disabled people, it is apparent that Black disabled people are rarely considered. If this is the case in a teaching venue, one can easily see how this effect is amplified on a larger scale. If Black disabled people aren’t even considered, then of course they aren’t at the table making decisions.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when churches and many organizations were forced to shut down, many expressed their confusion at how to create meaningful online platforms. As so many scrambled for answers, there seemed to be an ignorance of the ways in which disabled people have had to create community with one another; how they had been forced to do this for many years. Disabled people have wisdom to share. I offer these concrete examples because perhaps, if disabled people, particularly Black, were asked to help form creative online spaces, we all could have coped with the pandemic in more engaging ways. Rather than trying to dream of something from scratch, churches could have asked their chronically ill to explain the ways that they have had to cultivate community when they cannot gather in person.

America as a Disabling Apparatus

I want to underscore how disability manifests for Black bodies as America itself is a disabling apparatus. The way this nation was colonized and made great was through brutalization, maiming, and the spread of disease. Productivity and success remain as American ideals that measure the success of individual and communal lives. It is because of this that I say that America is a disabling apparatus. How does this apparatus influence the lives and futures of Black people? Dr. Rheeda Walker wrote a book entitled The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health where she discusses, among other things, the different avenues that this country employs to harm Black bodies.

She notes that “African-American men, women, and children are mistreated and sometimes killed for doing normal things that white people do or could do without a second thought or consequence.”^[8] This reality impacts Black mental health in very deleterious ways, as Black people are forced to live in a world where anxiety and fear are commonplace. Racism, in its many forms, has a maiming, disabling, and disheartening effect on Black bodies in this nation.

Inherent in writing about America in this way is the knee-jerk reaction that many face to defend America as no more brutal than any other developing nation. It is at this juncture that I must readily say that the systems of heteronormativity, ableism, and racism that have been embedded into this country were created. They are not simply a byproduct of evolution. The rise in work fatigue and mental health breakdown in America cannot be ignored as Americans, irrespective of ethnicity, eventually break down over the demands that the workforce place upon their bodies and minds.

If this weren’t a problem, then the American Psychological Association would not have noted in recent studies that “Nearly 3 in 5 employees reported negative impacts of work-related stress, including lack of interest, motivation, or energy (26%) and lack of effort at work (19%).”^[9] These statistics are compounded when people face work exhaustion, stress, fatigue, and racial discrimination. Bodies develop disabilities that they weren’t born with simply due to the way this country chooses to legislate work.

In light of the disabling apparatus known as America, I point to a model that aims for progress. Black disability politics can help us as we put disability, race, and gender into conversation with environmental justice. Dr. Sami Schalk defines Black disability politics as “anti-ableist arguments and actions performed by Black cultural workers. Black disability politics are often performed in solidarity with disabled people…they prioritize an understanding of disability within the context of white supremacy.”^[10]

Black disability politics and Black disability studies are frameworks that have been and are being used by scholars and activists today to study the relationships between Blackness and disability. Furthermore, organizations such as the Black Panthers were early performers of Black disability politics. In Dr. Schalk’s book, she does extensive work to explore the history between the Black Panthers and the ways in which they fed needy people, strengthened families, and fought for the disabled. Her work clearly shows that even in the 1970s, the Black Panther Party was not ignorant of the rights of Black disabled bodies.

The Good News for Black Disabled People.^[11]

In Christianity, the crucifixion of Jesus has been a place to rally many to view suffering and resurrection. Pain and discomfort can be seen as sacramental and desirable by some within Christianity. Researcher and scholar Robert Orsi, in his book Between Heaven and Earth, does a phenomenal job of looking at some of the history of Catholicism, suffering, and disability. He makes note of the ways that people have utilized the Bible to understand disabled bodies and any suffering that they may go through.

At one point he notes that a common thought was that “pain was a ladder to heaven.” And in another place he notes a common phrase that “God always has a reason for sending pain.”^[12] While it would be beyond the scope of this writing to trace the entire history of pain, suffering, and disability within Christian history, I bring some of Orsi’s thoughts here to broach the topic of how disabled people have been treated throughout history in relation to Christianity. Many have been ignored, some have been incorporated into churches for menial tasks, and still others have been treated as sinners who have displeased God in some way.^[13]

While the predominant message of the Good News that Christianity seeks to provide revolves around Jesus’ suffering and disabling marks, perhaps it is time to consider those who are already disabled. What happens when those who are or who have been made disabled take a seat at the foot of the Cross hypothetically speaking? Good News to these bodies is not that they are invited to suffer more with Jesus. This society, built around ableism, heteronormativity, and racism has already made life harder for these bodies. Instead, a spirituality that calls them into the resurrecting life^[14] is truly Good News.^[15] In this resurrecting life, Black disabled people are consulted as society is reshaped in a way that makes a thriving environment for all.

On this resurrected life, I must point out the Christian doctrine of salvation. Many write about and speak about salvation in terms of what God saves humanity from, namely, sin, death, and hell. Fear of punishment in an eternal lake of fire aligns perfectly with the need for salvation. In the spirituality and the lived experiences that Black disabled people have to offer, hell is not the primary concern.

Instead, many Black disabled people would join with the vision of salvation that Delores Williams points to when she says that “Womanists and Black male liberation theologians can make a special contribution to this resurrection. They can provide ideas about salvation in a social context for Black Christians who want to understand how Black people can be saved in the material world.” This reflection is necessary because Black disabled people, and really all people, need to explore what salvation looks like in the material world. Rather than being mostly concerned with spirit and soul, we must work together to create a world that offers life. In this framing, Black disabled people are pointing out what we need to be saved from (systemic inequities, environmental hazards like global warming, poverty, etc.) and unto.

Conclusion

Black disabled people have fought for this nation in various wars, in the Civil Rights’ Movement, in the classroom, and in modern digital spaces. From Harriet Tubman to Fannie Lou Hamer, Black people have been working, against oppressive odds to make society equitable. I note these women because they were maimed and disabled in their quest to seek liberation. As we consider how to fight for environmental justice, it is important to listen to current Black disabled activists like Talila Lewis, Verton Banks, Lamar Hardwick, Shelby Lynch, Ola Ojewumi, and Keith Jones.

Not all of these activists claim an expressly Christian religious identity, but what is noteworthy is that they have a passion to make an inclusive society. And so, how can they be ignored in talks of environmental reparations and justice? Their voices, and the voices of many other Black disabled bodies are critical. Their reflections on community, the systems that disable, and how different progressive models of environmental justice impact real lives, are extremely nuanced.

Black people in this country have had to make a way out of no way as they have utilized their spirituality and concept of God to advocate for their rights and the rights of their children as referenced earlier. At different intersections of American history, Black lives have served as a reminder that we are not all free and that our liberation is bound with the futures of one another.

In that same way, Black disabled people stand as a witness in this nation that things can be different. Black disabled people remind us that this society was made this way and that we can remake it. They remind us that we cannot fight for the environment outside of knowing the stories of real people. We can work together to create a world where people can flourish.

As we consider environmental justice, I offer another concrete way that Black disabled people, especially in the ones that claim Christian religious identity, can be helpful to society, and that is in framing priorities. When policies such as paper straws are enacted to cut down on plastic waste, who gets the power to say that this particular thing is a priority? The answer is typically found at the top of an organizational chart filled with able-bodied men who are not part of the global majority. These types of policies, that, while done with good intentions, can seem crass when compared to Black disabled people being harmed in public. Furthermore, when Black disabled people are met with poverty, racism, lack of access to wealth, job scarcity, and hunger, we must consider that disabled people can help us to frame the priorities that we have when we strive for equality.

As I close this writing, I am reminded of a scene from Toni Morrison’s famous novel, Beloved. In this novel, Morrison creates a scene known as the Clearing. This beautifully depicted, woodland scene is a staging ground for Black men, women, and children to come and display their full selves. In this powerful scene, the main character, Baby Suggs, holy, someone who has been disabled, invites them all to come.

She reminds them that they are valuable, and worthy to be nurtured. As she watches them lament and dance, she states that “’Here, in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh.’” This beautiful depiction of a woodland scene, with bodies expressing themselves is a picture of what is possible in a reparations model that makes room for Black disabled people. Perhaps this Clearing scene will be a future scene where all bodies, regardless of ability can be at peace with nature and one another.

Robert Monson is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies in the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology joint doctoral program. He hosts two podcasts “Black Coffee and Theology” as well as “Three Black Men” and is a co-director of the nonprofit organization Enfleshed.

Footnotes

“Lead Poisoning in Flint, Michigan – National Partnership for Women & Families,” accessed December 6, 2023, https://nationalpartnership.org/report/clean-water-case-study-flint/#. ↩︎
In February of 2021, Pew Research Center published their findings on the religious beliefs among Black Americans. In this study, they found that the belief in some sort of higher power was almost universal (97%) with the vast majority of those studied ascribing to some form of Christianity. They also noted in their study that at least six-in-ten Black adults noted that religion was very important to them. ↩︎
Pew Research Center, “3. Religious Beliefs among Black Americans,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project(blog), February 16, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/religious-beliefs-among-black-americans/. ↩︎
Dolores S. Williams, Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation, ed. Emilie Townes (Orbis Books, 2015), 97. ↩︎
OEJECR US EPA, “Learn About Environmental Justice,” Overviews and Factsheets, February 13, 2015, <https://web.archive.org/web/20160929060846/https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/learn-about-environmental-justice. ↩︎
DC, “Disability and Health Overview | CDC,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, September 15, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/disability.html. ↩︎
CDC, “Infographic: Adults with Disabilities: Ethnicity and Race | CDC,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October 25, 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/materials/infographic-disabilities-ethnicity-race.html. ↩︎
Rheeda Walker, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help You Deserve (New Harbinger Publications, 2020), 46. ↩︎
“Burnout and Stress Are Everywhere,” https://www.apa.org, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/01/special-burnout-stress. ↩︎
Sami Schalk, Black Disability Politics (Duke University Press, 2022), 5. ↩︎
The Good News I refer to here, that, while disputed in various aspects of Christianity on specifics, is in essence, the message of Jesus as God and the proclamation of his triumph over sin, death, and destruction. It is also referred to in many spaces as the “gospel.” ↩︎
Robert A. Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them(Princeton University Press, 2013), 23. ↩︎
For more thoughts on disability, suffering, and Christianity, I would recommend womanist scholar M. Shawn Copeland’s book Enfleshing Freedom. ↩︎
By referring to “resurrecting life” I am pointing at the Gospel accounts of Jesus rising from the dead. In the biblical account of John 20, Jesus appears to his disciples. With one disciple in particular, Thomas, he shows that even in his resurrected body he still has wounds in his hands and his feet. Rising from the dead in such a miraculous fashion did not erase his disabilities that he suffered at the hands of Romans. ↩︎
In writing on the Good News for disabled bodies, I also want to note that there have been so many innovations around accessibility that started with disabled people in mind that have later helped everyone such as speech recognition, captioning, and other assistive technology. ↩︎

Metaphysical Protestantism-A Comparative Literary Ecology (Zane Johnson)

2024-06-05T14:50:13Z

The influence of religions on human attitudes toward the non-human, whether beneficent or deleterious, has been the subject of serious scholarly debate since at least the publication of Lynn White Jr.’s important essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis”^[1] in the 1960s. This essay issued a near-wholesale condemnation of western Christianity for providing the fallow ground upon which the western world would cultivate its abuse of the non-human. Some have looked to the early modern period to corroborate this, finding supporting evidence from the late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment and sometimes a brief but potent organic worldview in the humanism of the 16th and early 17th centuries.^[2]

In contribution to this ongoing dialogue, careful to eschew a search for culprits and benefactors, I would like to focus on a phenomenon that I believe recurs in these accounts but has not yet been sufficiently born out in the scholarly literature: the way that religious change and conflict are mapped upon the environment and inform environmental attitudes. Oriental^[3] sources since the Renaissance have been enlisted in debates about the nature of matter and the human relationship to it. In the early modern period, Hermes Trismegistus, Plato, and the language of alchemy were commonly enlisted in imagining the environment, as in the Metaphysical poetry of Henry Vaughan.

Similarly, Confucius and the Bhagavad Gita, in addition to these former, were enlisted by Thoreau and Emerson to define new conceptions of the human relationship to the non-human, illuminating the contours of a genealogy of a pliable orientalism meant to cleanse our perceptions of “nature.” In this essay I will focus particularly on these two literary camps, the metaphysical poets and divines of the 17th century and the Transcendentalists of the 19th, to bear out the continuity of the project of Anglo-Protestant self-fashioning against the politically and philosophically fraught non-human. These are themes that I argue run through Western environmental rhetoric since the early modern period. I have chosen to focus on literature due both to the discursive and aesthetic nature of modern environmentalism and to build on previous ecocritical work.^[4]

A rich literature exists on the history of and relationship between Protestantism and modern environmentalism. In his 2015 book Inherit the Holy Mountain, historian Mark Stoll charts the history of the 20th century American environmental movement, showing that behind the nation’s first conservation efforts were artists, activists, and religious leaders with deep roots in Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches.

He argues that certain attitudes of Calvinism, evident both in the 16th century writings of its founder and in the attitudes it would inspire in its English adherents, gave birth to a definite environmental ethic and aesthetic that took concrete shape in the mid-19th century and shaped the ensuing movement of the 20th. Primary among these was the impulse to seek God in creation. Stoll examines the aestheticization of the American landscape by Reformed landscape painters, an artistic production influenced byReformed suspicions of iconography, but which echoes Calvin’s own views on the emblematic nature of God’s creation.^[5]

Other works of environmental intellectual history, such as Keith Thomas’s Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility and Carolyn Merchant’s The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, chart the changing attitudes toward the non-human in early modern England*,* from the late medieval conception of human supremacy over the natural world to the problematizing of this in the Enlightenment, which maintained that the world was meant for human purposes but also decentered the human being from the cosmos. Drawing on largely artistic and literary sources, Stoll and his predecessors intuit the power of religious aesthetics, for good or for ill, to form an environmental ethic in modernity.

However, what I wish to highlight is that, while the new science and the Reformation alike influenced the modern environmental ethic of their own and in conjunction, both produced crises of Euro-Christian identity that projected upon the natural world and have continuing ripple effects in how Euro-American, religiously inflected environmentalism is presented today. The following is a creative attempt to illustrate the continuity between early modern and properly modern anxieties of religious identity.

Metaphysical Poetry and Embattled Nature

In beginning this survey, the most obvious point of departure is George Herbert, Anglican poet and priest of the early 17thcentury. Not only was Herbert beloved of radical New England Protestants, including the early Anglo-American poet Edward Taylor, but he was also quoted directly by Ralph Waldo Emerson himself in his essay“Nature,”one of the primary texts of 20th century American environmentalism*.* George Herbert’s poem titled “Man” best exemplifies, in Emerson’s words, that “wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing.”^[6] Or, in Herbert’s words, from this poem:

Man is all symmetrie,

Full of proportions, one limbe to another,
          And all to all the world besides:

                   Each part may call the farthest, brother:
                     For head with foot hath private amitie,

                       And both with moons and tides.^[7]

This impulse to see the sympathy between the human being and the natural world is a product of the intermediate position that Herbert occupied within shifting attitudes toward materiality in this period. The new science of Descartes and Francis Bacon—the latter of whom was a friend and associate of George Herbert, who translated Bacon’s Advancement of Learning into Latin—instituted a sharp divide between mind and matter, which is trespassed by Herbert’s meditation on human sympathy with the non-human.

Here, Herbert extolls the curative opportunities for human traffic with nature, transgressing the Cartesian divide with the analogical reasoning of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, in which the universe is arranged in a system of correspondences, mapped upon the human body: “Man is one world, and hath another to attend to him”. Against the assumptions of the new science, Herbert presents a vision of right relationship based on the Calvinist understanding of God’s providential creation and the Renaissance trope of the great chain of being.

Elsewhere in Herbert, this issues in a more clearly defined environmental ethic. Carolyn Merchant in her ecofeminist classic The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution noted the preponderance of imagery of sexual violence in the writings of Bacon to describe the mission of the new science to uncover the secrets of the natural world. Despite Herbert’s connections to Francis Bacon, his image in “Vanitie (I)” of The subtil Chymick can devest / And strip the creature naked, till he finde / The callow principles within their nest”^[8] presents these associations—the “Chymick” as plunderer and the misogynist notion of nature as female^[9] —towards an image of ethical constraint against the earth’s plundering.

Stanton J. Linden suggests that Herbert may be “mocking the natural philosopher who, following the propositions of Francis Bacon and the New Science, was increasingly concerned with the ‘rational’ and empirical investigation of the world.” He further suggests that the poem might represent “an early literary reflection of the historical passage of alchemy into chemistry,” an acknowledgment that underscores the historical hybridity of Herbert’s poetry, and that of his literary disciples, in their intellectual attitudes toward self and nature.^[10]

For Herbert and others, the divorce of mind and matter enables something of a communion, albeit a one sided one: the “earth is our cupboard of food and cabinet of pleasure” as much as “all things unto our flesh are kind,” both sentiments expressed in his poem “Man”. While Herbert is certainly not abdicating his throne as lord of the universe here, the prevailing attitude well beyond early modernity, he envisions a benevolent universe in which the human microcosm is at home, and which is emblematic of God’s own providence over creation. It is easy to see here the affinity that Emerson held with this contemplative vision of the divine household (Greek oikos)through which the human being finds its fulfillment.

The “nature” of materiality itself was embattled in the 17th century, enmeshed in actual wars over the precise mechanisms of God’s work in the world, and his mediation in it by human ecclesial-political formations. On the aesthetic front, poets and artists skeptical of both the legacies of medieval scholasticism and the emerging new science enlisted other models of God-world relationship, drawn from the discourses available in the Hermetic Renaissance. Vaughan’s poem, “And do they? have they a sense” criticizes the medieval Scholasticism of a previous age and the new mechanical philosophy alike:

And do they? Have they a Sense

Of ought but Influence?

Can they their heads lift, and expect,

And groan too? why th’Elect
Can do no more: my volumes said
They were all dull, and dead,

They judged them senseless, and their state
Wholly inanimate.^[11]

In “Cock-Crowing,” Vaughan offers another model of divine working in the world drawn from Hermeticism, which asserted that heavenly rays magnetically attract and infuse earthly objects:

Father of lights! what sunny seed,
What glance of day hast Thou confined
Into this bird? To all the breed
This busy ray Thou hast assigned;
Their magnetism works all night,
And dreams of paradise and light.^[12]

The “cock” is an emblem of alchemical Sulphur, the fiery principle of creation which quickens earthly beings. While Herbert reasserts the microcosm-macrocosm cliché of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, his poetic disciple Henry Vaughan engaged more fully in the occult. This syncretism is the result of a number of historical factors. New translations of classical Hermetic and alchemical texts from the Arab-Muslim world in Florence in the previous century made these texts available to the intelligentsia of the period.

A return to Platonism in Northern Europe was evidenced by the Cambridge Platonists led by former Puritan Henry More, whom Stoll cites as a particularly important influence upon the Calvinist theological schools of the 19th century United States, an “ally” to them “against the twin threats of materialism and philosophical atheism.”^[13] Vicious debates on the nature of matter were spurred on both by the infusions of classical sources, such as Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things, and by the Reformation itself.^[14]

As Katherine Eggert has argued, alchemy was a particularly useful framework for “forgetting” Roman Catholic dogmas, especially transubstantiation, and esoterically reimagining the processes by which the divine interacts with the mundane.^[15] Alchemy represented a mythopoetic mode of natural inquiry that tended to emphasize an occult “tie of bodies” which Herbert’s later disciple, Henry Vaughan, brother of alchemist Thomas Vaughan, marveled at. Herbert, for example, in his poem “Whitsunday,” the contemporary English term for the feast of Pentecost, saw an appropriate metaphor for the descent of the holy spirit in the Hermetic “hatching” of the fiery seed of the spirit in material creation, leading to a metallurgical eschatological vision of the Creation transformed:

Listen sweet Dove unto my song,

And spread thy golden wings in me;
Hatching my tender heart so long,

Till it get wing, and fly away with thee.^[16]

While the image here is surely of the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost, according to Jonathon Nauman, such ‘hatching’ by the Holy Spirit had even wider implications. Rather than merely describing by extended metaphor the action of God at the regeneration of a human soul or the creation of the universe, it was accepted as a straightforward physical description of all processes performed by God on man and matter.^[17]

Alchemy was a tool for thinking about human situatedness in divine and natural economies for Herbert and Vaughan and challenging both emerging and forgoing religio-scientific frameworks.

What is most interesting about Vaughan for my purposes, however, is that he seems to presage a certain trend in modern environmentalism by which supposedly ancient—and invariably “eastern,” as Hermes and his science were Egyptian—authorities and concepts are enlisted towards an environmental aesthetics. Henry Vaughan and contemporary neopagans alike draw on sources from what we now call the current of Western esotericism to imagine the environment in a pristine past amidst present turmoil and change.

Emerson and Thoreau’s fascination with both Plato and Vedic scriptures represent a continuation of this discursive tradition, as European colonialism gathered more source texts for thinking about the God-world relationship amidst Euro-American spiritual and political crisis. Closer to late modernity, beat poet Gary Snyder locates early and pre-modern esotericism in a perennial stream of ecological thought he has discovered through Zen Buddhism in his Earth House Hold.^[18] In any case, the Platonic and Hermetic currents that undergird Henry Vaughan’s and to a lesser extent George Herbert’s poetics leads to an emblematic representation of nature wherein creatures are either shadows of the divine mind, sometimes illuminated by an individual poetic insight, or else they are enlivened directly by astral energies. It is important to bear in mind that this rhetorical move has historically been polemical.

Transcendental Orientalism and Emblematic Nature

The tenets of Transcendentalism are well known: self-reliance, breaking from tradition for new pastures, immersion in nature for spiritual renewal. Both the role of New England Protestantism and fascination with oriental sources are also well-attested. I turn now to the continuities with the poet-priests of the English Renaissance that these themes represent. Orientalism emerges more definitely as a popular concern in the 19th century.^[19] As Tomoko Masuzawa has argued, struggling with the legacy of Enlightenment rationalism and emerging notions of race, a Euro-Christian intellectual pursuit was underway to search for alternative origins for Christendom to divorce it from its problematic Semitic origins which it found in Aryan philology and religion.^[20]

This mirrors the search for alternative origins among the 17th century divines discussed above, but introduces new factors, namely the prospect of leaving Christianity behind altogether. Indeed, both Emerson and Thoreau were deeply versed in the literature of the English Renaissance, as evidenced both by Emerson’s quote of George Herbert introduced at the beginning of this paper and in Thoreau’s frequent allusions to John Milton and John Donne throughout Walden.

These authorities, alongside quotations of Confucius and Mencius, are employed to a critical end, as in Thoreau’s invocation of Donne’s “To Sir Edward Herbert, at Juliers” to rail against the slovenliness of modern urban life and advocate a Platonic ascent above such dross: “I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.” Predictably, it is to the “Hindoo lawgiver” we should look to order our material affairs and re-dignify again human life.^[21]

Despite writing in distinct times and places, there are notable similarities and continuities between the concerns of 17th century England and 19th century America, namely an intensifying crisis of religious identity. It is somewhat predictable that white, educated New England Protestants would look to Anglophone literature to substantiate their critiques. More than this, however, they participate in the same cultural work of searching for alternative origins and ideals for modern life, which they locate in Renaissance poetry itself and in Asian sources.

According to her biographer, Waldo’s aunt, Mary Moody Emerson offered the prototype to her nephew of individualism and contemplative refuge in nature that she saw “more centrally than either Calvinist or Hindu belief … [in] the English poet-priests” and the strong tradition of Renaissance Platonism.^[22] Consistent with what I am describing, she attempted to revive New England Protestantism “by infusing it with energies not its own.^[23] Emerson’s life is in some ways emblematic of the tension between orthodoxy and fidelity to traditional Reformed doctrine, and a more expansive, Platonist-inflected view that in some cases supplements and others criticizes that. In his own life, the church to which he was ordained was in the process of splitting between orthodox Calvinist and progressive Unitarian camps.

Emerson’s aunt encouraged him to hang on despite the tension, and herself and her writings served as source texts for his own Platonist-Transcendental thought, and indeed has been acknowledged as the primary influence upon his life and thought.^[24]

In terms of how this plays out upon the screen of “nature,” both the Metaphysicals and the Transcendentalists appropriated a correspondence model of reality in parts, as in Thoreau’s statement that the universe responds to the human imagination and will and Emerson’s originating impulse to this line of thinking, as well as a Platonism that sees in nature the shadow of the Divine Mind (“nature is a symbol of spirit”^[25] ), the former of which sometimes must be cast off to realize the individual’s spiritual nature. Thus, their conception of the non-human environment is emblematic.

Emerson sees in Herbert’s emblematic depiction of the divine-natural economy in “Man” a benevolent cosmos rigged for human benefit; Thoreau sees in Walden Pond a cosmic mirror: “A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. … We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.”^[26] Here is an attempt to breach the Cartesian divide that the Transcendentalists’ Metaphysical forerunners sought to attempt, looking at the environment through the dual hermeneutic of Calvinism’s providential creation and Renaissance Platonist esotericism.

It is interesting to consider the influence of the Renaissance emblem book format upon this line of thinking, books of emblematic images accompanied by explanatory verse or prose text. Their image-laden religious poems engage in this tradition, sometimes taking concrete geometric shapes on the page, such as Herbert’s “The Altar” and “Easter Wings,” but most often in the use of concrete images, such as the cock as image of alchemical fire in Vaughan’s poem “Cock-Crowing”. Stoll identifies the emblem as an early source in the stream of Reformed art, recalling controversy around the proper Reformed use of images. While not icons or sacramentals in the proper sense, the emblem book format was useful in aestheticizing an embattled nature in this period, while also performing a catechetical function. An early popularizer of the format, Francis Quarles, describes the hieroglyphic nature of God’s creatures, mirrored in the emblem:

“An emblem is but a silent Parable … Our blessed SAVIOUR … in holy scripture … is sometimes called a Sower; sometimes, a Fisher; sometimes, a Physitian; And why not presented so, as well to the eye, as to the eare? Before the knowledge of letters, GOD was knowne by Hieroglyphicks; And, indeed, what are the heavens, the earth, nay every Creature, but Hieroglyphicks and Emblemes of his glory?”

Emerson states it even more explicitly: “Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significant but what we consciously give them? The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.” Henry Vaughan and other Metaphysicals such as Thomas Traherne have been called predecessors to Romanticism, which birthed Transcendentalism in America, a progenitor in turn of the modern environmental movement. Their historical situatedness between late medieval Catholicism and the emergent new science provided a unique set of rhetorical tools to think about the relationship between humanity, nature, and God in such turbulent times.

As religious writers, they used images to encourage ethical constraint upon the rapacious use of the environment for human benefit—the express goal of the New Science in Descartes’ understanding—while thinking about their entanglement in this natural economy through Reformed principles and alternative theories of matter and spiritual-material economies. This is precisely what the Transcendentalists are trying to achieve and with similar discursive tools. The providential creator becomes the oversoul in Emerson which is best read in the pristine text of nature, a site of theophany in the Protestant imagination since the beginning.^[27]

Transcendental depictions of nature continue the English Renaissance tradition, even as they strove for “new lands, new men, new thoughts,”^[28] as Emerson calls for in his introduction to “Nature.” However, due to their historical situation in the 19th century and the new, albeit limited, availability of East and South Asian literatures in translation, the primary sources of Transcendental orientalism lie in India and China and thus approach our current understandings of spiritual exoticism.

As recent studies of metaphysical religion—the strand of American popular religion that was largely influenced by Emerson and later New Thought proponents through to the New Age and historically unrelated to Metaphysical poetry—have shown, this is a complicated legacy that has continued unabated in 20th and 21st century America, despite recent pushback from indigenous and immigrant communities from these largely white, commercial appropriations.^[29] Contemporary metaphysical religionists draw on a continued tradition of rejection of institutional religion championed by Emerson and the movement known as Transcendentalism. Yet, it is important to remember that Transcendentalism arose from a discursive stream of Protestant self-understanding that began in the early modern period.

Rather than arguing for an unbroken Christian Platonist tradition that extends from the early modern period to the middle of the 19th century, I wish to highlight here a continuity in the ways that religious change and religious criticism have invariably been expressed in terms of relationship to the environment and have constituted a discursive pattern in Euro-American literature and culture. Both Henry Vaughan and Transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau turned from the profanity of the worlds around them, marked by unjust wars (and slavery in the Transcendentalist context), and attempted to retreat to their respective natural worlds.

Today, metaphysical religion in America, profoundly influenced by Emerson and Transcendentalism—though I wish to be careful to not conflate contemporary New Age spirituality with Renaissance Platonic Christianity and Transcendentalism^[30] —is split on the issue of materiality between those that adhere to a “mind over matter” metaphysics and those that seek a relinquishment of self to the cosmos.^[31] In all cases, nature serves as the foreground to self-transformation and also the site of theophany in their particular contexts.

Conclusion

In this essay I have attempted a comparative reading of the Metaphysical poets and the Transcendentalists to bear out what I have identified as a rhetorical pattern about the “nature” of man, nature, and God that have arisen at particular times of religious crisis in Euro-Christian history. The Metaphysicals were responding to the Reformation, already a generation old at the point of their writing, and the emerging new science, challenging these with appeals to Calvinist ethical understandings of God’s providential creation and with what we would call “esoteric” infusions of the language of Renaissance Hermeticism and Platonism, a manifestation of what Wouter Hanegraff calls “Platonic orientalism.”

The Transcendentalists, reading and citing this milieu and other English works of the same period, draw on the language of Platonism, which mingles with their own New England Protestant inflections and the influx of South and East Asian materials to recast the spiritual-material economy as a corrective to a wayward society. The widely documented influence of Emerson on New Age spirituality transmitted to the 20th century and beyond the tenets of positive mind metaphysics, a rejection of institutional religion, and a proclivity for seeking spiritual growth in the non-human world.

Yet even within the New Age milieu we can see a similar rhetorical pattern, initiated in the Renaissance, of enlisting “oriental” sources to think about religious identity in the midst of a fraught and changing world, and thereby what the essential “nature” of that world is. The rejection of Christian roots is near total among metaphysical religionists today, yet this discourse, which continues to have great purchase, arises from a great tradition of contesting and defining those very roots.

Zane Johnson is a doctoral candidate in the University of Denver-Iliff School of Theology joint doctoral program. He received his MA from the University of Munich where he studied early modern English literature and religion, literary translation, and the environmental humanities. He currently serves as sacristan of Saint John’s Cathedral in Denver, CO.

Footnotes

Lynn Jr. White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” in The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, ed. Cheryl Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1996), 3–14. ↩︎
Cf. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980). ↩︎
I use this term following Hanegraaf to describe the rhetoric of appealing to ancient “eastern” wisdom sources, usually Plato, Zoroaster, and Hermes Trismegistus from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance. Modern environmental primitivism exemplified by Thoreau prefers east and south Asian and indigenous American cultures but follows the same rhetorical thread. Cf. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012): 5-73. ↩︎
Zane Johnson, “‘All Things unto Our Flesh Are Kind’: Corporality and Ecology in The Temple” 52, no. 1 & 2 (2019/2018): 128–45; Zane Johnson, “Starhawk, Henry Vaughan, and the Environmental Imagination,” Seeing the Woods: A Blog by the Rachel Carson Center (blog), 2020, <https://seeingthewoods.org/2020/11/18/starhawk-henry-vaughan-and-the-environmental-imagination/. ↩︎
Mark Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 10-53. ↩︎
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures, ed. Joel Porte (New York: The Library of America, 1983), 44. ↩︎
George Herbert, The English Poems of George Herbert, ed. Helen Wilcox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 332. ↩︎
George Herbert, The English Poems, 308. ↩︎
See Ynestra King, “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology,” in Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, ed. Judith Plant (Toronto: Between the Lines, n.d.). for an ecofeminist appraisal of the trope of nature as woman. ↩︎
Stanton J. Linden, Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 192. ↩︎
Henry Vaughan, “[And Do They so? Have They a Sense],” in George Herbert and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Poets, ed. Mario A. Di Cesare (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978), 154. ↩︎
Henry Vaughan, “Cock-Crowing,” in George Herbert and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Poets, ed. Mario A. Di Cesare (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978), 167. ↩︎
Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain, 24. ↩︎
See Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011). ↩︎
Katherine Eggert, Disknowledge: Literature, Alchemy, and the End of Humanism in Renaissance England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 55-109. ↩︎
Herbert, The English Poems, 213. ↩︎
Jonathon Naumann, “Herbert the Hermetist: Vaughan’s Reading of The Temple,” George Herbert Journal 17, no. 1 (1993): 30. ↩︎
Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold (Cambridge, MA: New Directions Publishing, 1969), 114-115. ↩︎
Though Masonic and para-Masonic bodies flourished in Europe throughout the 18th century, retaining the earlier fascination with secret “Asiatic” brotherhoods and lineages deriving from Egypt. ↩︎
Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, or How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005), 147-178. ↩︎
Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003), 174. ↩︎
Phyllis Cole, Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism: A Family History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 178. ↩︎
Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 180. ↩︎
Cole, Mary Moody Emerson, 174. ↩︎
Emerson, Nature, 20. ↩︎
Thoreau, Walden, 150. ↩︎
Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain, 22. ↩︎
Emerson, “Nature,” 7. ↩︎
Mark Silk and Christopher White, eds., The Future of Metaphysical Religion in America (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2022), xiv. ↩︎
Though as Grainger notes, there are remarkable similarities between early modern European occultism and New Age religion: The doctrine of correspondence central to harmonialism [a tenet of New Age spirituality] has a long history in Western thought, including ancient practices of astrology and the alchemical traditions of the Hermetic Renaissance.” Brett Malcolm Grainger, “The Place of Nature in Metaphysical Religion: A Brief History,” in The Future of Metaphysical Religion in America, ed. Christopher White and Mark Silk, Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2022), 26. ↩︎
Grainger, “The Place of Nature in Metaphysical Religion,” 37. ↩︎

The Image of God and Our Vocation of the Soil, Part 2 (Mick Pope)

2024-05-24T20:12:53Z

The article is published in two installments. The first can be found here.

Humans from the Hummus – life as royal gardeners

It is generally recognised that the Garden story is more environmentally friendly. As Jewish scholar Ziony Zevit observes, agricultural themes are clearer in the Garden story.^[1] As we saw earlier, Habel identifies it as a more Christian text than P’s mandate, a view I have refuted. To fully appreciate this narrative as a potential root for a biblically informed environmental justice principle, it is important to liberate Eden from a simple, paradisiac prelapsarian past.^[2]

The first observation from this passage is that of human solidarity with the rest of creation. In Gen 2:7, the man (haadam) was formed out of the earth, aphar min haadamah. Zevit sees as significant in in contrasting the adam from the animals. The word adamis related both to the soil adamah, but also the colour red adom, and blood dam, hence referring to the soil terra rossa.^[3] Theodore Hiebert notes that adamah is used in a precise sense, as cultivable soil, as opposed to the more general erets.^[4]

The breathed upon clod became a nephesh hayyah, as was domestic and wild animals (Gen 1:24). We shall see shortly the difference that being created from the dust of the earth makes compared to directly from the earth. Yet the common origin ties to the use of the formula “these are the generations of (toledot)” (Gen 2:4) that the Garden story describes the origin of the Earth family.^[5] We are all earthlings.

The second observation, following Walter Brueggemann, is that our creation from the dust (aphar) of the earth in Gen 2:7, rather than simply straight from the earth as with the garden trees and animals implies a royal identity for the adam. Comparing Gen 2:7 with 1 Kgs 16:2, and 1 Sam 2:8 (paralleling Ps 113:7–8) reveals that aphar can refer to a pre-royal status:

1 Kgs 16:2 I lifted you out of the dust (aphar) and made you ruler over my people

1 Sam 2:8 // Ps 113:7–8 He raises up the poor from the dust (aphar); and he lifts the needy from the ash heap to set them among princes

Of course, aphar can refer to literal dust, as in the curse of the serpent (Gen 3:14) and is also indicative of our mortality (Gen 3:19). However, these parallels beg the question of where Eden was, who the adam was, and what was their role?

Several factors link Eden to the Tabernacle and hence serving the Garden with serving God. First, the Garden was entered from the east (Gen 3:24). The entrance to the tent of meeting was to the east (Num 3:28), as was the entrance to the temple in Jerusalem (Ezek 8:16). Second, Gordon Wenham observes that these guardian cherubim (Gen 3:24) feature in Solomon’s temple in the inner sanctuary, decorating the walls and doors (1 Kgs 6:23–32), and the top the Ark of the Covenant (Exod 25:18–22).^[6]

Third, as Geoffery Harper has observed, the divine presence in both Eden and the sanctuary is indicated by Yhwh walking to and fro within them. The hithpael of halak (Gen 3:8), is also used in connection with the Tabernacle being carried with the people (2 Sam 7:6–7), the divine presence within the camp (Deut 23:14), and throughout Canaan (Lev 26:12).^[7] The implication is that as in other parts of the ancient Near East, gardens were associated with temple cults and the wise royal rule. Such temple theology is not dissimilar to that found in P’s creation account, where creation is described as a protological temple.^[8]

Who then is the adam? Geoffrey Harper examines the relationship between the Garden narrative and H in the Holiness Code and examines the dating of H.^[9] Of the options for pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic, I find the latter most convincing. Julia Rhyder argues for a post-exilic setting because H assumes the presence of the temple. The purpose of H is therefore to ensure the success of the second temple cult.^[10] If this is the case, then the adam represents all of Israel. Such a view makes sense of the above discussion of reverencing the temple and keeping the Sabbath as being central to lay Israelite holiness.

Zevit reveals much of what is understood life in the garden to be like to be a projection from Greek mythology.^[11] God planted a garden and put the adam in there to work it. Eden likely means bountiful or abundant, based on its shared consonantal root ednah, and Assyrian parallels.^[12] Hiebert notes that this bounty was of rain–based highlands, and not irrigated lowlands (Gen 2:5 cf. Dt 11:10–11).^[13] Elsewhere, Eden is described as well watered and agriculturally endowed (Gen 13:10; Joel 2:3). Hence, life in Eden meant hard, but rewarding agricultural labor.

Davis comments further on the nature of this labor. The Hebrew abad is often translated as work done for someone, except where it refers to soil, where it is usually translated as work done on or with something (e.g., Gen 2:5). From this, Davis concludes that the human pair were to work for the soil, serving its needs.^[14] Likewise, shamar, usually translated as keep as in a flock (e.g. 1 Sam 17:20) can also mean observe, as in keeping the Sabbath (e.g. Ex 31:13). Davis takes from this the need to observe the soil, learn from it, and respect its limits. These limits of the soil are instantiated within it by God and provides us with a lesson that human ingenuity cannot always overcome limits.^[15]

Given that Eden is the tabernacle in Jerusalem, what then of the return to dust warned in Gen 3? The most obvious reference is to human mortality, but Brueggemann also suggests dethronement language, the opposite of the enthronement found in other passages that use aphar. Given the likely post-exilic setting, exile itself must be in mind. Leviticus 18 places Israel on the same tentative footing in the land as the nations before them and promises they will be “vomited out” by the land for covenant breaking. Likewise, Lev 26 echoes Gen 3 in the reversal of its blessings.^[16] The ejection from the Garden therefore is the reminder of the possibility of exile.

However, the divine presence is not limited to the land, suggesting that even in exile, relationship with God via good earth care was possible. God’s care of creation is described in two ways. Rain provides the needed moisture to cause both the human gardener to be formed to tend domesticated plants, and to water the wild plants outside of the garden (Gen 2:5–9).^[17] Likewise, the river out of Eden divides into four to water the world.^[18]

Hence, while Israel’s vocation was to care for its own soil, the world outside of it, and its agricultural concerns was not outside of divine care. Yet, the goal was always return to Eden, and Lev 26 points towards the “Edenization of Caanan” and to land care as an exercise of lay Israelite holiness, as discussed earlier. This Edenization was anticipated elsewhere in the prophetic literature (e.g. Ezek 36:3; Isa 51:3).^[19] As we shall see below, this Edenization is not confined to Canaan in the New Testament but extends to include all of creation.

The roots of environmental justice in the non-Priestly Garden story lie in its understanding of connection between God’s Tabernacle presence, and the imagery of tending the Garden. Gardens were usually a symbol of kingly wisdom to rule, be it the king of Persia (Esth 7:7) of Nebuchadnezzar with his hanging gardens of Babylon.^[20] By analogy, the adam as gardener points to a broader rule and hence responsibility for the adamah beyond the garden.

As noted earlier, Rhyder argues that H integrates the Garden narrative into its promotion of the temple cult in the Persian period.^[21] As such then, the royal cultic role is that of the lay Israelite and demonstrated in the reverencing of the temple and keeping of the Sabbath, which as noted above, includes care for the land. Hence, the two stories (Gen 1:1–2:3 and 2:4–3:24) point in the same direction. In an agrarian society, land care is assumed to be a part of lay holiness. The non-agriculturally related creation shares in this, even if it is not as clearly prioritised.

Returning to the soil

We have seen that the two origin stories in the Hebrew bible present proper care of land as a holy and sacred task, part of the good ordering of creation so that human needs for nourishment are met, we can procreate, and bear the divine image. The Anthropocene demonstrates a lack of wisdom, particularly with regards to limits. Western society in the 21st century is not agrarian in nature. Farming in the west continues the trend of a small number of laborers producing a large amount of food via mechanization, or the use of cheap labor.

As discussed already, agriculture has led to the pushing of several of the planetary boundaries which support human flourishing and that of the more-than-human. What then does the relationship of the image of God and its relationship to agriculture tell us about human vocation for the non-farmer?

Themes from Gen 1–3 and H are echoed in the New Testament. The so-called Nazareth Manifesto of Luke 4 hints at a Jubilee year, with Jesus’ proclamation of the “year of the Lord’s favour” (v. 19) and release of captives (v. 18 cf. Lev 25:40–41).^[22] Unmentioned, but unavoidable in my analysis, is Sabbath rest for the land. Likewise, John’s gospel incorporates both origin stories. Jesus is both the agent of creation and new creation in John 1 (c.f. Gen 1) and the new Adam in the new creation in John 20 (c.f., Gen 2).

There are seven signs in John’s Gospel, echoing the heptadic creation story. The eighth sign is the resurrection, indicating the new creation.^[23] Hints of the struggle of the creation and its futility to human misrule are found in Romans 8, together with Exodus language promising a return from exile for people and land.^[24] Finally, Rev 21–22 explicitly uses imagery from Gen 1–3. In Rev 22:2, the tree of life is for the blessing of the nations, and hence Edenization moves out from the church into the whole world.^[25]

My argument, albeit tentative, is that if the creation accounts point to an intimate human connection to soil, and a warping or frustrating of the relationship is part of our alienation from God, then part of being redeemed is being reconnected to soil. This does not suggest that humanity must return to an essentially agrarian way of life, but that given that part of the Anthropocene is an abuse of soil, all humans are called to better respect the soil. Such respect can take three forms.

First, all human labor should indirectly nurture and serve the needs of soil. Any human activity that undercuts agriculture is a breaking of our mandate, let alone a lack of wisdom. This is a principle broad in application. As noted, giving land Sabbath rest from human economic activity is key.

Second, it is important that all humans see themselves as bi-vocational. Gardening represents a return to the soil, a re-grounding and reconnection to natural cycles that has been lost in modern life, and indeed is being disrupted by climate change. This is not a call to reduce human society to entirely agrarian, but a call to attentiveness. Miriam Pepper has catalogued the variety of community gardens, demonstrating that garden can provide spaces for reconciliation, meditation, education, and becoming rooted to place.^[26]

Third, for those of us living in colonised lands, reconnecting with soil is an opportunity for reconciliation. Bruce Pascoe demonstrated has that Aboriginal people engaged in agriculture in a sustainable manner before colonization.^[27] Learning to reground ourselves in an Australian context is intimately tied up in reconciliation. Potawatomi botanist Robin Kimmerer calls us to learn the “grammar of animacy,” which is necessarily local in nature, and reflective of the traditional peoples of a place.^[28] While we need to understand the whole earth as temple, i.e., think globally, we need to act locally if environmental justice is to take root in our own contexts.

Mick Pope heads up the Australian environmental think tank Ethos. He completed undergraduate theological studies and a PhD in Meteorology at Monash University. He is Professor of Environmental Mission at Missional University and speaks regularly on the interaction with environmental ethics, science and mission. He has a number of published book chapters and journal articles in this area, including A Climate of Hope: Church and Mission in a Warming World, with Claire Dawson (2014), and Climate of Justice (2017).

Footnotes

Ziony Zevit, What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). ↩︎
Nicholas Wyatt, “A Royal Garden: The Ideology of Eden,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 28, no. 1 (2014): 1–35. ↩︎
Zevit, What Really Happened, 82. ↩︎
Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape, 34. ↩︎
Mick Pope, From Canaan to Creation: Biblical Hermeneutics for the Anthropocene (Eugene: Pickwick, 2024), 58. ↩︎
Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, ed. Richard S. Hess (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 401. LeFebrve, “Adam Reigns in Eden,” 32. ↩︎
G. Geoffrey Harper, “I Will Walk Among You” The Rhetorical Function of Allusions to Genesis 1–3 in the Book of Leviticus (University Park: Eisenbrauns, 2018), 194. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 401. ↩︎
Pope, From Canaan to Creation, 39–42. ↩︎
Harper, “I Will Walk Among You,” 88–97. ↩︎
Julia Rhyder, “Sabbath and Sanctuary Cult in the Holiness Legislation: A Reassessment,” JBL 138, no. 4 (2019): 721. ↩︎
Zevit, What Really Happened, 86. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Theodore Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape Nature and Religion in Early Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 36–37. ↩︎
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 29. ↩︎
Ibid, 30-31. ↩︎
Pope, From Creation to Canaan, 82–83. ↩︎
Ibid, 64-65. ↩︎
Ibid, 77. ↩︎
Ibid, 79. ↩︎
LeFebvre, Adam Reigns in Eden, 30–31. ↩︎
Julia Rhyder, “Sabbath and Sanctuary Cult,” 721. ↩︎
R. B. Sloan, “Jubilee,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scott McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 396. ↩︎
Margaret Daly-Denton, John: An Earth Bible Commentary: Supposing Him to Be the Gardener, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2017). ↩︎
Mick Pope, “With Heads Craning Forward: The Eschaton and the Non-human Creation in Romans 8,” in Ecotheology in the Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Divine in Nature, ed. Melissa Brotton (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016), 161–78. ↩︎
Mick Pope, *All Things New: God’s Plan to Renew Our World (*Reservoir: Morning Star Publishing, 2018), 135–136. ↩︎
Miriam Pepper, “Church-based Community Gardening: Where Mission Meets Ecology in Local Contexts,” Australian Journal of Mission Studies, 6, no 2 (2012): 54-59. ↩︎
Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture (London: Scribe, 2018). ↩︎
See Robin W. Kimmerer, The Democracy of Species (London: Penguin Books, 2021), 1–23. ↩︎

The Image of God and Our Vocation of the Soil, Part 1 (Mick Pope)

2024-05-03T22:51:43Z

The article is published in two installments.

Agriculture and the Anthropocene

Earth history has entered a new geological era known as the Anthropocene.^[1] The commonly agreed origin of this era was the 1950s with the “Great Acceleration,” a period of rapid economic growth.^[2] With its onset, several key elements of the Earth system which represent a “safe operating space for humanity” have been disrupted. This disruption is measured by nine planetary boundaries, which represent conditions present in the preceding era known as the Holocene.^[3] Several of these boundaries are associated with agriculture.

Land use changes due to agriculture and other human activities contribute to global warming via carbon dioxide emissions. Croplands represent the largest contribution to this as the cleared forest biomass releases carbon dioxide, as does the soil profile.^[4] Land clearing contributes to defaunation – the loss of species and populations – due to habitat loss.^[5] Further, land use changes and intensive agriculture are implicated in zoonotic diseases such as COVID19 ^[6] and Japanese encephalitis.^[7]

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with anthropogenic sources related to agriculture. Rice is a staple for more than three billion people, accounting for up to 11% anthropogenic of methane emissions.^[8] Ruminants – domestic sheep and cattle – are also a significant source of anthropogenic methane emissions.^[9] Both nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers result in the deoxygenation of aquatic ecosystems. Nitrogen is also implicated in congenital heart defects in newborns, and some cancers.^[10] Nitrogen from fertilisers produces 60–70% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.^[11]

There is an estimated 100,000 novel entities in global commerce today that have “the potential for unwanted geophysical and/or biological effects.”^[12] The agricultural pesticides was first implicated in the death of North American birds by Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring.^[13] More recently, neonicotinoid insecticides have been experimentally shown to be implicated in the decline of insects,^[14] including wild bees.^[15]

The modern Anthropocene did not emerge ex nihilo in the form of the Great Acceleration, but has several historical antecedents, which includes the origins of agricultural society. Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin note that the origins of agriculture have “long-lasting environmental impacts” while not in of itself satisfying a geologically measurable origin to the Anthropocene.^[16] Agriculture first occurred at the end of the last ice age, after a brief cold period known as the Younger Dryas.

Its onset has been linked with a shift from semi-sedentary foragers to the first farmers in the Levant.^[17] With the onset of agriculture, energy extraction from the biosphere increased from less than 0.01% to about 3%. A return to hunter gathering became difficult due to agricultural surplices, more frequent births, and the increased labor requirements of agriculture.^[18]

The Early Anthropocene Hypothesis suggests that human activity has modified the current interglacial cycle, with carbon dioxide emissions associated with the loss of forested land beginning about 8,000 years ago in, and methane emissions associated with increased rice agriculture and an expansion in the populations of sheep and cattle from about 5,000 years ago.^[19]

Agricultural changes are also associated with the so-called New–Old World collision which began with the arrival of Europeans in the Caribbean in 1492. Apart from the exchange of food stuffs and feral animals, the invasion of north America by Europeans in resulted in an estimated 48 million deaths due to disease and conflict by 1650.^[20] This population collapse resulted in the reversion of over 50 million hectares from farmland to forests, producing a measurable increase in global carbon dioxide levels. Heather Davis and Zoe Todd identify the ideological origins of the Anthropocene in colonization and the origins of capitalism, and like many scholars, prefers the term Capitocene.^[21]

Raj Patel and Jason Moore observe that the production of cheap food from agricultural surplices has played a key role in the rise of capitalism. Rather than the earlier land based politically produced surpluses, capitalism focusses on labor and market solutions. Labor becomes more efficient such that fewer people work the land, and food is kept cheap to enable cheap labor. The land is transformed into monocultures designed to bring in profit.^[22] Such an agricultural system soon gives rise to exhaustion of the land.

This summary of the impacts of agriculture on the planet would appear to ignore the obvious benefits of providing humans with sufficient nutrition. Zero hunger is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.^[23] Yet the key word here is sustainable. How can humanity continue to pursue agriculture in such a way that continues to support our existence, together with the flourishing of non-human species? This essay examines the Priestly creation story (Gen 1:1–2:3), and the non-Priestly Garden narrative (Gen 2:3–3:24).

Can these accounts provide ‘roots’ for environmental justice in the way in which we relate to soil? I propose that these texts are, among other things, fundamentally agricultural in outlook. It is a fundamental aspect of our humanity to seek our own wellbeing, and agriculture is one such way of doing so. Hence the Imago Dei implies a vocation of the soil, which is our shared origin with all other creatures.

Agriculture and Disorder

The first creation story has traditionally been identified with the Priestly (P) school, with its interest in temple, sacrifice, and Sabbath keeping. The Priestly political imaginary may be the work of more than one generation of scribes, including P in dialogue with older sources.^[24] It is possible to divide P further into the Holiness School (H).^[25] The bulk of this material is found in the Holiness Code of Leviticus 17–26, while some H-like theology is evident in Gen 1:1-2:3.^[26]

There are numerous hints in the P’s creation account to indicate that agriculture was central to their worldview. The first is the use of the Hebrew words tohu and bohu, typically translated as “formless” and “void” respectively. Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, bohu is only ever found with tohu, in Isa 34:11 and Jer 4:23. Isaiah 34 describes judgment on the nations (vv. 1–4), in particular Edom (vv. 5–10) in vindication of Zion (v. 8). Verses 11 – 15 form a chiasm, where the central focus is on the judgment on the rules of Edom (v. 12) in the form of environmental destruction.^[27] This makes better sense than the NRSV, which translates v. 11b as “He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles.” The structure is as follows:

vv. 8–10 introduction. The smoke from the pitch of sulphur shall rise forever and the land will be a waste or dried up (charab)
v. 11a the land is full of wild animals: hawk, hedgehog, owl, and raven
v. 11b God stretches out the line of confusion (tohu) and the stones of emptiness (bohu)
v. 12 the human rulers will be nothing
v. 13a thorns, nettles, and thistles shall be found in Edom’s strong places
vv. 13b–15 wild beasts of the desert and demons inhabit the land

The NASB follows the thought that if thorns, etc are found in stronghold and fortresses (v. 13a), that the subject of the tohu and bohu must be the rulers, since it is their places of power that have been abandoned. However, v. 9 curses both the land (erets) and dust (aphar). The extent of judgment is all inclusive. The parallel of wild animals (v. 11a cf. vv. 13b-15) indicates a breakdown in order, with wild beasts of the desert (v. 14) overtaking the land. Likewise, tohu and bohu describes the spread of weeds indicative of a breakdown in agricultural tending of the aphar.

Jeremiah 23 describes invasion of Judah. Language of uncreation is employed, with the formula “I beheld (ra’ah)” and “behold (hinneh)” echoing the language of P’s creation account (Gen 1:31). The earth is tohu and bohu and there are no lights in heaven (Jer 4:23b cf. Gen 1:2). The mountains and hills shook (Jer 4:24 cf. the creation of dry land Gen 1:9–10). There were no people (Jer 4:25a cf. Gen 1:26) or birds (Jer 4:25b cf. Gen 1:20–22). In summation, the fruitful land (karmel) was a desert (midbar) and the cities in ruins. As in Isaiah 34, tohu and bohu is associated with destruction, particularly of agricultural lands.

Agriculture and Order

Hence, in Genesis 1, agricultural order is imposed on the pre-existing agricultural disorder over six days. On day one, time is created by the creation of light and its separation from darkness. On the second day, space is created by the separation of the waters above from the waters below by the firmament. On the third day, food is created by separating the waters into one place and the dry ground in another where vegetation can grow. On day four, the sun, moon, and stars are installed in the firmament to rule the day and night and mark the seasons, necessary for agriculture. Finally, God creates the living creatures (nephesh hayyah), and humans in God’s image, and grants them plants to eat (vv. 29-30).

Ellen Davis identifies agricultural theme running through P’s narrative,^[28] stressing the key role seeds play. On day three, the dry land called earth (erets) is created as the waters below the heavens were gathered into one place (Gen 1:9). From the erets comes forth sprout–out sprouts, plants seeding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit. There is an emphasis on selfperpetuation and abundance with greenery of various kinds.^[29]

The closing bracket on seeds is in v. 29 as every plant and fruit tree seeding seed is for human consumption. All other greenery is for animals (v. 30). Following Walton, from a functional perspective, soil, water, and the principle of seed bearing are all tied to the production of food. The account of the emergence of dry land mirrors the annual appearance of soil after the flooding of the Nile.^[30]

This extended discussion is an awkward and departure from the conciseness of the first two days of creation. This points towards the particularity of place and the genetic diversity of the region at the time.^[31] The region of the Fertile Crescent marks one of the locations of the origins of agriculture.^[32] Hence “read in this way, the Priestly account of creation seems not far removed from the overtly agrarian character of the Yahwist’s ‘drama of soil.’”^[33]

The concept of the imago Dei is linked to our relationship to soil. The Priestly vision for human life is realized in Israel and its holiness as a people (Lev 11:44–45; 19:2 etc). This vision of holiness emphasized the land and covenanted creatures along with the people. Gen 1:26–28 shows us how life in God’s image is meant to conform with other forms of life into a “harmonious whole.”^[34] What follows then is the most essential task of securing food along with the other animals (vv. 29–30).

Understanding the text to be exilic, although it is equally compatible with a post-exilic setting, Davis interprets vv. 29–30 in the context of a Mesopotamian temple centerd agricultural system. Hence, the image of God represents a democratization of the priestly and kingly role to all those involved in the agricultural system.^[35] This theme is also present in the Garden story as we shall see.

Agriculture and limits

The securing of food is not ultimately determinative. Concern is often shown over the verbs radah and kabash, which are translated as “rule” and “subdue.”^[36] Normal Habel concludes that we should abandon Gen 1:26–28 for the “green” text of Gen 2:15.^[37] Two responses may be made. First, alternative understands of these concepts are possible. Davis understands the basic means of radah as “the travelling around of the shepherd with his flock.”^[38] Hence, it is rendered as “exercise mastery among” rather than “have dominion over,” and hence according to Richard Middleton is an exercise of communal power.^[39] Moreover, this communal power must be related to the task of securing food, as the agricultural themes running through the Priestly creation account suggest.

Second, the work of harvesting is ultimately limited by the concept of ceasing or shabat. The “religious life” of the Hebrew laity, and agriculture is noted in a lexical connection between the creation account and the list of festivals in Leviticus 23. Genesis 1:14 reads

Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons (moadim) and for days and years.

Leviticus 23:2 identifies moadim as representing more than a climatological reference

These are the appointed festivals of the Lord (moadi Yhwh) that you shall proclaim as holy convocations, my appointed festivals.

The moadi Yhwh are religious festivals linked to a harvest. Hence for the Hebrews, agriculture was a mnemonic for salvation history. That this list includes the weekly Sabbath, as well as the cessation of work on several of the other festivals, demonstrates another important aspect of a religiously rooted environmental justice principle.

Sabbath is key to H. The seventh day is sanctified (qadesh) because God ceased (shabat) from the work of creation (Gen 2:3). While there is no command to keep the Sabbath, the creation of sacred time after the completion of the work of creation implies that such a command will follow, and that it will encompass all of creation (erets).

This idea is taken up in Leviticus, where the land (erets) is to find its rest from human agricultural activity. The seventh year Sabbath is portrayed as being for theland to take a complete rest (shabat shabaton, Lev 25:4–5). The land must observe a total cessation to Yhwh from its customary vocation (Lev 25:2). That the land is active in Sabbath keeping, rather than the passive recipient of human Sabbath observance, is suggested by comparison with Lev 23:32 where the people are to “celebrate your Sabbath.” The underlying Hebrew is the same.

Furthermore, the land has a relationship with Yhwh that precedes that of Israel, although now they appear to share the same covenant (Lev 26:42). There is a parallel between Leviticus 25 and the creation story: creation of the erets (“earth”) by God precedes that of the adam just as Yhwh has prior relationship with the erets (“land”) before the arrival of Israel. The adam as the divine image bearers are blessed to multiply, to subdue the erets (for agriculture) and have dominion (Gen 1:26–30). The adam is the divine image bearer in God’s creation, with the implied responsibility to allow all the erets to enjoy the Sabbath (Gen 2:2–3).

What can we conclude at this stage for any sense of roots of environmental justice in the Priestly tradition of the Pentateuch? First, any sense of environmental justice is subsumed into the assumption of the priority of agriculture. It is the primary way in which the Israelites knew and experienced what we now refer to as the environment. Environment can be seen as a modern abstraction, and artificial separation between the human and the more than human.

Instead, agriculture represents a concrete relationship between the human and soil. This relationship is tenuous, with fallowing for the land essential without chemical fertilizers.^[40] Such fallowing would have to be more frequent than the Sabbath year of Lev 25:3–7, and hence according to Michael LeFebvre, the “septennial land sabbath was an economic practice embodied within a theological institution.”^[41]

Second, this theological institution necessarily prescribes lay Israelite holiness, and that includes Sabbath keeping (Lev 19:30; 26:2). Hence, given the land was allowed its Sabbath, and that human Sabbath keeping was to be inclusive of this (Lev 26:35), Israelite holiness included giving rest to the land. In the Anthropocene, where humans affect all areas of the globe from our economic activity,^[42] me we might rightly argue that the Holiness tradition instructs us to give the entire planet rest.

Third, while the Priestly tradition accepts a domestic/wild binary, it does not do without including all the earth in this rest. Recall the blessing of the seventh day comes after the completion of the work of creation, and that this includes (Gen 1:24) domestic (behemah) and wild animals or beasts of the earth (chayah haerets). Likewise, the septennial Sabbath (Lev 25:7) allowed domestic (behemah) and wild animals (chay) that are in the land (erets) to eat off the land.

Since urbanization is a key aspect of the Anthropocene,^[43] most human beings are separated from the process of agriculture, yet it continues to be the key manner of survival for most of humanity. As we have seen, it is also one of the ways in which we impact the non-domestic world, if such a thing can be said to exist. Hence, this suggests that for humanity to move through the Anthropocene, we must at once become both more deeply connected with the ways in which our food is produced, but also more connected to the principles of Sabbath rest from precisely these ways. While Sabbath is a pragmatic practice, in the Priestly tradition, it is also an act of holiness, and hence the church too should seek to understand our vocation of the soil as a sacred task.

Footnotes

Paul Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind,” Nature 415 (2002): 23. ↩︎
Will Steffen, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig, “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration,” The Anthropocene Review 2 (2015): 1–18. ↩︎
Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs, Stephen R. Carpenter, Wim de Vries, Cynthia A. de Wit, Carl Folke, Dieter Gerten, Jens Heinke, Georgina M. Mace, Linn M. Persson, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Belinda Reyers, and Sverker Sörlin, “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet,” Science 347 (2015): 1–17. ↩︎
R.A. Houghton, “How Well Do We Know the Flux of CO2 from Landuse Change?” Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology 62, no. 5 (2010): 337–351. ↩︎
Rodolfo Dirzo, Hillary S. Young, Mauro Galetti, Gerardo Ceballos, Nick J. B. Isaac, Ben Collen, “Defaunation in the Anthropocene,” Science345, no. 6195 (2014):401–6. ↩︎
Odette K Lawler et al., “The COVID-19 Pandemic is Intricately Linked to Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Health,” The Lancet 5 (2021): 840–850. ↩︎
Andrew F. van den Hurk, Scott A. Ritchie, Cheryl A. Johansen, John S. Mackenzie, and Greg A. Smith, “Domestic Pigs and Japanese Encephalitis Virus Infection, Australia,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 14:11 (2008): 1736–1738. ↩︎
Marte Nikolaisen, Jonathan Hillier, Pete Smith, and Dali Nayak, “Modelling CH4 Emission from Rice Ecosystem: A Comparison Between Existing Empirical Models,” Frontiers in Agronomy 4 (2022). doi:10.3389/fagro.2022.1058649. ↩︎
I. Tapio, T.J. Snelling, F. Strozzi, et al. “The Ruminal Microbiome Associated with Methane Emissions from Ruminant Livestock,” J Animal Sci Biotechnol 8, no. 7 (2017). doi:10.1186/s40104-017-0141-0. ↩︎
Vaclav Smil, “Global population and the Nitrogen cycle,” Scientific American July 1997: 76-81. L Knobeloch, B. Salna, A. Hogan, J. Postle, and H. Anderson, “Blue Babies and Nitrate-contaminated Well Water,” Environmental Health Perspectives 108, no. 7 (2000): 675-678. ↩︎
S.Y. Pan, K.H. He, K.T. Lin, et al. “Addressing Nitrogenous Gases from Croplands Toward Low-emission Agriculture,” npj Clim Atmos Sci 5, no. 43 (2022). <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00265-3. ↩︎
Steffen et al., Planetary Boundaries, 7. ↩︎
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (London: Penguin, 2001). ↩︎
S.H. Barmentlo, M. Schrama, G.R. de Snoo, PmM. van Bodegom, A. van Nieuwenhuijzen A, and M.G. Vijver, “Experimental Evidence for Neonicotinoid Driven Decline in Aquatic Emerging Insects,” Proc Natl Acad Sci 118, no. 44 (2021):e2105692118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2105692118. ↩︎
B. Woodcock, N. Isaac, J. Bullock, et al., “Impacts of Neonicotinoid Use on Long-term Population Changes in Wild Bees in England,” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 12459. Doi:10.1038/ncomms12459. ↩︎
Simon L. Lewis and Mark A Maslin, “Defining the Anthropocene,” Nature 519 (2015): 171-180. ↩︎
Ofer Bar-Yosef, “Climatic Fluctuations and Early Farming in West and East Asia,” Current Anthropology 52, no. S4 (2011): S174 – 93. ↩︎
See Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin, The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (London: Pelican Books, 2018), 115–16. ↩︎
Lewis and Maslin, The Human Planet, 144. ↩︎
Lewis and Maslin, The Human Planet, 164–68. ↩︎
Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene,” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 16 (2017): 761–80. ↩︎
Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things (Carlton: Black Inc, 2018), 140. ↩︎
For the Sustainable Development Goals, see <https://sdgs.un.org/goals. ↩︎
Mark G. Brett, Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 56–57. ↩︎
David P. Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus and Beyond: Different Perspectives,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 53, no.4 (1999): 351–64*.* ↩︎
For a discussion of why the Priestly creation account is limited to this passage, and evidence for a Holiness redactor, see Mick Pope, From Creation to Canaan: Biblical Hermeneutics for the Anthropocene (Eugene: Pickwick, 2024). ↩︎
Pope, From Creation to Canaan, 42. ↩︎
Ellen F. Davis, “Learning Our Place: The Agrarian Perspective of the Bible,” Word & World 29 (2009):109–120. Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). ↩︎
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 48. ↩︎
John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 58. ↩︎
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 50. ↩︎
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997). ↩︎
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 50. ↩︎
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 56–7. ↩︎
Middleton, Liberating the Image, 291. ↩︎
Norman Habel, An Inconvenient Text: Is a Green Reading of the Bible Possible? (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2009), 2–6. In Numbers, kabash is used in the context of the conquest of Canaan (Num 32:22, 29). ↩︎
Habel, An Inconvenient Text, 77. ↩︎
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 55, quoting Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 1190. ↩︎
Richard Middleton, Liberating the Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), 52. ↩︎
Michael LeFebvre, “Theology and Economics in the Biblical Year of Jubilee,” BET 2, no. 1(2015):33. ↩︎
LeFebvre, “Theology and Economics in the Biblical Year of Jubilee,” 34. ↩︎
On the declining place of “wilderness” see Mick Pope, “The Earth is Full of your Creatures: A Theology of Wilderness,” Anglican EcoCare Journal of Ecotheology 1 (2014): 65–78; Mick Pope, “Rediscovering a Spirituality of Creation for the Anthropocene,” in The Nature of Things: Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation, ed. Graham Buxton and Norm Habel (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2016), 92–102. ↩︎
Steffen, et al., “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene.” ↩︎

The Environmental Ethics of Pope Francis – Parsing Key Terms and Claims In Laudato Si’ (Thomas Massaro, S.J.)

2024-04-17T14:02:56Z

On October 4, 2023, Pope Francis published the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (“Praise God”), an 8000-word document advocating for urgent action to counter climate change.^[1] Its date of publication is significant on two accounts. First, it was released on the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, the thirteenth-century Italian mystic who is recognized as the patron of animals and of ecology, and who inspired the twenty-first pontiff to select this papal name.

Perhaps more significantly, the document appeared exactly eight weeks before the start of COP 28, the latest in a series of global summit meetings addressing the existential challenge of global warming. In an unprecedented turn of events, Pope Francis at that time announced his intention to attend in person and to address the delegates at the conference to be held in Abu Dhabi—something that no pope (and few top religious leaders of any faith) had previously done at any such gathering. Clearly, the leader of 1.3 billion Roman Catholics around the world was sending a clear message regarding the great significance of the upcoming meeting involving nearly all the world’s nations.

This was not the first time that this same pope had signaled his deep commitment to the cause of halting climate change. From the very start of his papacy, Francis had identified care for the environment as among his highest social priorities, eclipsing even his relentless protection of refugees, promotion of economic justice and advocacy for peace—causes that had clearly long appeared very close to his heart.

The first foray of Pope Francis to put into writing his wide-ranging reflections on ecology was of course the encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.^[2] Published in June 2015, eight years before the follow-up message of Laudate Deum and over five times longer in the English translation of the original texts in Latin, Laudato Si’ was similarly timed to exert the maximum influence on the proceedings of a global climate change conference—in this case the momentous COP 21 meeting in Paris at which global partner nations were engaged in setting key goals for reductions in carbon emissions in future decades. Pope Francis most evidently aims for timeliness as well as originality in tailoring his contributions to the global crisis of climate change.

The remainder of this essay describes the many pivotal contributions of Laudato Si’ to the cause of countering climate change, including the introduction of several original intellectual concepts and categories that provide valuable resources to the ecological movement. This article is thus divided into three sections. The first section describes some of the context (both historical and intellectual) which led Francis to address the climate crisis.

The second section examines the content of the authoritative teaching document Laudato Si’, focusing on six particularly influential components of the message of Francis as he analyzes the causes and potential solutions to the contemporary ecological crisis. The third section explores the key effects and outcomes of the effort of Pope Francis in this momentous document. Without in any way diminishing the many accomplishments of other religious leaders (either before or since Francis arrived on the global scene in 2013), this article proposes the argument that Laudato Si’ is the most valuable and prominent expression of religious advocacy to protect the natural environment and to promote ecological justice.

Context

Before the veritable explosion of faith-based environmental concern and activism in recent decades, religious voices were not consistently supportive of ecological sustainability. Unfortunately, Western religious traditions too often justified and propped up the untrammeled exploitation of natural resources by portraying the divine will as supportive of unfettered human dominion over created things. The concluding verses of the first chapter of the book of Genesis depict a God who, at least on a superficial level, grants unlimited prerogatives to the first humans to fill the earth and subdue it (see Gen. 1: 28-30).

The strand of theological ideology known as contemptus mundi and the impulse towards a fuga mundi attitude only fed the inclination to disregard the health of the earth and exacerbated the unfortunate tensions between Christian faith and environmental responsibility. The disastrous effects of a theology that allows or even favors unregulated human dominion over creation were treated by Dr. Lynn White, Jr.’s famous 1967 article “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.”^[3] White blamed the legacy of a distorted picture of God for many of the problems of pollution, environmental degradation and the loss of biodiversity that were just beginning to snowball a half-century ago.

But of course, acknowledging a creator God who places humanity at the top of a hierarchy of life does not necessarily justify wanton rape of natural resources and the utter subordination of other species. A theistic worldview can also support a theological model of stewardship, one which understands humans as called to be sensitive caretakers of earth and all its resident species. It can even inspire a creation-centered spirituality that emphasizes ecological co-responsibility and deep kinship with our fellow species—themes found in Franciscan spirituality and many venerable religious traditions.

After many missed opportunities, full-throated concern for the environment within official Roman Catholic teachings began to sprout around 1990 with the publication of some landmark teaching documents (though still rather brief ones) on sustainability emanating from the Vatican and from local bishops’ conferences around the world.^[4] As welcome as this new attention to protecting the environment was after a long history of neglect, the Catholic response to the ecological crisis in word and deed was still fragmentary and incomplete, in need of further momentum.

We witnessed a few paragraphs lamenting pollution and toxic over-consumption here, a short pastoral letter encouraging energy conservation there. Even Pope Benedict XVI, who at the time earned the moniker “The Green Pope” for his many commendable words and deeds to protect the earth,^[5] was only barely catching up to consciousness-raising commitments of other Christian communities. Eastern Orthodox Christians, especially under the visionary leadership of Patriarch Bartholomew,^[6] and Protestants, especially those within the fold of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, each enjoyed a major head-start in adopting the theme of “the Integrity of Creation” as a major social objective alongside justice and peace.

Enter Pope Francis. From the very start of his papacy in 2013, he has signaled an eagerness to embrace a genuine spirituality of creation, has invited broad audiences to reimagine humanity’s place in the natural world, and has proved himself even greener than the “Green Pope” who preceded him. The publication of his social encyclical Laudato Si’ (aptly translated as “Praise Be to You, Lord” and subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home’ ‘) was of course the most important landmark in this constructive development.

Even before examining the content of this authoritative teaching document, it is important to recognize how Francis framed this encyclical. First, he consistently hastened to portray it not as some narrowly cast position paper aimed at the debate over a single issue, but rather Francis invited his audiences to view it as a holistic contribution to the overall social mission of the church, which includes many inter-related dimensions of justice and elements that comprise the common good, of which the environment is an integral feature and concern. Second, as noted above, Pope Francis deliberately timed the release of the encyclical, the writing process of which took well over a year to complete, for June 2015, a full six months before the convening of the Paris Climate Conference (or COP 21 in United Nations parlance) in the final weeks of that same year.

This publication timetable felicitously allowed the document to exert maximum effect on the international community and its climate change deliberations, granting adequate lead time for dissemination but not excessive time that would render it stale or outdated by December 2015. Indeed, several other world religions (including certain leaders of Islam, Judaism and Buddhism) wrote and released their own climate change documents that followed Laudato Si’, though each of these was much briefer and of course had their own distinctive tone and message. Nevertheless, Francis emerged at that time as a preeminent voice of faith-based environmental concern, and with his good friend Patriarch Bartholomew continues to play exactly that role.

The 40,000 words of Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Laudato Si’ are divided into 246 paragraphs, with 172 footnotes citing the work of previous popes, local bishops’ conferences, philosophers, spiritual writers and the international community, with especially frequent reference to the 1992 Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development and subsequent U.N. climate change documents.

The encyclical is available free on the Vatican website in numerous languages and has been printed in many formats throughout the world. Its six chapters bear titles such as “What is Happening to Our Common Home,” “The Gospel of Creation,” “The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis” and “Ecological Education and Spirituality.” The methodology of the document follows the see-judge-act paradigm common in documents of Catholic social teaching.

A word about each of the three steps. Pope Francis first surveyed the damage done to the environment, observing in paragraph 21 that “earth, our home, is looking more and more like an immense pile of filth.” The second (or judgment) phase includes pointed analysis of the human-induced causes of global warming, confirming the general consensus among scientists and making no concessions to climate change deniers. As the bold moral teacher he is, Francis does not shy away from making stern ethical judgments about the selfishness and myopia that have long supported crass exploitation of God-given natural resources, including vital rain forests such as the Amazon and the Congo, which the pope (in paragraph 38) dubs the two vital lungs of our planet.

When he reaches the third phase, the action stage of the paradigm, Francis strongly recommends a thorough about-face in human approaches to the natural environment and our fellow creatures on earth. The recommended actions, including abrupt changes in lifestyle, economic practices and political policies, all depend upon an underlying change in consciousness regarding our place in the universe and our relationships to all creatures we encounter and the ecosystems we inhabit.

In the course of the pope’s ethical analysis in Laudato Si’ there arise several motifs that had rarely or never before appeared in papal writings. The numbered list of six items that follows can only provide the briefest glimpse of these themes and concepts.

Integral ecology. This phrase, which serves as the title of chapter 4 of Laudato Si’, captures the holistic perspective Francis seeks to emphasize regarding the entire topic of climate justice. In order to fashion an adequate response, we need to see and appreciate the big picture regarding the climate crisis, where its many dimensions come together into an underlying unity. On a dozen occasions throughout the text, Francis invites the reader to recognize the insight, worded in various ways, that “everything is interconnected” or “all things are inter-related” or that “nothing can be considered in isolation.”

More than a verbal tic, this repeated insistence on recognizing the unity of all things reflects a common theme in Christian mysticism, especially in the spirituality associated with the 13th century Saint Francis of Assisi, who is so obviously an inspiration for the environmentalism of the first pope to choose this name. It also advances an argument regarding the connection between the environmental crisis on one hand, and the social crisis of injustice and inequality (rightly called diseases of social ecology), on the other hand. To foreground the phrase “integral ecology” as Francis does is to insist on a unified response to these social and ecological crises.

We cannot solve one without addressing the other, since they are two faces of the same pathology. In sum, the relationships we share with the earth and with our fellow creatures can only be healthy in the aggregate. Injustice, dysfunction and disorder in any relationship poisons all the other relationships, and manifests in exploitative attitudes and practices towards other people and things. Ultimately, it is easy to discern that the phrase integral ecology says everything Pope Francis seeks to affirm about the centrality of a socially responsible approach to living today.

Intergenerational solidarity. This is another term rarely heard in previous Catholic social teaching, though it represents a logical extension of the church’s long advocacy for the virtue of fellow-feeling and commitment to the greater good of society. Paragraphs 159-62 of Laudato Si’ treat the seminal concept of “justice between generations” which is a creative adaptation of familiar religious notions regarding social responsibility. One of the master concepts of Catholic social thought is the common good, which emphasizes our obligations to attend to needs that are more broadly defined than by our own individual interests.

Pope Francis here is expanding our perception of the common good to include not just the needs of currently living people, but even those yet to be born—both humans and even members of other species. If our wasteful practices and profligate lifestyles disadvantage future persons and other beings by harming their ecosystems and exhausting available resources, then we are acting irresponsibly. We not only harm them but also dishonor God, who creates all beings for the purpose of their flourishing. To frustrate the intentions of God in this way is to sin grievously. We must not, the pope entreats here, ignore our solemn obligations to preserve the earth, and to safeguard the sustainability of the planet that Francis repeatedly calls “our common home.”

The technocratic paradigm. Francis is far from the first commentator to launch a critique of how the indiscriminate reliance on technology threatens key human values. It is not technology itself that is objectionable—Francis is no crass Luddite—but rather the myopic and self-centered employ of technologies that introduces distortions in human relations, including in our interactions with the natural environment. This danger grows especially vivid when humans foolishly imagine that the introduction of new technologies will provide quick fixes to deeply rooted social and cultural problems.

As Francis writes in paragraph 109: “The technocratic paradigm tends to dominate economic and political life… Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems.” The illusion of easy progress through cutting corners has indeed far too often driven approaches to climate change abatement. This conviction has prompted Francis to question (in paragraphs 23-26 and 171 of Laudato Si’) the adequacy of cap-and-trade and carbon credit tax policies as a sufficient response to global warming.

It is not that such market-based public policies will necessarily fail, but rather that they fall short of inspiring and enacting the comprehensive change of approach that would be the true game-changer we so desperately need in the struggle against climate change. Francis has no interest in disparaging such incremental approaches or technological advances as creating carbon sinks, but as a moral leader, he is primarily intent on overcoming the distortion of deeply-rooted priorities and socially responsible behaviors such as humble self-control and simplicity of lifestyle.

Tyrannical anthropocentrism. Like the technological paradigm, this multisyllabic label represents a brand of reductionism that Pope Francis seeks to refute and urges us to resist. This particular distortion prevents us from seeing ourselves honestly, as part of creation rather than as its rightful and undisputed master. Much like political tyrants, humanity comes to engage in collective acts of abuse of power, to the detriment of other creatures, their habitats, and eventually with boomerang evil effects on ourselves.

We thus arrogantly displace God and unduly exploit other species and our shared planet. Just as the technocratic paradigm boils down to an exaggerated reliance on a scientific model, tyrannical anthropocentrism places humans so firmly at the center of our perception of the universe that all other beings and values are eclipsed. Together these two attitudes threaten to stunt the moral imagination and render impossible the transformations required for people to rise to the occasion of the ecological crisis.

Ecological conversion. This motif, developed by Pope Francis in some detail in paragraphs 216-21 of the final chapter of Laudato Si’, represents the antidote to much of what has gone wrong up to this point in human history. The primary carrier of hope for a better and more sustainable future is changed people. Before those people will ever imaginably exhibit more responsible external behavior, both in their private lives and in the public policies that they collectively determine, they must adopt new interior attitudes and orientations.

The transformation required is at root a matter of a renewed spirituality. In paragraph 216, Pope Francis affirms that “spirituality can stir up a more passionate concern for the protection of our world.” To move the needle or bend the arc in the direction of true ecological progress, we must resolve to transcend the level of mere tinkering. As with so many of his teachings in other areas of social justice, Francis is proposing and endorsing a culture-based approach rather than merely a market-based or policy-based approach. If we sincerely desire a healthier earth, we need to be healthier people. If we wish to see improvement in our external environment, we must first foster improvement in the interior environment within each of us, nurturing our souls in prayer. This is the profound challenge of ecological conversion.

The challenge to hear both “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor”. This stirring phrase from the world of liberation theology,^[7] quoted in paragraph 49 of the encyclical, illuminates the linkage between the suffering of under-resourced people and the egregious exploitation of the natural world which exacerbates social inequalities. Francis is right to call attention to the many ways in which abuses of the environment in the past have most often damaged the life prospects of the least privileged; continued inaction to address the ecological crisis will further disadvantage those already harmed.

The best example may be climate change refugees—vulnerable “people on the move” whose ancestral lands have been rendered infertile by the effects of desertification or rising sea levels that wipe out their customary farming and herding activities, as Francis explains in some detail in paragraph 25. Those who formerly scratched out a modest living through subsistence farming have become highly vulnerable to drought and coastal flooding, all too often becoming refugees, fleeing through perilous itineraries for new havens that might hold the promise of a more secure life. The “cry of the earth” for relief from this human onslaught and the “cry of the poor” for relief from grave injustice are closely linked and impossible to ignore by people of conscience, who will see, judge and act in justice and mercy.

This list of six motifs in the pages of Laudato Si’ could easily be expanded. Many other important topics are covered in the encyclical, for example, advocacy to preserve biodiversity and the right to potable water, both of which represent significant advances in how the Catholic Church has spoken about ecological priorities in the age of Pope Francis.

Key Effects and Implications of Laudato Si’

By further developing Catholic teachings on ecology and specifically by going on record as a strong advocate for the strict limitation of greenhouse carbon emissions, Francis has provided us with valuable resources for establishing a more just and sustainable world. There is certainly no dearth of evidence that his 2015 document has delivered considerable results. Many first-hand observers of the global climate change debates have testified to the positive impact of Vatican voices and interventions in recent international deliberations, including in the negotiating process leading up to the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.

Opinion polling, including several recent Pew surveys, consistently find that Roman Catholics are increasingly familiar with their church’s developing environmental teachings and exhibit elevated consciousness and marked commitment to engage in climate change activism, although a certain amount of backsliding has also been documented.^[8] Pope Francis has taken ambitious steps to maintain this momentum of deepening environmental concern, most recently by rolling out a creative “Laudato Si Action Platform” geared toward engaging and sustaining the energies, especially among young people, already generated on a worldwide basis to address and reverse climate change and environmental degradation.^[9] This is just one of many initiatives, at both local and global levels, to mobilize Catholics to put their faith into action to fight climate change.

While Pope Francis, in Laudato Si’ and through other vehicles and activities, has made many distinctive contributions, his messages often echo other responsible voices, both religious and secular, regarding environmental sustainability. For example, the most recent climate assessment report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made this familiar point: “We actually have all the knowledge we need, all the tools we need. We just need to implement it.”^[10]

Pope Francis would agree entirely about the pressing need to muster the political will to make practical progress on care for the environment. His constructive engagement on this urgent issue serves as a reminder of the role of religious traditions and faith communities as the locus where humanity so often raises and pursues the most important ethical questions of any age.

In the end, religion is the realm of human life where people stir up their consciences, confront whatever despair they might feel, and overcome indifference, apathy and resistance to change. In their faith lives, people find hope and energy for fostering social change, articulate values and develop virtues that will motivate and empower them to challenge injustices and threats like climate change. Bold and prophetic religious leaders like Pope Francis revitalize the constructive contributions of faith traditions, but it is of course up to each of us to play our role in the transformation required to sustain our world, which is indeed our common home, as a hospitable place of beauty and abundant life for all God’s creatures.

Thomas Massaro, S.J., is Professor of Moral Theology at Fordham University. A Jesuit priest of the East Province, he served as professor of moral theology at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Boston College, and at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, where he also served as Dean. Six years after his arrival at Fordham, he was awarded the McGinley Chair of Religion and Society in 2024.

Footnotes

Pope Francis, Laudate Deum, Apostolic Exhortation on the Climate Crisis, 4 Oct., 2023, <https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost\_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html ↩︎
Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: Encyclical Letter on Care for Our Common Home, 24 May 2015, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html. Note: although dated May 24 (the day on which the Roman Catholic observance of the Solemnity of Pentecost fell in 2015), the text was not actually released and available until 18 June 2015. ↩︎
Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967): 1203-07. ↩︎
See, for example: Pope John Paul II, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation,” Message for World Day of Peace, 1 Jan. 1990, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace.html; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Renewing the Earth: An Invitation to Reflection and Action on Environment in Light of Catholic Social Teaching,” 14 Nov. 1991, https://www.usccb.org/resources/renewing-earth. ↩︎
Pope Benedict XVI demonstrated his commitment to promoting renewable energy by, for example, ordering the installation of thousands of photovoltaic cells on the roofs of Vatican buildings. He also dedicated several stirring paragraphs of an encyclical letter to the topic of the ecological crisis; see pars. 48-52 of Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), 29 June 2009, <https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf\_ben-xvi\_enc\_20090629\_caritas-in-veritate.html. ↩︎
For a full account of the impressive moral leadership of Patriarch Bartholomew on environmental issues, see John Chryssavgis, ed., On Earth as In Heaven: Ecological Vision and Initiatives of Patriarch Bartholomew, Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought Series (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011). ↩︎
This phrase indeed provides the title of an influential work from a prominent liberation theologian from South America, the home continent of Pope Francis; see Leonardo Boff, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, trans. Phillip Berryman, Ecology and Justice Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997). ↩︎
The Pew data immediately after the release of Laudato Si’ recorded a particularly strong effect of the encyclical on Catholic opinion. Subsequent surveys have called into question certain aspects of this “Francis effect” on the attitudes of the Catholic faithful, at least in the United States, regarding climate change and activism to counter it. A particularly insightful account of the mixed picture presented by serial Pew data is Aleja Hertzler-McCain, “Pew Study: U.S. Catholics More Motivated by Climate News than Other Americans,” National Catholic Reporter, 1 Nov. 2023, https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/politics/pew-study-us-catholics-more-motivated-climate-news-other-americans ↩︎
The landing page for the Laudato Si’ Action Program, maintained by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (the Vatican office charged with environmental concern) is https://laudatosiactionplatform.org/ ↩︎
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report, 19 March 2022, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/ ↩︎

Religious Sacrificial Sympathy- How Man Became More Valuable Than Beast (Kev Grane)

2024-03-15T13:53:12Z

The religious attitude of the West today demonstrates a consumerist ethos that would have been deeply foreign to the religious discourse of old. Perhaps one of the earliest forms of religion, Shamanism, provides the modern critic with a unique insight into the ethos of the spiritual man of the ancient world. Compared with the post-modern religious consumer, significant changes may be observed in environmental ethics.

Beginning with Shamanism, it is by identifying changes in dietary practices and animal sacrifice that we observe the development of a growing indifference for non-human life, which contradicts one of the most prominent pillars of ancient religiosity, empathy, and respect for life regardless of form. Such a gradual loss of sympathy for the object of sacrifice for nourishment or divine intervention is but a microcosm of the religious man’s indifference and even abuse of the world around him.

Shamanism

Some of the first evidence of religious practice in human history comes from the cave of Lascaux in the Dordogne, France, dated between 15,000 and 20,000 BCE. This artwork is pictured below:^[1]

The scene is typically interpreted as a hunting scene showing an eviscerated bison beside the hunter who mimicked or shared in the same wounds he inflicted upon the animal.^[2] This evidence points to a profound sympathy and concern for the subject of the hunt. Such sympathy, as demonstrated above and practiced through the popularization of the shaman, is partially but significantly tied to how these communities thought about the afterlife and reincarnation.

The earliest understanding of reincarnation was that life did not exist in one permanent category, meaning the essence of life may be found in a man for one lifetime and an animal in the next. The system of hierarchical structure of these life forms came about thousands of years later in Hindu texts such as Pursha Sukta (1500-1200 BCE).^[3] Therefore, little consideration was given to the form in which one’s essence or the spark of life would find itself.

Given the potentiality of one’s essence to be embodied as an animal in the next life, community members relying on the shaman were so concerned with the process of the hunt that the shaman predominantly dictated the location of the hunt. The shaman functioned as an intermediary between the community and the divine, enacting a spiritual flight from the temporal to the transcendent. This flight took different forms across traditions, with some shamans experiencing an ecstatic experience or dream. In contrast, others seemed to believe shamans took a physical flight from Siberia to Tierra del Fuego.^[4]

At his return, the shaman conveyed the insight from the divine to guide the hunting efforts of the community so as only to kill those elected by the divine. Belief systems surrounding the God known as the “Animal Master” evidence a symbiotic relationship between man and animal wherein the divine regularly sends flocks to be killed and eaten by man. In return, man assures the divine that the rights necessary for a posthumous life will be conducted. Some of these practices included hunters sharing in the sorrow of animals until their time of death, dawning animal costumes, ritualistically laying out bones and pelt, and proper burial.^[5]

Shamans were both hereditary and spontaneously selected for this responsibility, yet both were accompanied by morbid phenomena furthering the association with death and the divine.^[6] This association is principally reiterated in the common practice of shaman candidates’ death and resurrection at some point during the initiation process.^[7]

As candidates dawn the death itself, they become interconnected with the divine. As they rise again, this experience was believed to naturally embed a connection between the new shaman and the divine, which could be called upon again. This connection was often associated with natural imagery, such as the shaman’s symbolic climbing of a tree or a rainbow the shaman would ride.

Animal Sacrifice

As anthropologist Walter Burkert has pointed out, men in the Paleolithic period felt a deep sympathy with the animals they slaughtered for nourishment, so much so that they relied on the shaman and their divine insight. The introduction of ritual sacrifice seen as early as the 4th Millennium BCE in Mesopotamia prompted animal commodification and religious distancing from animals. Animals were offered to gods to intrigue them to influence temporal affairs such as weather, fertility, and moral absolution.

By offering animals as sacrifices, man asserted dominance over animals, suggesting their lives were justly taken to improve the lives of man because the lives of man were of more excellent value. Ritual sacrifice also profoundly affected the development of early reincarnation hierarchical structures such as in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh traditions. Where previously there had been a more sporadic understanding of reincarnation where one may be reincarnated as any creature at random, the assertion of man’s value over animals led to a hierarchal development where it was more desirable to be human than animal.

British anthropologist Edward Tylor’s evolution of animal sacrifice proposed that animal sacrifice was initially intended to appease the ferocity of gods toward humans.^[8] Such a view seemed to validate the view of tribes relying on the shaman, namely that their consumption of non-ordained animals was offensive to the gods as they understood them. However, causes for displeasure with humanity were as numerous as the stars, yet immensely important for primitive cultures to ascertain in hopes of influencing cosmic agents favorably, thereby delivering them from trials such as natural disasters and famine.

Nevertheless, it is pretty clear that as the practice of animal sacrifice became more commonplace, animals were commodified and became assets to be offered for the appeasement of humanity’s violation of the virtuous ethic. What is not clear is why so many ancient religious communities concluded that their violation of the divine was more likely attributed to other practices than the unordained taking of life. We see in the Yajurveda (1200 BCE) ritual practices a preference for offerings of grain or milk rather than meat, demonstrating a hesitance to adopt animal sacrifice and a lasting reverence for the sanctity of non-human life.

However, this shift must have occurred, for if it had not occurred, it would have been necessary to atone for the very means of atonement. Alongside the depreciating value of non-human life was the depreciation of the divine’s perceived interest in posthumous rituals for the deceased. Had the divine’s demand for posthumous ritual been viewed as significant by the divine, animal sacrifice could never have been considered a viable means of evocation.

Tyler goes on to suggest how, over time, societies questioned the efficacy of animal sacrifice when it did not achieve their desired outcomes. Such an enduring desire for divine intercession contributed significantly to the evolution of sacrifice from animal to symbolic. These rituals were seen early on as substituting animals for grain or other produce as the subject of the offering.

Examples of this shift can be seen in the historical evolution of rituals such as Navaratri, Pongal, and the Passover Seder. This made offerings more affordable, yet the flexibility of ritual sacrifice demonstrates the dysfunctionality with the previous practices of animal sacrifice Tyler referred to. Should the desired outcome of divine intercession be achieved, evoking the divine would have remained the same, regardless of the price, due to the immense value of the outcome.

As animal sacrifice fell from widespread practice, an ideological shift took place that further devalued the sanctity of non-human life as it was no longer enough even to rouse the interest of the divine. Functionally, less non-human life was being taken, yet it was not for the inherent or economic value of non-human lives that animal sacrifice fell from widespread practice.

This shift brought about a further commodification and value depreciation of non-human life as it lost significant value in the eyes of these communities. Previously, the divine valued this life so highly that its sacrifice was believed to be enough to rouse the divine. With the shift to symbolic sacrifice, non-human loss was no longer believed to be valuable enough to rouse the divine.

Examples of this shift include the early Christian movement, which not only confronted the practice of animal sacrifice (see Hebrews 10:1-18, Matthew 9:13, Mark 12:33, and Romans 3:21-26) but also challenged dietary restrictions of non-human carnivorous consumption, specifically the scene in Mark 7:14 where Jesus stated:

“Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile’” (see also Acts 10:9-16).^[9]

Other examples of Tyler’s progressive shift away from animal sacrifice and further devaluing the sanctity of non-human life include the Hindu Ashvamedha Yajna, or horse sacrifice, which gradually shifted away from the killing of an actual animal in place of a symbolic sacrifice.^[10] Other examples of this shift can be seen in the historical evolution of rituals such as Navaratri, Pongal, and the Passover Seder.

Dietary Restriction

It is no surprise to find codified dietary restrictions early on in religious practice. We see dietary restrictions as early as 1500 BCE in the Rigveda expressing reverence for various animals and a preference for vegetarianism. Similar ideological orientations wherein meat consumption is discouraged can be seen in early Buddhist movements such as in the Jivaka Sutta (number 55) of the Majjhima Nikaya. In this text, readers are privy to a teaching of the Buddha wherein he states that consumption of meat is ethically acceptable under the condition that the animal is not killed specifically for the person who intends to consume its flesh.

Furthermore, there should be no suspicion of the animals killing for personal consumption. Otherwise stated, meat consumption was permissible only in the instance that the death had occurred by natural causes, not intentionally for consumption by the consumer or an outside party.

Dietary restrictions further support Tyler’s evolutionary progression as we see the emergence of more lenient doctrines of meat consumption over time. For example, while Theravada Buddhism highly encouraged non-carnivorous dietary practices, later practices like Mahayana Buddhism were less concerned with meat consumption.

The same sentiment of early concern for restrictive consumption of animals can be seen in Leviticus 11, which discusses the distinction between kosher and non-kosher animals. Interestingly, it seems that even from the earliest scriptures of Judaism, killing and consumption of at least some animals was a foundational practice that would place Judaism as one of the pioneering traditions opposed to exclusively vegetarian diets catalyzing progressively de-valuing the sanctity of non-human life regardless of its intention to do so or not. Validation for meat consumption is first seen in Genesis 9:3, which states:

“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”^[11]

Given Judaism’s progressive ideology on the consumption of meat, it is not surprising to find animal sacrifice also prevalent even in its earliest scriptures. For example, early descriptions of animal sacrifice may be found in Exodus 20:24, Leviticus 1-7, 17:11, and Numbers 28-29.

Judaism’s early ideologies on the consumption of meat and animal sacrifice are likely due to its theological understanding of the soul’s stasis. Disbelief in reincarnation supposed there is no possibility of man’s soul being embodied by an animal; therefore, the motivation to exercise empathetic consideration for animals based on the possibility of one’s embodiment as such was null. The Jewish motivation for the sacrality of non-human life was instead founded in its production by divine means and man’s responsibility to care for the earth. This theological orientation allowed for a distinct division between the life of man and the life of animals, allowing for a much easier process of hierarchal imposition of man’s life as more valuable than that of animals.

Contemporary Context

This division between man and animal has grown exponentially as we approach the modern day. Today, very few religious communities practice animal sacrifice, such as Santería and Vodou communities, select Hindu and Chinese folk traditions, and traditional African traditions. However, the practice of animal sacrifice has fallen out of widespread practice significantly today instead of symbolic sacrifices or fasting practices are used instead. Rather than interpreting this change as a shift toward the sanctity of non-human life, this demonstrates an even further devaluation of non-human life as expressed by religious communities, as the sacrifice of non-human life is no longer sufficient to evoke intercession of divine agency.

Dietary restrictions remain theologically relevant in today’s contemporary context. Muslims and Jews are forbidden to eat pork, Hindus are generally averse to eating beef, and Buddhists belonging to certain branches should refrain from meat-eating altogether. However, in a recent study by the Pew Research Center, eight in ten Indians limit meat in their diets, and four in ten consider themselves vegetarian.^[12] In a 2020 study, the Pew Research Center found that only 17% of Jews keep kosher in their homes.^[13] Interestingly, 90 percent of Muslims surveyed said they abjure pork. Finally, only 4% of Buddhists abide by a vegetarian diet.^[14] Though to be fair, the Buddha only recommends vegetarianism or those of a higher path, not everyone.^[15] Additionally, Christian theology expresses no concern for the restriction of meat and even goes so far as to condone it in Mark 7:18-19 expressly.

So why is the demand for meat in the United States today so high? According to the USDA, U.S. consumers, on average, ate about 227 pounds of poultry, beef, and pork in 2022, despite 81% claiming theistic belief. Furthermore, the booming industrial farming industry exemplifies this cognitive dissonance as animals are treated as no more than possessed capital whose lives may be forfeited for profit. Matthew C. Halteman further expands on the varieties of serious harm to animals that are pervasive in industrial farming systems by highlighting procedural harm and institutional oppression as further areas of immorality.^[16]

For the religious populations in America, the religious man has traveled a long way from their roots of weeping with their dinner as it gave its life for man’s nourishment. Even with the theological assertion of animals’ uncleanliness or sacrality, religious populations are unwilling to restrict themselves from asserting their superiority over animals as they divvy death to their fellow life-bearers regularly. The religious man of America today highlights how far man has come in his perceived superiority and subjugation of nature and how hard his heart has become. This is but a microcosm of the religious man’s trend toward pillaging and abusing nature from which he emerged.

Conclusion

As we have seen, some of the earliest religious traditions were profoundly concerned with meat consumption and the sanctity of non-human life. These views came partially from their understanding of the reincarnation process, and I argue simply a greater reverence for all life. This concern may be observed in Eliade’s work documenting the function and purpose of the Shaman in early religious communities as the necessary intermediary between man and the divine, ordaining only the most specific instances of meat consumption as permissible.

Early practices of dietary restriction and refrain from animal sacrifice further illustrate the origins of religious reverence for non-human life. However, the explosion of animal sacrifice demonstrates a process of de-sacrality of non-human life culminating in its gradual decline not to preserve non-human life but instead, because the value of non-human life was further devalued when it became apparent that its sacrifice was not enough to rouse the intersession of the divine. This shift was not only the result of a depreciating view of non-human life, but it also propagated it in the eyes of the community by clearly demonstrating the insufficiently of animal sacrifice to influence the divine. A similar trajectory may be observed in the initial fervor for dietary restrictions to today’s context of varying adherence despite the endurance of doctrinal command.

The conclusion leads us to believe that the value of non-human life has gradually lessened for many religious populations. This shift is symptomatic of the larger project demonstrating a depreciating concern of major religious traditions for environmental sanctity and preservation of non-human life.

Kev Grane is a doctoral candidate at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology joint PhD program in the study of religion.

Footnotes

Wallis, Robert J. “Art and shamanism: From cave painting to the white cube.” Religions 10, no. 1 (2019): 54. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Later narratives such as this describe a cosmogeny of value structured chiefly around the veneration of the human form. Unique nuances exist within the human form, with Brahmins or priests at the top of this hierarchy and Sudras or servants at the bottom. Nevertheless, any human form has been understood as superior to even the most privileged animal form. ↩︎
Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The power of myth. Anchor, 2011, 85-87. ↩︎
Walter Burkert, Homo Necans; the anthropology of ancient Greek sacrificial ritual and myth, trans-Peter bring. Betkely, los angeles, and London 1983, 16-22. ↩︎
Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy. Princeton University Press, (2024). 21. ↩︎
Elkin, Adolphus Peter. “The rainbow-serpent myth in North-West Australia.” Oceania 1, no. 3 (1930): 349-352. ↩︎
Tylor, Edward Burnett. Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom. Vol. 2. J. Murray, 1871. ↩︎
Coogan, Michael David, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol Ann Newsom, and Pheme Perkins, eds. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press, USA, 2010. ↩︎
Landrus, Mallica Kumbera. “Vijayanagara Art: A Political and Historical Metaphor.” Editorial Board (1999): 77. ↩︎
Coogan, Michael David, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol Ann Newsom, and Pheme Perkins, eds. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press, USA, 2010. ↩︎
Corichi, Manolo. “Eight-in-ten Indians limit meat in their diets, and four-in-ten consider themselves vegetarian.” Pew Research Center, July 8th, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/08/eight-in-ten-indians-limit-meat-in-their-diets-and-four-in-ten-consider-themselves-vegetarian/ ↩︎
Mitchell, Travis. “Jewish Practices and Customs.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, May 11, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-practices-and-customs/. ↩︎
Hussain, Grace. “Do Buddhists Eat Meat? What Did Buddha Say about Meat?” Sentient Media, November 1, 2022. <https://sentientmedia.org/do-buddhists-eat-meat/ ↩︎
Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Chapter 8. ↩︎
Halteman, Matthew C. “Varieties of harm to animals in industrial farming.” Journal of An**imal Ethics 1, no. 2 (2011): 122–131. ↩︎

Sikhs As Subalterns – Voice, Inequality, And Power, Part 3 (Nirvikar Singh)

2024-02-08T17:50:32Z

The following is the third installment of a three part series. The first can be found here, the second here. It is published as a catalogued .PDF in article in the latest issue of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (22.2).

That knowledge of source languages is not the only problem is illustrated by citation practices. Axel, Fox, Leonard and Oberoi are all frequently cited in analyses that emphasize a foreshortened view of Sikh history and tradition. On the other hand, critiques or South Asian sources (Grewal, M. Singh, N.-G. K. Singh) tend to be ignored. While some of the literature that builds on these works considers topics that had been neglected or treated unsatisfactorily, such as gender, the foreshortening and selection in other dimensions introduces new limitations. For example, typical histories of colonial period Sikh reform efforts include struggles with questions of caste and social equality.^[1]

The reformers discussed this issue in the context of verses of the GGS, and reached conclusions that favored inclusiveness in religious activities, and a normative position against caste distinctions, something that Oberoi ignores.^[2] This was, indeed, an attempt to change common practices, but it had its antecedents in the institution of the Khalsa. On the other hand, the “pluralist” Sanatan Sikhs explicitly advocated for caste hierarchies.^[3]

Caste hierarchies have persisted, even in religious contexts,^[4] and are documented in diaspora contexts,^[5] although some practices did change.^[6] Nicola Mooney provides some innovation in this direction, considering gender and caste together, but the unbundling of Sikh precepts from Punjabi, especially Jat, patterns of patriarchy is lacking. Indeed, issues of patriarchal structures are a South Asian phenomenon, as is the phenomenon of caste.^[7]

When one recognizes these complexities, the simple binary of an “older pluralist paradigm of Sikh faith,” and a “monolithic, codified and closed culture” created by those who “aggressively usurped the fight to represent others,”^[8] turns out to be both theoretically and empirically problematic.

Perhaps the most significant example of what is missing from the popular scholarly consensus of colonial-era transformation is the role of the Sikh masses, consisting mainly of peasants, that category also including a large number of ex-soldiers of the British Indian army.^[9] While the most cited accounts of Sikhs in the colonial period focus on aggressive or traumatized so-called cultural elites, the inflection point in this era was the agitation for control of historically significant Sikh sites of worship (gurdwaras) all over Punjab. This became a non-violent mass movement in which thousands of Sikhs went to jail.

Again, Fox credits the British with creating the requisite consciousness,^[10] but an alternative explanation is in the ethos of the Khalsa, which sustained Sikh political control of Punjab for almost a century, before the British conquered the region. The motivations for this movement came from moral and emotional factors:^[11] the managers of gurdwaras were viewed, with considerable justification, as increasingly corrupt and immoral in their conduct, while at the same time, many of these sites were associated with the lives of the Sikh Gurus – where they (and sometimes their families and followers) had been born, lived, and died.

The Sikh community gained control of Punjab’s historic gurdwaras in 1925, over half a century after the creation of the first colonial-era reform organizations. Arguably, this control has shaped the community’s subsequent history as much as, if not more than, intellectual debates, because these are the sites where members of the community publicly practice their faith together, and connect with their history.^[12]

Recognizing the role of the Sikh masses in defining the community’s position in the 20th century offers a perspective that is consistent with prior Sikh history, namely, an emphasis on some degree of solidarity and inclusiveness in the religious sphere, engendered by a sense of righteousness and connection to the message of the Gurus, as embodied in their words and their lives. This is a perspective that recognizes the subaltern and their agency, as opposed to scholarly treatments that assign historical significance to elites, whether heroic or misguided.

Recent scholarship that ignores the agency of the Sikh masses and simultaneously downgrades Sikh intellectual debates imposes a dual subalternity, both in the sense of class structures, as in Gramsci and the Subaltern Studies group, but also in the sense of religious identity and the muting of voices, as in Spivak’s extension of the concept.^[13]

The final piece of the analysis involves the invisible (and not-so-invisible) hand of the Indic, to adapt the framing of Judge.^[14] One can see this in an example that he does not consider, one which was discussed in the previous section. The claim of a Sant tradition and Nanak’s membership in it (as a relative latecomer and a follower of that path) has become embedded in much recent scholarship that ignores the roots of the idea in one aspect of the project of Hindu nationalism – this hand of the Indic is not acknowledged, even though it is in plain sight.^[15]

It must be noted that the analysis is easily muddied by the multiple uses of the term “sant,” since it appears frequently in the GGS, where the contexts suggest a general term for people with some characteristics of spirituality, a usage that persists today.^[16] Matters are complicated further because the term is also a title used for a wide range of factional religious leaders, including the leader of the Radhasoamis (where the idea of a “Sant” tradition was used by their founder to increase legitimacy),^[17] and Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Khalsa Sikh who became prominent in the Punjab conflict of the 1980s.

More centrally, the idea that Sikh, like Hindu, was an amorphous category until the colonial period is explicit in recent scholarly framings.^[18] This narrative also fits with some aspects of the claim of a Sant tradition. It is beyond the scope of the current analysis to examine the empirical foundations of this narrative of colonial-era religion-making for the Sikhs, one which allows for diversity but also attempts at establishing boundaries. What is of interest here is the subtext of the Indic. The normative position associated with this narrative is quite explicitly aligned with what one might consider a modern, liberal sensibility.

For example, the post-colonial situation is at odds with “the Sikh tradition’s rich, plural, and inclusive past.”^[19] Colonial-era reformers were “ideologues [who] employed Protestant categories of Christian missionaries to redefine Sikh concepts. As such, modern Sikhism became a well-defined ‘system’ based on a unified tradition.”^[20] This framing is what appeals to scholars who want to posit a cozy cosmopolitanism that should be the norm for migrant outsiders (Leonard, 2007).^[21] This narrative, aimed at one audience, fits readily into another, “This concept of unity, like Abrahamic religions, is alien to Indic faiths.”^[22]

In a nutshell, the framings of a colonial-era rupture in Sikh tradition, all involving a foreshortened (and arguably selective) view of its history, present a choice between two forms of intellectual subalternity for contemporary Sikhs. Post-colonial Sikhs have lost their liberal pluralism, whether that was rooted in the Indic or some other, unspecified, sensibility of cosmopolitanism.^[23] Either way, they are framed as intellectually subaltern. Their lack of voice to contest this position is itself a product of inequalities of power, so one kind of subalternity engenders another.

Conclusion

The argument presented here has been about an intellectual subalternization of Sikh tradition(s) in a particular academic sphere. The claim is that an exaggerated and over-simplified narrative of Sikhs’ interactions with colonialism and modernity has dominated recent scholarship. In particular, this narrative neglects the agency of Sikh masses (subalterns), instead focusing on elite actions. Alternative interpretations of Sikh history and tradition that do not accept this dominant framework have received much less scholarly attention (as measured, say, by citation counts), which can be attributed to an inequality of power in the particular academic arena in question.

The hidden sources of power come from the appealing frame of liberalism and pluralism, shared across a range of intellectual currents, both modern and post-modern. Orientalist tropes also continue to be present. Less obviously, some of the framings used by Hindu nationalists fit well with the claim of colonial-era rupture in the Sikh tradition. Murphy brings this out in a broader frame:^[24]

As cultural critics in the U.S. have made clear, the ‘melting pot’ of U.S. multi-cultural society has also been assimilationist, involving the encouraged and sometimes forced shedding of identity, community affiliation, and the like. As van der Veer…notes, this same dynamic is a feature of valorization of the syncretic in India, as ‘this tolerant and pluralistic spirit of India is essentially Hindu. This, unfortunately, is the other side of a happy tale of syncretism and ‘hybridity’: the denial of articulated Khalsa (and other) identities (with an emphasis on the plural), and an erasure of the cultural dynamics of difference (with all of their problems). This is indeed a dangerous route to take.

Challenging a particular account of the heterogeneous Sikh interaction with colonialism does not imply accepting traditional narratives that take a particular normative stance, nor claiming that any historical account represents stable truth. Methodologically, “all versions of the past deserve an equal measure of critique in order to understand the intellectual as well as material interests that drive them.”^[25]

In this essay an attempt was made to provide an account of Sikh history that was stripped of as many normative claims and interpretations as possible, to make the point that, rather than a neglect of consciousness of boundaries or a fuzzy fluidity, self-identification involved drawing boundaries for the community, however contested.^[26] This contestation is an ongoing process, with many debates that began in the 17th century continuing to the present day.

As indicated earlier in this paper, a key aspect of all these debates is the nature and degree differentiation from Hindu metaphysical thought and social practices associated with that conglomeration, with both being intertwined, of course. The legal and political innovations of colonial rule certainly required greater attention to clarity of boundaries in dimensions that might have been less important earlier, although pre-colonial reform movements (the Nirankaris and Namdharis) had sought sharper delineation based on what they saw as consistency with the Sikh Gurus’ teachings.

An interesting example of the complexities of boundary definition was the intense debate over Ambedkar’s plan to convert his followers to another religion. One possible reason for preferring Sikhism over Christianity or Islam was apparently, that “According to Ambedkar, if the untouchables converted to Sikhism, they would leave the Hindu religion but not Hindu culture.”^[27]

Many of the complexities of beliefs and practices and their role in constructing boundaries for the Sikh tradition are beyond the scope of this paper. However, ideas of social justice and inclusiveness are present in the writings of Guru Nanak, his successors, and the bhagats included in the GGS. These ideas presumably contributed to lower status Hindus becoming followers of the Gurus, at least as early as the beginning of the 17th century. Conflict with the Mughal empire added a posture of militant resistance to oppression, and this is combined with social equality in the framing of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh. While many Sikhs balked at losing social status and the connection to their larger clan groupings,^[28] there is no question that the Khalsa initiation was a radical move in favor of social equality, which has continued to influence the Sikh imagination.^[29]

In terms of the original idea of the subaltern, in the context of those in positions of subordination, this aspect of the history of the Sikh tradition, in its attempts to overcome the inequalities of caste and to oppose the unjust exercise of political power, is consistent with a subaltern sensibility, and consistent with Gramsci’s original framing, as well as the Subaltern Studies group’s development of his ideas.

It certainly antedates colonialism.^[30] At the same time, as in the case of any other religious tradition, there are numerous examples of deviations from this ideal, both in detailed formulations and in practice, with respect to caste and gender, in particular, but also when members of the Khalsa achieve political power.^[31] Continued heterogeneity in beliefs and practices, and vigorous debates among Sikhs, are enough evidence to question the claim of a “monolithic closed culture,” but the main point to be made here goes beyond assessing a particular narrative of the past.

What is common among many of the different narratives of the colonial period, as well as its antecedents, is a pattern of viewing the evolution of the Sikh tradition as largely a function of elite manipulation. This is a conventional approach to history, in which leaders dominate the determinants of how events unfold. Of course, traditional religious accounts represent this model even more strongly. What has gone unremarked in assessing recent scholarship on the Sikhs is that elites are given a similar dominant role in these narratives.

There is little acknowledgement of the agency of members of the community, or else they are viewed as pliant or susceptible or even dupes. At this very basic level, Sikh studies has not incorporated the lessons of Subaltern Studies, despite the Sikh tradition having, as we have argued, significant subaltern sensibilities. Arguably, this assessment is an illustration of one of Spivak’s original perspectives on unequal power in various academic institutional structures.^[32]

Recent events arguably bear out the agency of the Sikh masses. In 2020-21, massive farmer protests rocked India, in response to what was perceived as threatening legislative changes in the regulation of agricultural markets. These protests featured a large proportion of Sikhs. The farmers were articulating their fear of monopoly capital, domestic as well as global, and their anger at a government that is aligned with those sources of power.^[33] What was striking was how songs of protest that emerged used historical analogies from the 18th century Khalsa period, in which the oppressed stands up to the oppressor.^[34]

The teachings of the Sikh Gurus were evoked as justification. The language used was Punjabi and there was no intellectual framing of orthodoxy or Protestant ethics. At the same time, the protests were heavily sustained by Sikh community kitchens, free health care, and other ways of self-consciously performing Sikh ideals of service. All of this was in contrast to the views of the Sikh masses in the studies considered earlier in the paper.

There are two additional, deeper, layers of critique that emerge from the analysis. First, Subaltern Studies typically focuses on material conditions and instrumental motives, but religious movements have also been treated in this context.^[35] One does not have to go as far as, for example, Dipesh Chakravarty, and choose between two different kinds of approaches to history, analytical vs. affective, in considering religious or religion-based social movements.^[36] Religion is not a sui generis category, and can be certainly treated as one kind of cultural formation.^[37]

However, one can also recognize that it has some distinctive features in terms of affect and consciousness. Many of the studies considered here fail to engage with this aspect of religion, implicitly treating it as inferior to more generic ideals of universalism and pluralism.^[38] Indeed in the studies critiqued here, there is little or no engagement with Sikh religious teachings, what they reveal about the Sikh past, or how they shaped that past.^[39]

The third and final layer of subalternization can be considered as an example of a more general problem, as described by Russell McCutcheon, that of a “cleverly disguised paternal strategy that enables scholars to portray themselves as being in solidarity with the Other while retaining the right not only to distinguish Others from other Others but also to inform both groups where their stories ought to start and end.”^[40] Judge uses this quote to contextualize the “invisible hand of the Indic.”^[41]

What is argued in the current paper also goes beyond a general lack of humility of scholars to postulate a specific combination of power and inequalities at work in the intellectual arena where the Sikh narrative is now being contested and seemingly shaped.^[42] Within the academy, Sikh traditions are implicitly subalternized to multiple sources of power, in ways that are yet to be fully excavated. This paper offers a beginning to a project of excavation, but without retreating to unquestioned acceptance of tradition, and without claiming to offer any incontestable truth.

Nirvikar Singh is Co-Director of the Center for Analytical Finance at UCSC, of which he was the founding Director. From 2010 to 2020, he held the Sarbjit Singh Aurora Chair of Sikh and Punjabi Studies at UCSC. He has previously directed the UCSC South Asian Studies Initiative. He has served as a member of the Advisory Group to the Finance Minister of India on G-20 matters, and Consultant to the Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He is currently serving on the Expert Group on post-Covid-19 economic recovery formed by the Chief Minister of Punjab state in India. At UCSC, he has previously served as Director of the Santa Cruz Center for International Economics, Co-Director of the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, and Special Advisor to the Chancellor.

Footnotes

Grewal, The Sikhs. ↩︎
Murphy, “Allegories.” ↩︎
Avtar Singh Vahiria, Khalsa Dharam Shastar (Amritsar: Sodhi Ram Narain Singh, 1914). ↩︎
Surinder S. Jodhka, “Changing Manifestations of Caste in the Sikh Panth,” in The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014): 583–93. ↩︎
Opinderjit Kaur Takhar, Sikh Identity: An Exploration of Groups among Sikhs (London: Routledge, 2005). ↩︎
Sikhs who are converts from outcaste groups are accorded full equality in major Sikh houses of worship, though not necessarily in rural areas. By contrast, in the early 20th century, these former outcastes could not then enter the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar by the same door as other Sikhs: Edmund Candler, The Mantle of the East (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1910): 127. ↩︎
See Nicola Mooney, “‘In Our Whole Society, There Is No Equality’: Sikh Householding and the Intersection of Gender and Caste,” Religions, 11(2) (2020): 95; <https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11020095. Even many Muslims and Christians in India acknowledge caste identities: Pew Research Center, Religion. Jodhka and Mooney appear to be exceptions in fully engaging with caste in the context of the Sikh tradition and contemporary practices, but do not allow for such attitudes and comparisons in their analysis. ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction, 25. ↩︎
Singh, The Akali; Tai Yong Tan, “Assuaging the Sikhs: Government Responses to the Akali Movement 1920-1925,” Modern Asian Studies, 29 (3) (1995): 655-703. The movement itself began with protests by outcast converts to Sikhism over unequal and exclusionary treatment by the functionaries of the Darbar Sahib, such as what was noted by Candler, The Mantle: see Singh, The Akali. ↩︎
Interestingly, Tan (1995), who uses colonial sources almost exclusively, liberally uses the term “extremist” to describe the agitating Sikhs, illustrating the limits of claims of identity consciousness being a product of British manipulation and control. ↩︎
Tan, “Assuaging.” ↩︎
Anne Murphy, The Materiality of the Past: History and Representation in Sikh Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Inderjit N. Kaur, “Sikhism,” in Rituals and Practices in World Religions (Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, Vol. 5), David Bryce Yaden, Yukun Zhao, Kaiping Peng, and Andrew B. Newberg, eds. (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2020): 151-165. ↩︎
Note that debates about universality vs. specificity or West vs. East, some of which dominated the discourse around Chibber, Postcolonial, are moot when both universal desires for material well-being and specific religious expressions as instruments of communal solidarity are involved, as is the case of the Sikhs. ↩︎
Judge, “The Invisible Hand.” ↩︎
This is particularly obvious in Barthwal, The Nirguna School. ↩︎
Singh, “Guru Nanak.” ↩︎
Juergensmeyer, “The Radhasoami.” ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction. ↩︎
Singh, “Re-imagining,” 27. ↩︎
Pashaura Singh, How Avoiding the Religion–Politics Divide Plays out in Sikh Politics, Religions, 10 (5) (2019): 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050296. ↩︎
Leonard, “Transnationalism.” This is not to revert to the position that tradition must be uncontested and homogeneous. As Murphy, “Allegories,” 63, puts it in critiquing Oberoi, there is danger in “nostalgia for a lost and idyllic past – whether it be ‘syncretic’ or ‘pure’.” ↩︎
Sanjeev Nayyar, “Is Modern day Sikhism a Colonial Construct?” eSamskriti, December 13, 2019. https://www.esamskriti.com/e/History/Indian-History/Is-Modern-day-Sikhism-a-Colonial-Construct–1.aspx. ↩︎
The argument being made here is not controverted by the fact that conflict with neo-Hindu movements in 19th and 20th century Punjab was a strong motivator for Sikh reformers in this period (Jones, Arya Dharm.). In fact, it reinforces the visibility of the hand of the Indic. In this context, the claim that attempts to strengthen the formation “Hindu” (or, alternatively, Brahman, using Romila Thapar’s distinction between Brahman and Śraman traditions: see Romila Thapar, “Imagined religious communities? Ancient history and the modern search for a Hindu identity,” Modern Asian Studies, 23 (2) (1989): 209-231) were a novel phenomenon and a unique product of colonialism seems to be at odds with history: see Frank Usarski, “Facets of the relationship between Buddhism and Hinduism: Interview with Perry Schmidt-Leukel,” Revista de Estudos da Religião, September (2007): 157-164. ↩︎
Murphy, “Allegories,” 64. ↩︎
Ethan Kleinberg (individual communication, 2022): I am grateful to him for this observation on an earlier version of the paper, although he is absolved of all responsibility for remaining shortcomings in this iteration. Ethan Kleinberg, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017) lays out this theoretical position in depth. ↩︎
Chann, “Rahit Literature;” Gill, “The Works.” ↩︎
Rohit Wanchoo, “The Question of Dalit Conversion in the 1930s,” Studies in History, 36 (2) (2020): 206–229. ↩︎
See Hardip Singh Syan, “Debating Revolution: Early eighteenth century Sikh public philosophy on the formation of the Khalsa,” Modern Asian Studies, 48 (4) (2014): 1096-1133. The accurate term here would be biradari, theoretically the exogamous subdivisions of the endogamous got, itself a subdivision of the broader concept of jati, and from there leading to the classical varnas, which are referenced in the GGS. For an analysis of how biradaris worked in practice among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs under the rule of Ranjit Singh, see Charles Joseph Hall, Jr., The Maharaja’s Account Books. State and Society Under the Sikhs: 1799-1849. PhD Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1981. ↩︎
Historians have differed with respect to the degree to which the Khalsa represented (to use the currently fashionable term) a “rupture” in Sikh tradition, e.g., Gokul Chand Narang, Transformation of Sikhism, 5th edition (New Delhi: New Book Society of India, 1960); and Niharranjan Ray, T**he Sikh Gurus and the Sikh Society: A Study in Social Analysis, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1975). Another aspect of the Khalsa identity, one which extends to many Sikhs who are not formally initiated, is the idea of standing up for justice for all. This has traveled through time and continents, and is visible in how (at least some) contemporary Sikhs see themselves. For example, a recent news story about a young Sikh American with long hair and turban, and his challenges in participating fully in US society quotes him as saying, “To me, the whole reason we look different is so we stick out and can be a pillar of support for people in need.” See Simran Jeet Singh, “Samrath Singh, first turbaned Sikh to play NCAA baseball, is more than the challenges he has overcome,” Religion New Service: Articles of Faith, August 5, 2021, <https://religionnews.com/2021/08/05/samrath-singh-first-turbaned-sikh-to-play-ncaa-baseball-is-more-than-the-challenges-he-has-overcome/. More strongly, for some Sikhs, the Khalsa is the mystical embodiment of the Guru: for example, see Fenech, “The Khalsa,” 241. ↩︎
Rahuldeep Singh Gill, “Ante-Colonial Anti-Imperial Sikh Tradition, Reflections on the 550th Anniversary of Guru Nanak’s Birth,” presentation at Institute for South Asian Studies, UC Berkeley, November 14, 2019 available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5k-cw44nI&ab\_channel=IsasDepartmental. ↩︎
Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks. ↩︎
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” ↩︎
This example connects closely to the underpinnings of the use of the term subaltern, in a context of material conditions and unequal social relations, as in Chibber’s critique of postcolonial theory’s treatment of subalternity in its narrative of South Asian history (Chibber, Postcolonial). As background, Sikh peasants enjoyed a few decades of relative material prosperity with the success of the so-called green revolution in the 1960s. When Punjab was the most well-off state in India, the idea of subaltern status might have seemed incongruous. However, inadequate water supplies were looming just a few years later. The system that has evolved in the past decades has left (mostly Sikh) peasants in the region in a state of precarity, without easy alternatives. Punjab’s material prosperity has lagged, even as it faces environmental disaster: Nirvikar Singh, “Breaking the Mould: Thoughts on Punjab’s Future Economic Development,” in Economic Transformation and Development Experience of Indian Punjab, Lakhwinder Singh and Nirvikar Singh, eds. (Singapore: Springer, 2016): 451-466. The peasants may still be better off than their compatriots elsewhere in India, but they face devastation once the groundwater table declines a little further. Note that the farmers who died during the protests, from a variety of causes, were not large landholders – their average holding was under 3 acres: Vivek Gupta, “Most Farmers Who Died at Delhi’s Borders Owned Less Than 3 Acres Land: Study,” The Wire, November 7, 2021, <https://thewire.in/agriculture/most-farmers-who-died-at-delhis-borders-owned-less-than-3-acres-land-study. ↩︎
Sikh Research Journal, Songs and Poems of the Farmers’ Protests, 6 (1) (2021): 139-159. ↩︎
Partha Chatterjee, Caste and Subaltern Consciousness, in Subaltern Studies VI: Writings on South Asian History and Society, Ranajit Guha, ed. (Delhi; Oxford University Press, 1989): 169-209. ↩︎
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). ↩︎
Russell T McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). ↩︎
In a different context, Saba Mahmood reflects on critical theory’s reluctance to engage with “religion’s metaphysical and epistemological commitments.” See Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Saba Mahmood, Is critique secular?: blasphemy, injury, and free speech (New York: Fordham Univ Press, 2013): 91, and her piece is pointedly titled, “Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?” ↩︎
Again, Grewal*, The Sikhs*, is a major exception to this lacuna, though relatively unacknowledged in the studies critiqued in this paper. ↩︎
Russell T McCutcheon, ”‘It’s a Lie. There’s No Truth in It! It’s a Sin!’: On the Limits of the Humanistic Study of Religion and the Costs of Saving Others from Themselves,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74 (3) (2006): 744. ↩︎
Judge, “The Invisible Hand.” ↩︎
Going back to the issue of the claim that there was a “Sant” tradition in which Guru Nanak must be placed, McLeod uses the devices of academic power by asserting that those who disagree with him do so because of religious devotion – this assertion attempts to preempt the very idea that his claim can be subject to legitimate scholarly questioning: Wystan Hewat McLeod, Sikhism (New York: Penguin Books, 1997): 101. ↩︎

Sikhs As Subalterns – Voice, Inequality, And Power, Part 2 (Nirvikar Singh)

2024-01-26T17:09:44Z

The following is the second installment of a three part series. The first can be found here. It is published as a catalogued .PDF in article in the latest issue of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (22.2).

Another common scholarly position is that Nanak and his successors could not have created a separate religious tradition, because such a concept did not exist in Indic culture. Many scholars have made this claim for the Sikhs, and it can be supported by observations such as intermarriage among what are now called Sikhs and Hindus, lack of distinct life cycle rituals, and acceptance of a range of beliefs and practices that do not fit within a clear, commonly accepted definition of what it means to be a Sikh.

This is contrasted with more clear-cut creedal definitions for religious communities. This is a more complicated and deeper issue than the current scope allows,^[1] but the equation of “religion” with non-Indic or Christian definitions is at odds with much of the social science literature, which takes a more inclusive position on how the word is used.^[2] Furthermore, Islam had been present in South Asia since the 7th century CE, so it would have been well known as a model of spiritual beliefs and practices when Nanak lived, though the community of Islam encompasses its own heterogeneities.

Finally, 16th and 17th century Sikh writings in the GGS and by Gurdas Bhalla explicitly mention Hindus and Muslims in terms of their beliefs and practices, identifying Sikhs as being neither of these communities.^[3] If the principle is one of self-definition of identity based on spiritual beliefs and associated practices, then the nomenclature issue is arguably of second-order importance, possibly even leading to mischaracterization.

The role of the Khalsa in Sikhism also elicits a range of positions. Some scholars characterize it as one of many expressions of Sikh tradition, and view it primarily as a militaristic subset of the broader community.^[4] Others recognize its importance to the Sikh conception of community, even to the point of the Guru being embodied in the collective of the Khalsa, as the Guru Panth (panth meaning community) complementing the Guru Granth.^[5] Less metaphysically, many Sikhs view the Khalsa as representative of an ideal of service and sacrifice, associated particularly with the example of Guru Gobind Singh in his own life. At the same time, it is accepted that practice falls short of ideals, even in traditionally heroic contexts such as the 18th century.^[6]

Scholarly positions that put less weight on originality, distinctiveness and a common core in the first two centuries of Sikh history align with what has become the dominant perspective on Sikhism in the Western academy, that its contemporary beliefs and practices are fundamentally different from pre-colonial history. Harjot Oberoi’s narrative is the most well-known, arguing that there was no sense of a definite Sikh identity, prior to the colonial era.^[7] Instead, there were a range of traditions, beliefs and practices, all within a larger collection of such traditions that was separately distilled into Hinduism.^[8]

Sikhs who created a new, restricted Sikh identity were “aggressive usurpers,” displacing a more pluralistic, tolerant tradition. An alternative account of a rupture associated with colonialism and modernity is that of Arvind-Pal Mandair, who accepts the existence of a prior Sikh tradition, but also views it as fundamentally different, in terms of its philosophical underpinnings as well as its practices.^[9] He emphasizes trauma and shame as drivers of this colonial-era rupture in Sikh tradition. Richard Fox, on the other hand, claims that the Sikh community in its modern form is a product of the British, who nurtured the Khalsa identity and brought it back from near extinction.^[10]

What is common in all three narratives is that the colonial power causes a transformation of the community, either directly, or through the efforts of elites who are either aggressive or traumatized. An alternative perspective is more nuanced, recognizing the influence of earlier Sikh tradition and thought, as incorporated in the GGS, or the role of the Sikh masses, consisting chiefly of the peasantry, as well as the complicated negotiations in which representatives of different interests and ideologies within the Sikh community engaged, and how they sought compromises to balance inclusion and distinctiveness.^[11]

Much of the process of definition of the Sikhs in scholarship situated in the Western hemisphere begins in the 1980s, at a time of political turmoil in Punjab, and focuses on the Sikh diaspora, which is particularly numerous in Anglophone countries (Canada, Britain and the United States). Adopting the perspective that contemporary Sikh identity is almost wholly a modern construct, literally, “a gross transgression of Sikh doctrine,”^[12] Sikh identity in the diaspora is described as a recent phenomenon. For example, Brian Axel states, “Khalistan [the name of a projected independent Sikh nation] is an idea that…has become a generalized trope of social practice and representation central to the post-1984 (re) constitution of the Sikh diaspora.”^[13]

A similar approach leads to assertions that early Sikh migrants to California saw themselves as cosmopolitan Punjabis or even Hindus, rather than as followers of narrowly religious Sikh tradition.^[14] Other academic writing on the Sikh diaspora follows similar lines, though not exclusively so.^[15] Building sometimes on some early ethnographic studies,^[16] there has been a tendency to emphasize Punjabi rather than Sikh identity, with the latter being reduced to a manifestation of “identity politics.”^[17]

Voice, Inequality and Power

This section develops the central arguments of this paper, by analyzing the intellectual genealogy of the kinds of debates outlined above, uncovering the effects of inequality and power in that process. As a prelude, note that scholarship on the Sikhs – as that term is used in the modern academy – begins during the colonial period, and it has two strands. One strand is work by Sikhs, in modern Punjabi, which is part of the project of reform and “modernization.” Some of this effort is doctrinal in nature, explicating or interpreting the GGS, and because of its language and goals, it is internally directed.

It is intertwined, however, with attempts to construct a unified historical narrative that is empirically based. The second strand consists of historical narratives in English, written initially by colonial observers, and then by non-Sikh Indians who were part of the new colonial higher education system. Post-independence, the second strand also begins to include Sikh academics. As one might expect, even the second strand includes a variety of perspectives and interpretations, especially on questions of identity, and how sources are used and weighted.

One example of the second strand that gets elevated in status, to the point that it is projected as a driver of the Sikh engagement with colonialism, is the work of Ernst Trumpp.^[18] Trumpp was commissioned by the colonists to translate the GGS. He was a German Indologist, Sanskrit scholar, and sometime missionary. While he was charged with translation into English, he admitted later that his own knowledge of English was imperfect. He eventually produced a partial translation, accompanied by a summary history of the Sikh tradition. Trump himself was a latecomer to an established tradition, one which has subsequently been labeled “Orientalism.”^[19]

In the 19th century, German Indologists “discovered” the sacred classical traditions of India, and formalized these as Hinduism, recognizing the enormous diversity of practice as well as the evolution of beliefs over time, but nevertheless creating a category that could be viewed in more Western terms. When they came to the Sikhs, as was the case for Trumpp, their reference point was this older Hindu, Sanskritic tradition, as defined by the Indologists, but also by Hindu scholars. The use of Hindu terms and mythological metaphors in the GGS made it easy to take the position that the Sikh tradition was an inconsequential and inferior gloss on classical Hinduism, which Trumpp stated in blunt and uncomplimentary language.

Members of a new Sikh intelligentsia tried to respond to Trumpp’s work, because of its implications for how the community would be treated by the colonial political and legal system. They encouraged and supported the work of Max Arthur Macauliffe, who collaborated with members of the community to produce an alternative narrative, which also consisted of a partial translation of the GGS, combined with a historical account of the community.^[20] While some Sikhs have seen this as a reclamation of the truth about the community, the perspective of scholars that currently dominates the Western academy frames this dialectic as one of response to shame and trauma, either through defense or aggression,^[21] while Fox sees the material incentives to Sikhs provided by the British as an essential part of these developments.^[22] All of these perspectives tend to deny the mass of the community any real agency, reducing them to objects of elite manipulation. A more nuanced position has been somewhat lost in this popular framing.

Before considering the specifics of history again, one has to trace the intellectual development of the two strands of scholarship identified above. Essentially, while scholarly writing in Punjabi continued, it has been swamped by writing in English. This new scholarship has claimed to offer two kinds of improvement. First, it has emphasized a return to sources, and a more critical use of these sources, in terms of not taking them at face value. The exemplar of this claim is McLeod in his re-examination of traditional stories of the life of Guru Nanak (janamsakhis), pointing out lack of reliable or consistent evidence for almost all of them.^[23] Much of this effort has gone into challenging the modern reformist position that Sikh tradition has been well-defined and continuous. As Oberoi states, this effort is meant to parallel a much larger project that offered a revisionist account of Hinduism.^[24]

A second intellectual current that is prominent in newer scholarship on the Sikhs is an acknowledgement of different subjectivities and interpretations, so that there is not necessarily a final, unquestionable narrative. Of course, this is a central intellectual feature of scholarship in a range of disciplines and topics of inquiry. In the case of scholarship on the Sikhs, this has led to greater attention to groups that are downgraded or ignored in the dominant reformist narrative, including various sects, challengers to what became the main line of development of the Sikh community, members of erstwhile outcaste groups, and so on.

A greater awareness of issues of gender and sexuality, social inequalities, and the validity of normative positions has also come from this approach. Much of this work has complemented the first kind of development: for example, in challenging an idealized normative account of the role of women in Sikh tradition by reconsidering historical evidence or documenting contemporary practices.^[25]

A significant aspect of the newer scholarship on the Sikh tradition is in how it brings theory to historical narratives. For example, Fox might easily be considered to have an Orientalist approach. He repeatedly plays off the literal translation of “Singh” as “lion,” with chapter and section titles such as “Singh Nature and Habitat,” “British Methods of Obedience Training,” and “An Endangered Species.”^[26] But he also quotes or appeals to Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Foucault, Touraine and Williams.^[27] This is with the goal of critiquing the “standard anthropological treatment of culture and cultural patterns.” Sikhs are innocent bystanders in this project. The teachings of the Sikh Gurus receive one page in Fox, the 18th century history of the Khalsa does not get a mention, and the later Singhs (effectively the Khalsa) are described airily as “one segment of the great arc of Sikh potential.”^[28]

Oberoi provides a different causal story for the Sikh transformation in the colonial period, but a similar theoretical basis. He uses Foucalt’s concept of an episteme: “the totality of relations that can be discovered for a given period.”^[29] Some generic discussion of these ideas is followed by raising the problem of what can explain the shift from one episteme to the next. Here, Oberoi appeals to Bourdieu. By contrast to Fox, who states that Bourdieu cannot explain historical change, Oberoi interprets the “unceasing intervention of human practices” as the drivers of change.^[30]

However, Bourdieu is not quite adequate for this explanation, and Oberoi turns to the work of Sherry Ortner, and her framework of three modes of human action: routine activity, intentional action and praxis.^[31] The ensuing discussion of praxis by Oberoi is vague, even though it is made into the driver of changes in epistemes. Bourdieu, Foucault and praxis all then disappear from the rest of the narrative, until the ending assertions that the reconstituted Khalsa episteme of the early 20th century represented an epistemic shift or rupture with the past.

In another example of appeals to theory, Karen Leonard uses the theoretical binary of “cosmopolitans” versus “transnationals” to characterize the evolution of the Sikh community in California.^[32] In doing so, she compares immigrant Sikh men who married immigrant Mexican women before the Second World War, with Sikh men who married Sikh women from Punjab once immigration policies were changed in 1965. The general normative connotation of “cosmopolitan” is problematic in this context, as is the manner of translation from the original work of Stuart Hall and Pnina Werbner.^[33]

But the lack of accounting for changing societal circumstances and constraints itself brings the analysis into question. Indeed, Leonard’s initial framing of the temporally earlier case as “making ethnic choices,” and as an example of cosmopolitanism and the unimportance of Sikh religious identity, conflicts with her own examples, such as the Sikh who “changed his name from Singh to Ram because, having taken off the turban and beard, he felt he was no longer a Sikh and did not want to dishonor the Sikh religion.”^[34]

Oberoi’s historical narrative is also subject to the criticism of lacking an empirical anchor. For example, Jagtar Grewal, in assessing the pluralistic Sanatan Sikh category that Oberoi uses as a foil to the aggressive reformers, concludes, “His [Oberoi’s] hypothesis of Sanatan Sikhism in the early nineteenth century appears to be vague and vacuous.”^[35] N.-G. K. Singh, Grewal, and Murphy are among those who offer detailed critiques of Oberoi’s analysis based on features of Sikh history.^[36] These critiques admit the reality of diversity of views, and disagreements within the community.

But they place the colonial period in the context of a longer arc of history, one that is reasonably well-documented. For example, attempts to define boundaries, or to institute reforms designed to bring practices closer to what the reformers viewed as the message of the Sikh Gurus, go back to the late 17th century,^[37] and the early 19th century,^[38] before the colonial period in Punjab. Murphy appreciates Oberoi’s attempt to delineate “the diverse religious worlds of early nineteenth century Punjab,” but points out that his “tying of ‘Sanatan Sikhism’ and folk traditions in opposition to the Khalsa episteme” has a shaky empirical basis. She details how Oberoi’s construction does not match the actual historical circumstances, instead enacting nostalgia for a non-existent “proto-multiculturalism.”^[39]

Continuing with the theme of empirical foundations, what is noteworthy about the development of scholarship on the Sikhs in the last few decades is that use of primary sources has been relatively light. For example, Leonard relies entirely on Oberoi for her characterization of Punjab in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[40] Even Barrier relies primarily on English language sources,^[41] and McLeod, while a prolific analyst of early Sikh sources, is not always completely accurate or reliable.^[42] For many scholars of the Sikhs, lack of knowledge of modern Punjabi, let alone Persian or the language forms used in the GGS, constitutes a barrier to accessing aspects of the contemporary historical record, except if a translation is available. Language is not a determinative factor, and information is not automatically authentic even if the source is read in its original language, but this issue adds a layer of complication to scholarship in the field.

Footnotes

[italics are mine]

Analyses of the applicability of the term “religion” include Talal Asad, Genealogies of religion: Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore, MD: JHU Press, 1993); Mark Taylor, “Refiguring Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77 (1) (2009): 105–119; Gil Anidjar, “The idea of an anthropology of Christianity,” Interventions 11, no. 3 (2009): 367-393; and Gil Anidjar, “Christianity, Christianities, Christian,”Journal of Religious and Political Practice 1, no. 1 (2015): 39-46. ↩︎
For a comprehensive overview of this approach, see Ara Norenzayan, Azim F. Shariff, Will M. Gervais, Aiyana K. Willard, Rita A. McNamara, Edward Slingerland and Joseph Henrich. The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e1, (2016): 1-65 ↩︎
Rahuldeep Singh Gill, “The Works of Bhai Gurdas,” in The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 147-158. ↩︎
For example, see Pashaura Singh, “Re-imagining Sikhi (‘Sikhness’) in the Twenty-First Century: Toward a Paradigm Shift in Sikh Studies,” in, Re-imagining South Asian Religions: Essays in Honour of Professors Harold G. Coward and Ronald W. Neufeldt, Pashaura Singh and Michael Hawley, eds. (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill ,2013): 27-48; and Susan E. Prill, “Sikhi Through Internet, Films, and Videos,” in The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 471-481. ↩︎
For example, see Louis E. Fenech, “The Khalsa and the Rahit,” in The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 240-249 ↩︎
Dhavan*, When Sparrows Became Hawks*. ↩︎
Harjot S Oberoi,.The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). ↩︎
However, as noted, Hindu leaders such as Gandhi never accepted this separateness. ↩︎
Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair, Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality, and the Politics of Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). For example, he states (p. 32), “neither Sikh experience nor the broader Indic culture from which it is derived can claim to possess a word for “religion” as signifying either a mystical or theological core or a unified faith community.” ↩︎
Richard Fox, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). ↩︎
These three perspectives are treated, respectively in Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, “Review of The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition by Harjot Oberoi,” The Journal of Asian Studies, 55 (3) (1996): 760-762; Mohinder Singh, The Akali Movement (Delhi: The Macmillan Company of India, 1978); and N. Gerald Barrier, “Competing visions of Sikh religion and politics: The chief Khalsa Diwan and the Panch Khalsa Diwan, 1902–1928,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 23, no. 2 (2000): 33-62. ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction, p. 323. ↩︎
Brian Keith Axel, The nation’s tortured body: Violence, representation, and the formation of a Sikh “diaspora” (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020). ↩︎
Karen Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); and Leonard, “Transnationalism, Diaspora, Translation: Comparing Punjabis and Hyderabadis Abroad,” Sikh Formations, 3 (1) (2007): 51-66. ↩︎
For example, N. Gerald Barrier and Verne A. Dusenbery, The Sikh diaspora: Migration and the experience beyond Punjab (Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1989). ↩︎
For example, Arthur W. Helweg, “Punjab Farmers: Twenty Years in England,” India International Centre Quarterly, 5 (1) (1978): 14-22. ↩︎
For example, Sunit Singh, “On the Politics of the Sikh Diaspora,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 14 (1) (2005): 157-177. ↩︎
Ernst Trumpp, The Adi Granth, or The Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs, Translated from the Original Gurmukhi, with Introductory Essays (London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1877), available at https://archive.org/details/cu31924023913217. ↩︎
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). ↩︎
Max Arthur Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909) For a summary of the relationship of the Sikh community and leadership to Macauliffe and his work, see, Harbans Singh, “Max Arthur Macauliffe,” Encyclopedia of Sikhism, Volume 3 (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1998), 1-4. ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction; Mandair, Religion and the Specter. ↩︎
Fox, The Lions. ↩︎
McLeod, Guru Nanak. ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction. One example of the argument for Hinduism is Richard E. King, Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and “The Mystic East” (London: Routledge, 1999). ↩︎
Doris Jakobsh, Relocating Gender in Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Jakobsh, ed., Sikhism and Women: History, Texts and Experience (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010). ↩︎
Fox, The Lions. ↩︎
In particular, he relies on Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1981); Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (New York, Pantheon Books, 1980); Alain Touraine, The Self Production of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); and Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1977). ↩︎
Fox, The Lions, p. 8. ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction, 28, quoting Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Pantheon Books, 1972), 191. ↩︎
Oberoi, The Construction, 28. ↩︎
Sherry Ortner, High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). ↩︎
Leonard, “Transnationalism.” ↩︎
Stuart Hall, “Politics of Identity,” in Culture, Identity, Politics: Ethnic Minorities in Britain, Terence Ranger, Yunus Samad, and Ossie Stuart, eds. (Brookfield, VT: Avebury, 1996): 131–32; and Pnina Werbner, “Global Pathways, Working Class Cosmopolitans and the Creation of Transnational Ethnic Worlds,” Social Anthropology, 7 (1) (1999): 17-35. ↩︎
Leonard, Making, 127. ↩︎
Jagtar Singh Grewal, Historical Perspectives on Sikh Identity (Patiala: Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, 1997): 29. As Anne Murphy explains, the term ‘Sanatan’ is anachronistic and inappropriate for the early 19th century: see Anne Murphy, “Allegories of difference and identity: Reflections on religious boundaries and ‘popular’ religion,” International Journal of Punjab Studies. 7 (1) (2000): 53-71. The term was introduced into the discourse of Hindu reformers and their conservative opponents in the Punjab of the 1870s, and only adopted by a section of Sikhs a decade later: John Zavos, “Patterns of Organisation in Turn of the Century Hinduism: an examination with reference to Punjab,” International Journal of Punjab Studies. 7 (1) (2000): 29-52. ↩︎
Singh, “Review;” Grewal, Historical; Murphy, “Allegories.” ↩︎
Naindeep Singh Chann, Rahit Literature, in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Sikhism, Volume I: History, Literature, Society, Beyond Punjab, Knut A. Jacobsen, Gurinder Singh Mann, Kristina Myrvold and Eleanor Nesbitt, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2017): 183-191. ↩︎
Man Singh Nirankari, “The Nirankaris,” The Punjab Past and Present, Vol. 7 (1973): 1-11; Bhagat Singh, “The Kuka Movement,” The Punjab Past and Present, Vol. 7 (1973): 153-161. ↩︎
Murphy, “Allegories,” 59, 60. The import of these criticisms is not that theory is harmful or unimportant. Indeed, theory can be used very effectively in analyzing the case of the Sikhs. In fact, it is Murphy’s theoretical analysis, combined with a more careful reading of the historical record, that reveals the problems with Oberoi’s narrative. In another example, Rajbir Judge offers a theoretical analysis of Sikh tradition as a mode of continual resistance that is not bounded by the colonial encounter: Rajbir Singh Judge, “There is No Colonial Relationship: Antagonism, Sikhism, and South Asian Studies,” History and Theory 57 (2) (2018): 195-217. In another theoretically rich account, he explores how the “invisible hand of the Indic” lurks in different ways in accounts of religious boundaries and authenticities in South Asia, but also in supposedly secular democratic formulations: Rajbir Singh Judge, “The Invisible Hand of the Indic,” Cultural Critique, 110 (Winter) (2021): 75-109. The current analysis is more elementary. Indeed, its message might be conveyed by the words of Sherlock Holmes, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” See Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” The Strand Magazine, July, London (1891). ↩︎
Leonard, Making; Leonard, “Transnationalism.” ↩︎
Barrier, “Competing.” ↩︎
For illustrative examples, see Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, “Poetic Rhythm and Historical Account: The Portrait of Guru Nanak Through Bhai Gurdas,” International Journal of Punjab Studies, 5 (2) (1998): 127-158; and Nirvikar Singh, “The Challenge of Translating the Guru Granth Sahib: An Illustration and Preliminary Reflections,” Sikh Research Journal, 3 (1) (2018): 1-22. ↩︎

Sikhs As Subalterns – Voice, Inequality, and Power, Part 1 (Nirvikar Singh)

2024-01-10T16:51:29Z

The following article is the first of three installments. It is published as a catalogued .PDF in article in the latest issue of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (22.2).

Introduction

Beyond this broad characterization, the concept can be difficult to define sharply. Gyan Prakash, in explicating the field of Subaltern Studies, states that the term ‘subaltern’ “refers to subordination in terms of class, caste, gender, race, language, and culture and was used to signify the centrality of dominant/dominated relationships in history.”^[2] Partha Chatterjee points out that Gramsci used the term as a substitute for “proletariat,” to avoid censorship, but that this expanded the scope of its application to peasant-dominated societal contexts, laying the foundations for Guha’s launch of Subaltern Studies.^[3]

On the other hand, Peter Thomas returns to Gramsci’s notebooks to extract multiple concepts of the subaltern that are more general than those of the marginalized or the oppressed, extending to the ordinary citizen within the modern state.^[4] Nevertheless, El Habib Louai, retracing the terminology through the work of Gramsci, Guha and Gayatri Spivak, suggests that, “Throughout its history since the beginning of the twentieth century, the concept of the subaltern remains one of the most slippery and difficult to define.”^[5]

Spivak explores how social markers other than class can delineate subaltern status. She focuses particularly on gender, but religion, race and sexual orientation can also be part of the bounding conditions, and this intersectionality is arguably in Gramsci as well.^[9] Spivak also criticizes the role of academics, even well-meaning ones, in maintaining power structures and denying subalterns a true voice: an idea that will be one of the foci of this paper.^[10]

Subaltern Studies is itself situated within post-colonial studies. Though the concept of the subaltern may be disputed or malleable, it occupies an important place in the broader discourse of postcolonialism. Indeed, Vivek Chibber, in his critique of postcolonial theory, focuses on Subaltern Studies, which he characterizes as, “The most illustrious representative of postcolonial studies in the scholarship on the Global South.”^[11] Chibber’s critique revolves around capital and capitalism, the extent to which Subaltern Studies succeeds in providing useful insights into the evolution of capitalism outside the West, and whether it accurately captures the role of subaltern groups in this evolution.^[12]

The outline of the argument is as follows. Sikhism began as a religious formation in the 16th century CE, appealing to a broad cross-section of South Asian society within its home region of Punjab. Many of its doctrines and characteristics challenged subalternity, though with limitations. The origin and evolution of the Sikh community took place within the context of the complete arcs of two successive imperial powers – the Mughals and the British. The specifics of that process of evolution included two crucial markers, those of religion and language, where inequalities of power tended to perpetuate aspects of subalternity, including the scope for self-expression. Ironically, the study of the Sikhs in Western academia has perpetuated and expanded this subaltern status, in ways that the paper describes.^[13]

Key features of this latter process have been a foreshortened account of Sikh history and tradition, and a denial of agency to the Sikh community in these academic accounts, so that the subaltern (the community) effectively is not allowed to speak. The foregoing summary uses ‘Sikh’ in a unitary sense, but, like any other tradition or grouping, there is considerable diversity, and that will be addressed as the arguments are laid out.

Rather, it is an excavation in the archeology of knowledge production, one that is informed by the perspective of subalternity to highlight inequalities in the reception of certain voices. The final section concludes by summarizing its intended contribution, that of using the case of the Sikhs to highlight aspects of subalternity that are often buried, and using the 2020-21 farmer protests in India to illustrate the weakness of some recent theorizing.

Sikhs: A Summary^[14]

The Sikh tradition begins with Nanak (1469-1539 CE), considered a Guru, or spiritual teacher, by his followers. To what extent his intention was to establish a new religious community, whether the term “religion” is appropriate, and how much his message was a reworking of those of others who came before him, are all matters of scholarly debate. Even within the Sikh community, there are varied opinions on these matters. However, it is reasonably well established that he traveled widely during his lifetime, seeking to spread his message, before settling down in a specific place in the Punjab region of South Asia, where he was surrounded by followers. These followers were also in other places where Nanak had previously traveled.

Nanak composed verses that were meant to be sung to musical measures (raags), which consist of praise of the Divine, reflections on the nature of the Divine, and moral and ethical guidance. In his verses, he criticized unjust uses of power by government officials and rulers, as well as the insincere practices of figures of religious significance or authority, including Brahmin priests (pandits), Muslim clerics, and members of yogic orders (siddhs). He advocated for personal internal transformation, through “truthful living,” which included reflection on the Divine, charity, and purity of thought and action. “Sikh” means student, learner or disciple, and it is used by Nanak in this sense in his writings for his followers. Another term used in this sense is gurmukh, literally someone who faces the Guru, and the terms are used together, or combined (gursikh) in ways that convey the general normative meaning of being a “Sikh.”

Nanak had nine human successors, each of whom used the signature “Nanak” in their own writings. Contemporary verses by bards in the Sikh community indicate that this was seen as a continuity of spirit or “light,” the same divine inspiration that was in Nanak. In most cases, the successor was chosen by the incumbent Guru, unless the latter met an unexpected end. In two cases, the fifth and ninth Gurus, this was at the hands of Mughal authorities, in the first case after some form of physical torture, in the second, in a public execution by beheading.

A strong Sikh tradition holds that the tenth and last human Guru, Gobind Singh, appointed the canonical text as the Guru of the Sikhs, and it firmly holds that status in the community, being the center of worship in multiple forms (recitation, singing, listening, interpretation, discussion, and ceremonial actions). This tradition is documented in contemporaneous sources of that time, the early 18th century. The text is now known as the Guru Granth Sahib (GGS), the last term being meant to convey respect. Often, additional terms of respect are added.

The text was originally authenticated by Guru Arjan, and immediately began to be copied and distributed to Sikh congregations wherever they were in South Asia. The GGS is written in a regional script, systematized by the Sikh Gurus, and now always known as Gurmukhi, because of its association with the text. The languages in the GGS are a range of regional vernaculars of the period.^[15]

According to the collected verses in the GGS, the goal of a Sikh was to make a connection to the Divine, by becoming free of a sense of separation from the Divine and Divine creation. This had to be achieved while engaging in worldly responsibilities, and not through asceticism or renunciation. Therefore, honest work and material success are acceptable, but within boundaries of fairness, justice and equity, and without allowing material success to engender pride or arrogance. Actively sharing the fruits of material success is important.

As the Sikh community evolved and expanded, the message of the Gurus attracted a wide range of followers, including erstwhile outcastes, and lower castes such as artisans and peasants. A major numerical component of the growth of the Sikh community came from the Jats, a range of clans that had migrated into the region in earlier centuries. They were originally pastoralists who were, in this period, adopting agriculture and local religious identities. Evidence from early 17th century writings, of a prominent Sikh (Gurdas Bhalla) suggests that some Jats were part of the Sikh community by this time, and they constitute a majority in the contemporary community.

They were to abandon caste ties by adopting the common surname “Singh,” – as did Gobind himself at this time – and adhere to a code of conduct and dress, including carrying a dagger or sword (kirpan), and keeping uncut hair (kesh), covered with a turban. These visible markers of identity have been associated with an ideal of fearlessness, and willingness to stand up against any form of oppression. A metaphor that came to be commonly used was that the creation of the Khalsa would turn sparrows into hawks.^[16]

The significance and position of the Khalsa within the Sikh community has been a matter of continual debate from its inception, including its meaning, status, precise markers, and so on. Scholars of the Sikhs have participated in these debates, in ways that, as will be discussed later in the paper, are often at the center of issues of subalternity. In contemporary India, about three quarters of Sikhs keep uncut hair, but only 20-30 percent of this number have undergone the formal Khalsa initiation.^[17]

The latter half of the 19th century saw the Sikh community becoming entangled in the British colonial project, and they followed Hindus and Muslims in negotiating this new situation, in terms of legal and political structures, language, jobs and new technologies. All three communities worked to define themselves to fit the colonial legal and political framework, as well as pursuing educational and other projects to position their members more favorably. For Sikhs, as a relatively small community with a short history and no national level presence, defining themselves as distinct was particularly important. This need was heightened by claims of inclusion in a larger “Hindu” tent,^[18] and explicit efforts at conversion.^[19]

This period is, of course, the focus of post-colonial studies, and Sikhs are variously viewed as having reformed their tradition, or as having reinvented it. The Sikhs who led this project are viewed as inspirational heroes, aggressive usurpers of tradition, or victims of the trauma of colonization. In all these cases, there is a strong focus on leadership and elites of various kinds, very much the opposite of an approach that would be consistent with the Subaltern Studies project.

An important feature in historical accounts of the late 19th and 20th centuries, as British colonization was negotiated, then opposed and rejected by the indigenous populations, is the minority status of the Sikh community, even within the region of Punjab, where they were, and remain, concentrated. When Punjab was partitioned as the British left in 1947, being a numerical minority almost everywhere created a situation of extreme precarity. Sikhs have continued to struggle with minority status, even after the creation through division of a Sikh-majority state of Punjab in 1966, and conflicts of various forms with the national government have been persistent, including a period of violence and repression in the 1980s and 1990s. Much of the growth of scholarship on the Sikhs has occurred during this period and its aftermath, and it has arguably shaped that scholarship, as well as its perception by members of the Sikh community.

Defining the Sikhs

Many of the issues relating to the definition of the Sikh community revolve around issues of identity and origins. One complication is that the community is heterogeneous, and there are different perspectives from within the community. However, it is not clear that these features are any different or more extreme than for other religious traditions. This assessment, and possible special features of analysis of the Sikhs are taken up in the next section.

However, the category of Sants was created in the 19th century, whereas the concept of bhaktas/bhagats existed at the time of the early evolution of the Sikh tradition.^[21] Furthermore, Nanak does not mention or otherwise acknowledge the bhagats: their introduction into the Sikh tradition comes with Nanak’s second successor, and the structure of the GGS, as well as specific verses, indicate their conceptual subordination to the line of Nanak and his successors. None of Nanak’s successors label the bhagats as Sants. Claims that the language of the GGS was that of the “Sants” turn out to be circular.^[22]

Introduction

The term “subaltern” comes from the work of Antonio Gramsci, and was used by South Asian historian Ranajit Guha to conceptualize “Subaltern Studies,” encapsulating “history from below,” history as shaped by the non-elites, the subalterns.^[1:1] Beyond this broad characterization, the concept can be difficult to define sharply. Gyan Prakash, in explicating the field of Subaltern Studies, states that the term ‘subaltern’ “refers to subordination in terms of class, caste, gender, race, language, and culture and was used to signify the centrality of dominant/dominated relationships in history.”^[2:1] Partha Chatterjee points out that Gramsci used the term as a substitute for “proletariat,” to avoid censorship, but that this expanded the scope of its application to peasant-dominated societal contexts, laying the foundations for Guha’s launch of Subaltern Studies.^[3:1] On the other hand, Peter Thomas returns to Gramsci’s notebooks to extract multiple concepts of the subaltern that are more general than those of the marginalized or the oppressed, extending to the ordinary citizen within the modern state.^[4:1] Nevertheless, El Habib Louai, retracing the terminology through the work of Gramsci, Guha and Gayatri Spivak, suggests that, “Throughout its history since the beginning of the twentieth century, the concept of the subaltern remains one of the most slippery and difficult to define.”^[5:1]

Spivak herself cautions against an overly broad use of the term, that “subaltern” is not “just a classy word for oppressed,” but that “everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern – a space of difference.”^[6:1] But Chatterjee credits Spivak with giving the concept of “subalternity” a “new inflection,” taking it beyond class to questions of gender, race and so on.^[7:1] In fact, Spivak asks, “Can the subaltern speak?” querying the possibility of using the hegemonic discourse, and answering in the negative.^[8:1] Spivak explores how social markers other than class can delineate subaltern status. She focuses particularly on gender, but religion, race and sexual orientation can also be part of the bounding conditions, and this intersectionality is arguably in Gramsci as well.^[9:1] Spivak also criticizes the role of academics, even well-meaning ones, in maintaining power structures and denying subalterns a true voice: an idea that will be one of the foci of this paper.^[10:1]

Subaltern Studies is itself situated within post-colonial studies. Though the concept of the subaltern may be disputed or malleable, it occupies an important place in the broader discourse of postcolonialism. Indeed, Vivek Chibber, in his critique of postcolonial theory, focuses on Subaltern Studies, which he characterizes as, “The most illustrious representative of postcolonial studies in the scholarship on the Global South.”^[11:1] Chibber’s critique revolves around capital and capitalism, the extent to which Subaltern Studies succeeds in providing useful insights into the evolution of capitalism outside the West, and whether it accurately captures the role of subaltern groups in this evolution.^[12:1]

This paper engages with the idea of the subaltern, and with post-colonial theoretical framings, but in a different and novel manner. We argue that the idea of the subaltern in useful for understanding the Sikh community and its evolution in its original South Asian context, but also for the manner of its representation in Western academia. In fact, the subalternization of Sikhs in Western academia is significantly influenced by their subaltern history in a materialist sense. The outline of the argument is as follows. Sikhism began as a religious formation in the 16th century CE, appealing to a broad cross-section of South Asian society within its home region of Punjab. Many of its doctrines and characteristics challenged subalternity, though with limitations. The origin and evolution of the Sikh community took place within the context of the complete arcs of two successive imperial powers – the Mughals and the British. The specifics of that process of evolution included two crucial markers, those of religion and language, where inequalities of power tended to perpetuate aspects of subalternity, including the scope for self-expression. Ironically, the study of the Sikhs in Western academia has perpetuated and expanded this subaltern status, in ways that the paper describes.^[13:1] Key features of this latter process have been a foreshortened account of Sikh history and tradition, and a denial of agency to the Sikh community in these academic accounts, so that the subaltern (the community) effectively is not allowed to speak. The foregoing summary uses ‘Sikh’ in a unitary sense, but, like any other tradition or grouping, there is considerable diversity, and that will be addressed as the arguments are laid out.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section provides a bare bones account of the evolution of the Sikh community, trying not to prejudge issues that have been subject to debate, but attempting to justify claims of subaltern status. These debates are discussed in the third section of the paper, where an attempt is made to evaluate different positions, albeit briefly. Section four then discusses the manner in which different scholarly positions are weighted and reproduced, and the reasons for this situation. This is where – we claim – the problem of subalternity arises in a surprising and ironic manner, within postcolonial theorizing. At the same time, the paper is not a defense of tradition or of religious belief. Rather, it is an excavation in the archeology of knowledge production, one that is informed by the perspective of subalternity to highlight inequalities in the reception of certain voices. The final section concludes by summarizing its intended contribution, that of using the case of the Sikhs to highlight aspects of subalternity that are often buried, and using the 2020-21 farmer protests in India to illustrate the weakness of some recent theorizing.

Sikhs: A Summary^[14:1]

Before his demise (1606 CE), the fifth Guru, Arjan, compiled the writings of the first five Gurus into a single canonical text. Later in the 17th century, the verses of the ninth Guru were added to this compilation. This text also included verses of over a dozen others: some who are now associated with what is termed the bhakti movement, bards within the Guru’s darbar (court), and one Sufi Muslim spiritual leader. The Sikh Gurus themselves used the appellation bhagat (the Punjabi equivalent to bhakta) for a defined set of individuals, indicating that this grouping was understood as such in the 16thcentury. A strong Sikh tradition holds that the tenth and last human Guru, Gobind Singh, appointed the canonical text as the Guru of the Sikhs, and it firmly holds that status in the community, being the center of worship in multiple forms (recitation, singing, listening, interpretation, discussion, and ceremonial actions). This tradition is documented in contemporaneous sources of that time, the early 18th century. The text is now known as the Guru Granth Sahib (GGS), the last term being meant to convey respect. Often, additional terms of respect are added. The text was originally authenticated by Guru Arjan, and immediately began to be copied and distributed to Sikh congregations wherever they were in South Asia. The GGS is written in a regional script, systematized by the Sikh Gurus, and now always known as Gurmukhi, because of its association with the text. The languages in the GGS are a range of regional vernaculars of the period.^[15:1]

In their writings, Guru Nanak and his successors viewed caste markers and associated social and spiritual hierarchies as irrelevant for, and even inimical to, spiritual advancement. This was aligned with the caste status (including outcastes) and writings of several of the bhagats whose work is included in the GGS, although the Gurus themselves were all from a merchant caste. According to the collected verses in the GGS, the goal of a Sikh was to make a connection to the Divine, by becoming free of a sense of separation from the Divine and Divine creation. This had to be achieved while engaging in worldly responsibilities, and not through asceticism or renunciation. Therefore, honest work and material success are acceptable, but within boundaries of fairness, justice and equity, and without allowing material success to engender pride or arrogance. Actively sharing the fruits of material success is important.

The century and a half after Arjan’s death was marked by intensified disputes over succession, doctrinal differences connected to those disputes, and a pattern of conflict and accommodation with successive Mughal emperors and their representatives. This pattern also included imperial attempts to control the succession to the mantle of Guru. A key event in the community’s evolution occurred at the end of the 17th century, when Gobind Singh created a new initiated order of Sikhs, the Khalsa. The Khalsa were to have direct allegiance to the Guru, without the intermediaries who had played an institutional role as the community had grown and spread. They were to abandon caste ties by adopting the common surname “Singh,” – as did Gobind himself at this time – and adhere to a code of conduct and dress, including carrying a dagger or sword (kirpan), and keeping uncut hair (kesh), covered with a turban. These visible markers of identity have been associated with an ideal of fearlessness, and willingness to stand up against any form of oppression. A metaphor that came to be commonly used was that the creation of the Khalsa would turn sparrows into hawks.^[16:1] The significance and position of the Khalsa within the Sikh community has been a matter of continual debate from its inception, including its meaning, status, precise markers, and so on. Scholars of the Sikhs have participated in these debates, in ways that, as will be discussed later in the paper, are often at the center of issues of subalternity. In contemporary India, about three quarters of Sikhs keep uncut hair, but only 20-30 percent of this number have undergone the formal Khalsa initiation.^[17:1]

As the 18th century progressed, the Khalsa became a force of resistance to the Mughal authorities in Punjab, as well as to invaders from the northwest, as the empire began to collapse. At first, a confederacy of small Khalsa-ruled principalities emerged, and by the end of the 18th century, most of these had been absorbed into a kingdom led by one of the Khalsa chiefs, Ranjit Singh. By this time, most of South Asia was already under the control of the East India Company, and they completed their conquest by military victories and annexation of Punjab in 1849 CE. The latter half of the 19th century saw the Sikh community becoming entangled in the British colonial project, and they followed Hindus and Muslims in negotiating this new situation, in terms of legal and political structures, language, jobs and new technologies. All three communities worked to define themselves to fit the colonial legal and political framework, as well as pursuing educational and other projects to position their members more favorably. For Sikhs, as a relatively small community with a short history and no national level presence, defining themselves as distinct was particularly important. This need was heightened by claims of inclusion in a larger “Hindu” tent,^[18:1] and explicit efforts at conversion.^[19:1]

Defining the Sikhs

A very basic issue is that of antecedents of the Sikh tradition, and Nanak’s message in particular. A common scholarly position is that Nanak can be placed within a so-called Sant tradition, consisting of nirguna bhaktas such as Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas, whose writings are included in the GGS, and who were chronologically prior to Nanak. The most vigorous proponent of this view is Hew McLeod, but it can be found initially in the work of Pitamber Barthwal. ^[20:1] However, the category of Sants was created in the 19th century, whereas the concept of bhaktas/bhagats existed at the time of the early evolution of the Sikh tradition.^[21:1] Furthermore, Nanak does not mention or otherwise acknowledge the bhagats: their introduction into the Sikh tradition comes with Nanak’s second successor, and the structure of the GGS, as well as specific verses, indicate their conceptual subordination to the line of Nanak and his successors. None of Nanak’s successors label the bhagats as Sants. Claims that the language of the GGS was that of the “Sants” turn out to be circular.^[22:1]

Footnotes

Antonio Gramsci, Letters from Prison, Edited and translated by Lynn Lawner (New York and London: Harper and Row, 1973); Ranajit Guha, “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India.” In Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian Society and History, Vol. VII, edited by Ranajit Guha (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), 37-44. ↩︎ ↩︎
Gyan Prakash, “Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,” American Historical Review, 99 (5) (1994): 1477. ↩︎ ↩︎
Partha Chatterjee, “Subaltern Studies: A Conversation with Partha Chatterjee,” Interview by Richard McGrail, 2012, <https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/subaltern-studies-partha-chatterjee, accessed March 7, 2023. ↩︎ ↩︎
Peter D. Thomas, “Refiguring the Subaltern,” Political Theory, 46 (6), 2018: 861-884. ↩︎ ↩︎
El Habib Louai, “Retracing the concept of the subaltern from Gramsci to Spivak: Historical developments and new applications,” African Journal of History and Culture, 4 (1), 2012: 5. ↩︎ ↩︎
Gayatri Spivak, quoted in Leon de Kock, “Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: New Nation Writers Conference in South Africa,” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. 23 (3), 1992: 45. ↩︎ ↩︎
Chatterjee, “Subaltern Studies.” ↩︎ ↩︎
Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988: 271-313. ↩︎ ↩︎
Green, Marcus E., “Race, class, and religion: Gramsci’s conception of subalternity,” in The Political Philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and B. R. Ambedkar: Itineraries of Dalits and Subalterns, ed. Cosimo Zene (New York: Routledge, 2013): 116-28. ↩︎ ↩︎
Spivak (“Can the Subaltern Speak?,”280) somewhat strongly terms this phenomenon “epistemic violence.” ↩︎ ↩︎
Vivek Chibber, Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (New York: Verso, 2013) 5. ↩︎ ↩︎
Chibber’s critique prompted spirited discussion and fierce debate, e.g., Partha Chatterjee, “Subaltern Studies and “Capital,”” Economic and Political Weekly, 2013: 48, 37, 69-75.; Vivek Chibber, “Subaltern Studies Revisited: A Response to Partha Chatterjee,” https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/faculty/documents/SubalternStudies-Revisited.pdf, February 21, 2014, accessed March 7, 2023; Ho-fung Hung, George Steinmetz, Bruce Cumings, Michael Schwartz, William H. Sewell, Jr., David Pedersen, and Vivek Chibber, “Review Symposium on Vivek Chibber’s Postcolonial Theory and The Specter of Capital,” Journal of World-Systems Research, 20 (2), 2016: 281-317.; and Rosie Warren, ed., The Debate on Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (New York: Verso, 2016). Much of the debate concerns very broad questions around the nature and evolution of capitalism, the relative roles of individuals and communities, and the extent of the universal vs. the specific in the analysis of societal change. Some of these issues are pertinent in the case of the Sikhs, and will be addressed at the appropriate points. A useful brief summary assessment of Chibber and the debates that followed is Alex Sager, “Review of Vivek Chibber: Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/7946_postcolonial-theory-and-the-specter-of-capital-review-by-alex-sager/#comments, October 2014, accessed March 7, 2023 . Spivak (“Can the Subaltern Speak?”) has her own critique of the Subaltern Studies group: for an elementary exposition of Spivak’s various arguments, see Graham K Riach., An Analysis of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak? (London: Macat International, 2017). A collection of assessments of the impact of Spivak’s ideas is in Rosalind Morris, ed., Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). ↩︎ ↩︎
There are several Sikh Studies endowed chairs in US universities, but they have arguably perpetuated the post-colonial foreshortening of Sikh history. The approach to the subaltern in different contexts of knowledge production has led to explorations in a variety of directions, such as the work of Seana McGovern, Education, Modern Development, and Indigenous Knowledge: An Analysis of Academic Knowledge Production, (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013); and Antonia Darder, “Decolonizing Interpretive Research: Subaltern Sensibilities and the Politics of Voice,” Qualitative Research Journal, 18 (2018): 94-104. ↩︎ ↩︎
Arguably, the most neutral account of the Sikhs and their history is Jagtar Singh Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), but many earlier histories are also available, offering a range of interpretations. The account in this section is based on evidence that is used by these historians, avoiding interpretational questions. Other recent historical summaries include Wystan Hewat McLeod, The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); and Gurinder Singh Mann, The Making of Sikh Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). ↩︎ ↩︎
Christoper Shackle, An Introduction to the Sacred Language of the Sikhs (New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1983). ↩︎ ↩︎
Purnima Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699-1799 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). ↩︎ ↩︎
Pew Research Center. Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2021). ↩︎ ↩︎
Most prominently, Mohandas Gandhi wrote, as late as 1936, that “Today I will only say that to me Sikhism is a part of Hinduism.” He was opposing Bhimrao Ambedkar’s plan to lead his Mahar community of outcastes in converting to Sikhism. See Mohandas K. Gandhi, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volumes 1-100 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, 1956-94), Vol. 63, p. 267. ↩︎ ↩︎
Kenneth W. Jones, Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th-Century Punjab (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976). ↩︎ ↩︎
See Wystan Hewat McLeod, Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); and Pitamber D. Barthwal, The Nirguna School of Hindi Poetry, Banaras: Indian Book Shop, republished with minor changes as Traditions of Indian Mysticism: based upon Nirguna School of Hindi Poetry (New Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1936). ↩︎ ↩︎
On the origin of the “Sant” category, see Mark Juergensmeyer, “The Radhasoami Revival,” in Karine Schomer and W.H. McLeod, eds., The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India (Delhi: Berkeley Religious Studies Series and Motilal Banarsidass, 1987): 329-355 ↩︎ ↩︎
These arguments are detailed in Nirvikar Singh, “Guru Nanak and the Sants: A Reappraisal,” International Journal of Punjab Studies 8 (1) (2001): 1-34. ↩︎ ↩︎

The Re-Enchantment Of Bodies – The Transformative Power Of Charismatic Healings, Part 2 (Anna Magnasco)

2023-12-12T16:56:00Z

The following is the first of a two-part series. The first installment can be found here. It was originally published in issue 22.1 of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Studies.

The offer of the Pentecostal churches

The growing expansion of Pentecostalism belies any prediction of progressive secularization,^[1] and certainly shows that something significant keeps happening in the world of disenchantment. In fact, this phenomenon does not only attract the curiosity of scholars in the religious field: the Pentecostal movement also occupies a considerable place in the social and political sphere.^[2] Today, investigating the aspects of a society, implies running into Pentecostalism: the religious dimension of a phenomenon is intrinsically linked to political, social, and economic dynamics.^[3]

Pentecostalism presents itself as a movement with a significant transformative force, capable of reconfiguring the “religious geography”^[4] of the world by challenging traditional religious and political institutions.

The transnational and dynamic nature of the Pentecostal movement in constant growth in every part of the globe can be explored starting from one of its determining features: charismatic healing. According to Brown, divine healings are not only concerned with the improvement of physical problems; they play a crucial role in the “relief of social maladies”.^[5] It is no coincidence, in fact, that Pentecostal communities establish themselves precisely in those spaces where there are institutional gaps – eroded by neoliberal forces^[6] and dangerous geopolitical processes – which exacerbate social uncertainty. Here, Pentecostalism emerges as a religion “closer to the people”:^[7] compared to the major historical churches, the charismatic movements make wise use of the “media space”.^[8] Through technology and digital means of communication, Pentecostals spread “transportable messages”:^[9] web pages, messages via radio or WhatsApp, projections on local televisions are easy to understand and elaborate.

In this way, Pentecostal theology breaks through private space and is embraced into everyday life, ceasing to be an experience reserved for a few days of the week.

Secondly, the Pentecostal communities build ‘prayer fields’^[10] different from the traditional and austere “church-buildings”,^[11] where it is possible not only to ‘renew’ the relationship with God by taking part in the characteristic religious functions and rituals but also to share with an attentive group the emotions and sufferings that afflict everyday life. Pentecostal communities make the Temple of the Lord the public space to tell, testify, and get rid of pain, the traumatic past, and one’s fears, letting the group – led by the pastor – welcome them. Tankink, referring to the Born-Again Churches of Southwest Uganda, reports the ability of the churches to configure themselves as the only space where it is allowed to bear witness to the “unbearable pain connected with the war memories”.^[12] In a society where there is no space to remember the collective and personal traumas linked to a past of genocides – churches become those ‘safe’ places where it is possible to bear the heavy burden of the traumatic past: to draw closer to God and to the religious community it is therapeutic.

In addition to painful memories, in Pentecostal communities, there is space to share and express daily difficulties, such as work and sentimental failures^[13] or chronic pains with which one is forced to live, for which the family or institutions have no answers. What is staged through the service of charismatic healings is first of all an atmosphere of festive participation and warm solidarity, which begins at the entrance of the church – as Canevari reports in his ethnography at a Pentecostal church and charismatic Italian^[14] – where there is always someone smiling ready to welcome those who arrive.

Often joining Pentecostal communities means finding and building a network of material and spiritual help: it is not just a question of sharing “intensely emotional and collective experiences”^[15] such as ritual healings, but of finding true and proper friends: “Brothers and Sisters in the Lord”^[16] connected to one another and ready to support each other even in everyday life. The emotional support provided by the community during therapeutic practices is a determining element in our discourse: the group welcomes the wounded person and recognizes him or her as a bearer of value throughout the therapeutic process.

Therapeutic rituals and existential transformations

Pedron-Colombani speaks of charismatic communities as “places of regeneration”:^[17] here, we intend them in the sense of Csordas, i.e., as places of phenomenological regeneration of the self. Compared to the medical-scientific tradition, which – as we have seen in the first part of the text – intends health as the simple restoration of previous biological functions, following an alteration of an organic malfunction, the Pentecostal therapeutic system goes further. By offering the service of ritual healing, the intent is not so much the relief of disease symptoms through the intercession of divine power and love, but to guide one towards the attainment of spiritual maturity – ‘renewed’. Healing and spiritual growth are therefore interconnected: there is no healing without spiritual redemption, and vice versa spiritual growth contributes to the maintenance of good health.^[18]

At the basis of ritual healing systems is the ‘holistic’ and tripartite conception of the human being, surpassing the Cartesian dualism of the biomedical paradigm. According to charismatic Pentecostals, the body is never separated from the spirit and from the processes of the mind: people are made up of the three interconnected dimensions. Consequently, the disease is never ‘only’ physical, but related to inner or spiritual problems, which prevent the spiritual maturation of believers.

In his ethnographies of the Catholic charismatic movements (CCR) in New England, Thomas Csordas reports numerous testimonies of the experience of illness, recounted here by a healing minister:

[There is one] person who walked, and is still walking, with a weight problem (my emphasis), but in the midst of that she had a real need for Deliverance …. Then finally she came to me and said, “I think I need Healing of Memories and Deliverance regarding food”. She had really fought the battle of food intake. As we began to pray it was pretty obvious that there was a real cluster there, of Gluttony, Lust (meaning lust for food, you know), there was Insecurity – well, the person felt insecure about herself, so she would eat to make herself more secure – the whole cycle of being overweight was there. But in addition to that there was a cluster of six or seven demons (my emphasis) that were feeding onto that… [including] Guilt….^[19]

In this description, the etiology of what conventional medicine would term ‘accumulation excessive body fat’ seeks the incarnate presence of demons, such as “Gluttony” or “Insecurity”. Milsev (2018)^[20] develops the same points: illness is a wound of life, including traumas, disappointments and pain. Consequently, the healing process will also have to contemplate a spiritual and inner treatment, as in the case cited, where the healing minister suggests the practice of deliverance. In fact, although a type of healing corresponds to each part of the person – physical, inner or delivering from spirits – most Charismatic healers combine the different practices: the human being is made up of three parts in constant “pneumopsychosomatic” interaction.^[21] [^91]

Here is another case:

Father P. asked that five people who had had pain or trouble (my emphasis) walking come forth for healing. A chair was placed in front of the altar [the service is in a church]. At this time, he beckoned me [the research assistant] to join him and his healing team, as four women came up to the altar [for prayer]. … Fr. P asked the congregation to pray for each person and to lift their arms in prayer toward the supplicant as the team performed its task. … The male healer prayed out loud in English. Fr. P asked the supplicant in a very low voice several rapid questions about troubles in primary relationships, particularly about husbands and fathers, kneeling before the person with his hands placed firmly on her (my emphasis) usually on the upper legs. Once the problem relationship (my emphasis) was identified, he firmly grasped the supplicant’s feet (shoes still on) and made a firm, determined tugging motion on the supplicant’s outstretched legs. … During prayer for one of the four supplicants, Fr. P asked the woman team member for a discernment (my emphasis), which she rapidly gave, and he agreed with her assessment.^[22]

Here we observe how the conception of the disease does not necessarily coincide with ‘biological’, but may be the result of an inner problem – e.g. problematic relationships in the family – or due to the presence of evil spirits, or even all things together. Furthermore, healing is built on a holistic process, aimed at treating every part of the person – and not just the empirically evident symptoms. Curing suffering means freeing the person from evil and welcoming the Spirit together in body, mind, and heart:

… All I can describe [of] it is a feeling (my emphasis) which I now know as the presence of God (my emphasis) came on my [pause], dropped on, I can’t really describe it, understand it. It was like if someone placed a sheet, a cotton sheet, it started on the top of my head, and it flopped down over my body (my emphasis). And I just broke into tears, I was just sat in the back, crying…^[23]

In this testimony reported by Williams, the subject perceives the “presence of God” as a visceral force – even in materially absent:^[24] it was like a cotton sheet, but it flopped down over the body. God’s ‘positive energy’^[25] enters people’s bodies, “connecting them with their heart and spirit”:^[26] it touches their emotions and soul, to the point that they burst into tears. It is God’s love in supplicants’ bodies that “brings up what needs healing”,^[27] as one healer confirms to Csordas, and “releases the negative energy”.

The Therapeutic Process: The Transformation of the Self

The feature issue of Pentecostal anthropology is not only the theoretical dimension of the tripartite conception of the person but rather the performative aspect. The human being as body-mind-soul is an illustrative figure of Pentecostal theology, but also a culturally performing discourse,^[28] offering alternative modes of perception and experience. Embodied by ‘renewed’ subjects, the tripartite image serves as a symbolic resource that structures existential orientation in the world, involving their sensory, perceptive modalities.

Within a ritual therapeutic performance, writes Csordas,^[29] participants must chiefly be disposed to the charismatic healing and the persuasive possibility of the experience of the sacred. Thirdly,they must know how to elaborate realistic alternatives to their suffering and actualize them. Ritual healing, therefore, implies a transformation in the semantic elaboration of oneself and one’s suffering, producing realistically possible alternatives in the world.

Consider the case of a man with chronic and often debilitating back pain getting religious healing: through rest in the Spirit and a “purely spiritual” experience, he ceased to get backaches with very rare exceptions (my emphasis), and even those [he] got have been unlike the others. Every once in a while [he] would feel a backache just barely starting, and [he] would thank God for having cured it, and usually it goes away. [He’ll] just feel the start of a tightness of the muscles, of a spasm, and all [he’ll] do is say to God, “Thank you for curing my backaches”. And then it will go away, and may do the same thing once or twice more during the day and so [he] say the same thing and it never develops into anything, with very few exceptions… On two occasions [he] could feel a burning nerve sensation in [his] back, [he] thought it was a nerve that was inflamed. [he] felt burning. That happened a couple of times, but [he] never felt any stiffness or soreness at all. [He] could just feel the inflamed nerve [not painful]. [He] was just keenly aware of it. … It was almost as if [he] could feel the origin of the problem but without the symptoms or the spasms

As we observe from this testimony, what has changed is the awareness that man has of his suffering. Back pain has not disappeared, but it has qualitatively reduced, because he developed on it an altered somatic form of attention,^[30] preventing debilitating symptoms. Therefore, healed people are not those who live ‘without disease’, but who manage to experiment and explore new ‘postural modalities’ and body patterns with which to actively inhabit the world, up to the margins of their own disability^[31] – like a supplicant who, convinced of the therapeutic power of the divine and supported by the assembly that listened to his testimony, hesitantly gets up from his wheelchair in response to the healer’s request:^[32] “the walk is as much a test of his physical capacity and of his willingness to improve as it is a proof of a divinely caused amelioration of his condition (my emphasis)”.^[33]
The therapeutic process is comparable to the gesture of “planting a seed”:^[34] it begins with charismatic healing, but continues beyond the ritual event itself, into everyday life. The healed people are ‘reborn’, and improve their life, not just their bodies, including more elements in the concept of health, such as the relationship with society, affections, faith as well as with themselves. From the therapeutic relationship with the sacred and supported by the group,^[35] empowered supplicants experience a real ‘transformation of the self’ producing a re-interpretation of their life in the “desacralized world”^[36] .

Conclusion

Through the lens of medical anthropology, we have observed both ‘what comes done to the body’ by medical science, and ‘what the body does and produces’ – if thought otherwise.

In the space of Pentecostal movements, the conventional meaning of the human body is transformed: it is no longer an organic entity investigated by the medical gaze, but an active resource involved in constant emotional, mental, and social processes, in line with what Scheper-Hughes and Lock call ‘mindful body’.^[37]

Charismatic healing experience returns the ‘mindful bodies’ to the complexity and agency that medicine, heir to Cartesian reductionism, too often ignores. In the course of the healing process, people see themselves recognized by the community as the carriers of subjective experience capable of producing other perceptions and other representations of themselves, thus modifying their actions in the world. The transformative power of charismatic movements lies here: involving subjects in a realistic reconfiguration of their existence[^92] .

Anna Magnasco is a graduate student in Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at the University of Turin. Her areas of research are within the urgent framework of the Anthropocene, a concept that is capable of uniting the environment, humanity and politics in a nexus of entanglements and frictions. On the one hand, she aims to deconstruct many of our paradigms, those that have brought us this far — such as that of nature, politics, health, progress, suffering, future.

Footnotes

[^91]:For me it´s not exactly clear where the difference between pneumo and psyche is. Is the pneumo the space of mythlogical figures and thinking and the psyche, the psychological of actual feeling and secular sorrow?

A small passage that elaborates it would be nice I think

[^92]:I like the idea of religion enabling a well being in this world by opening a space for non-positivist or empirical/epistomological dimensions of being, that are also integrated in a praxis of healing

Cf. Thomas Luckmann, La Religione Invisible (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1969). ↩︎
Cf. Pietro Cingolani, Alessandro Gusman, “Il Pentecostalismo e le Sfide della Contemporaneità”, La Ricerca Folklorica 65 (2012): 3-18. ↩︎
The inescapable intertwining of religion and politics clearly embraces one of the theological perspectives of more recent Pentecostal and charismatic movements: through the concept of ‘spiritual struggle’, the world becomes a place of confrontation between God and Satan, between good and evil, between the sacred and the mundane. Cf. Birgit Meyer, “Pentecostalism and Globalisation“, in: Allan Anderson et. al. (ed.) Studying Global Pentecostalism. Theories and Methods. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010). ↩︎
Cingolani & Gusman, “Il Pentecostalismo e le Sfide della Contemporaneità”, 5. ↩︎
Brown, Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, 14. ↩︎
Comaroff and Comaroff, “Second Comings: Neo-Protestant Ethics and Millennial Capitalism in Africa, and Elsewhere”. ↩︎
Cf. Pietro Cingolani, Alessandro Gusman, “Il Pentecostalismo e le Sfide della Contemporaneità”, La Ricerca Folklorica 65 (2012): 3-18. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Cf. Justine Howe, “Transnational Transcendence. Essays on religion and globalization”, in: J. Thomas Csordas (ed.) Social Anthropology 18/2 (2010), 228-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2010.00107_3.x. ↩︎
Cf. Alessandro Gusman, “La Deliverance Come Tecnica di Contrasto all‘ Insicurezza Spirituale. Il Caso della Mutundwe Christian Fellowship di Kampala’”, Antropologia 6/2 (2019): 117-133. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Cf. Marian Tankink, “‘The Moment I Became Born-Again the Pain Disappeared’: The Heading of Devastating War Memories in Born-Again Churches in Mbara District, Southwest Uganda”, Transcultural Psychiatry 44/2 (2007): 1-23. ↩︎
Cf. Alessandro Gusman, “La Deliverance Come Tecnica Di Contrasto all’‘Insicurezza Spirituale’. Il Caso Delle Chiese Pentecostali Di Kampala (Uganda)”, ANUAC 5/1 (2016): 107-128. ↩︎
Cf. Matteo Canevari, “‘È la prima volta che ho visto qualcosa’. Immagine, Guardigione e Retoriche della Rinascita nel Movimento Pentecostale”, Antropologia 7/2 (2020): 130-154. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14672/ada20201689129-154. ↩︎
Cf. Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock, “The Mindful Body”, Social Science & Medicine, 39/ 7 (1994): 991–1003. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(94)90210-0. ↩︎
Cf. Marian Tankink, “‘The Moment I Became Born-Again the Pain Disappeared’: The Heading of Devastating War Memories in Born-Again Churches in Mbara District, Southwest Uganda”, Transcultural Psychiatry 44/2 (2007): 1-23. ↩︎
Cf. Pedron-Colombani, “Le Pentecôtisme au Guatemala. Conversion et identité*“*, In Pietro Cingolani and Alessandro Gusman, “Il Pentecostalismo e le Sfide della Contemporaneità”, La Ricerca Folklorica 65 (2012): 3-18. ↩︎
Cf. J. Thomas Csordas, Body/Meaning/Healing (New York: Palgrava MacMillan, 2002). ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Cf. Magdalena Milsev, “Religious Narratives of Healing and Conversion in a Charismatic Catholic Church in Montevideo: a Brief Approach”, International Journal of Latin American Religions 2/2 (2019): 334-47. ↩︎
This concept is reported in The Sacred Self (40-43): it is a word by which Csordas’ religious healers define their therapeutic ability, that acts simultaneously on the body (‘somatic’), inner experience (‘psycho’) and spirit (‘pneumo’). ↩︎
Ivi., 58-59. ↩︎
Cf. Andrew Williams, *“*Spiritual Landscapes of Pentecostal Worship, Belief, and Embodiment in a Therapeutic Community: New Critical Perspectives”, Elsevier 28 (2023). ↩︎
Csordas, in describing the theology of charismatic Pentecostals, speaks of the Holy Spirit as a force that is “ineffable and empirical at the same time” (The Sacred Self, 39). ↩︎
Cf. J. Thomas Csordas, The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Ivi., 53. ↩︎
Cf. Matteo Canevari, “‘È la Prima Volta che ho Visto Qualcosa’: Immagine, Guardigione e Retoriche della Rinascita nel Movimento Pentecostale”, Antropologia 7/2 (2020): 130-154. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14672/ada20201689129-154. ↩︎
Cf. J. Thomas Csordas, “Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 2/2 (1988): 121-142. DOI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/649157. ↩︎
Cf. J. Thomas Csordas, “Somatic Modes of Attention”, Cultural Anthropology, 8/2 (1993): 135–56. DOI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/656467. ↩︎
Cf. J. Thomas Csordas, The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). ↩︎
Ivi., 70. ↩︎
Ivi., 164. ↩︎
Cf. J. Thomas Csordas, Body/Meaning/Healing (New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2002). ↩︎
The collective dimension of Pentecostal rituals is a theme widely addressed in contemporary anthropological literature: collective participation, group support in prayer rituals produces, in the heterogeneous Pentecostal contexts of the world, profound effects on society. In addition to the material already mentioned, Cf. Stroeken, “Witchcraft Simplex: Experiences of Globalized Pentecostalism in Central and Northwestern Tanzania”; Kliueva, Vera and Ryazanova, Svetlana, “Praying practices in Pentecostal environment: a universal multicultural model”; Csordas, Thomas, “A global geography of the spirit: the case of the Catholic Charismatic communities”, ↩︎
Cf. Magdalena Milsev, “Religious Narratives of Healing and Conversion in a Charismatic Catholic Church in Montevideo: a Brief Approach”, International Journal of Latin American Religions, 2/2 (2019): 334-347. ↩︎
Cf. Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock, “The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, New Series, 1/ 1 (1987): 6-41. ↩︎

JCRT

Theorizing the Human Sciences in the Age of Absolute Disruption: Historical Criticism and Its Remainders

Theorizing the Human Sciences in the Age of Absolute Disruption: Historical Criticism and Its Remainders[1]

A Usable Past: What Criticism Permits a Scholar to Conclude

Disenchantment and the Histories Its Story Conceals

Metamodernism: What Reconstruction Must Explain

Turning the Coils Inward: Genealogy Under Its Own Examination

Reciprocal Tests: Reconstruction under Historical Pressure

After the Critique: Religious Studies and Cultural Theory

A Note on Method and AI Assistance

Genealogy, Enchantment, and the War for the Mind

Genealogy, Enchantment, and the War for the Mind: An Interview with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm

Further Resources

Book Review: Kant Machine: Critical Philosophy after AI

Book Review: Yuk Hui, Kant Machine: Critical Philosophy after AI (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2026). Paperback, 144 pp., $26.95. ISBN: 9781350602502.

Book Review: American Empire, American Faith: Conquest, Christianity, and the Shaping of a Nation

Book Review: Philip Jenkins, American Empire, American Faith: Conquest, Christianity, and the Shaping of a Nation (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2026). Hardcover, $44.99. ISBN: 9781481324250.

1. Introduction

2. Summary of the Argument

3. Analytical Evaluation

a) Methodology and Sources

b) Argument and Evidence

c) Relation to Existing Scholarship

d) Strengths

e) Limitations and Critique

4. Conclusion

BOOK REVIEW: YASCHA MOUNK, THE IDENTITY TRAP: A STORY OF IDEAS AND POWER IN OUR TIME.

BOOK REVIEW: YASCHA MOUNK, THE IDENTITY TRAP: A STORY OF IDEAS AND POWER IN OUR TIME (NEW YORK: PENGUIN PRESS, 2023) ISBN: 9780593493205.

1. Introduction

2. Summary of the argument

3. Analytical Evaluation

3.1 Methodology and Sources

3.2 Argument and Evidence

3.3 Relation to Existing Scholarship

3.4 Strengths

3.5 Limitations and critique

4. Conclusion

Conference on Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy (Announcement)

Program

Friday, Sept. 26

15:00 – 15:30 | **Break

Keynote speaker

Saturday, Sept. 27

17:00 – 17:15 | **Break

Footnotes

Conference on Populism, Nationalism, and the Future of Democracy – Call for Papers and Presentations (Conferences)

Themes and Topics

Submission Guidelines

Submission Process

Special Issue On Religion and Bioethics (Call for Papers)

Submission Guidelines

Religion and Bioethics (Conferencee)

When: Jan. 9-10, 2025

Where: Online

Register Now

Program

All times given are Mountain Standard Time (Denver)

8:00 am

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

8:30 am

The Sacred End: Ethics and Practice of Sallekhanā in Jainism

9:00 am

9:30 am

Bioengineering and Religious Mythmaking

10:00 am

A Multicultural Approach to Moral Diversity in Religious Bioethics

10:30 am

11:00 am

11:30 am

13:00** **pm

14:00 pm

14:30 pm

15:00** **pm

15:30 pm

16:00** **pm

Reconsidering the Significance of Biogenetic Ties

16:30 pm

Friday, Jan. 10

8:00 am

Collaborative session I

Theorizing the Human Sciences in the Age of Absolute Disruption: Historical Criticism and Its Remainders^[1]

13:00 pm

15:00 pm

16:00 pm

The Good News for Black Disabled People.^[11]