This semester we are reading and critiquing Luhrmann's book, How God Becomes Real. Luhrmann has done ethnographic field work among evangelical Christian groups. Her research looks at how members of these communities develop practices and rituals to world in which God is a real part of their lives and guides them in daily decisions.

In this course we have looked at fundamental research approaches to understand how religion affects individuals and society. I chose materials for units one and two that will help you critique Luhrmann's work. Here are some of the highlights.

Herling's five guidelines for self-awareness: On pages 16-25 Herling discusses five approaches that help the researcher become more self-aware of biases. We are familiar with comparison, but there is a problem if the researcher uses one religion as a standard, judging whether other religions fall short of that standard. The phenomenological approach starts with a person becoming aware of their own biases in order to set them aside. The hermeneutical approach uses awareness of one's own view to create a dialogue and grow beyond differences. These two approaches support each other: when you use them together you have a powerful way of understanding the world. Similarly, defamiliarization and empathy are closely related to each other like two sides of one coin. You can use Herling's discussion of these approaches to critique Luhrmann's approach.

Religion and the Individual: In this section of the course we studied the theories of Otto and James. Both of these theorists focus on the experience of the individual. For Otto, it is necessary to have an experience of religious awe in order to be able to understand religion at all. James is somewhat more open, focusing instead on various experiences that can be observed in people. Luhrmann's study focuses closely on individual experience, but notice that she is also interested in how people build a world-view through religious ideas. For that you need to look at theorists who look at religion and society.

Religion and Society: Durkheim and Turner developed theories about religion that are very useful for analyzing how societies develop a strong feeling of cohesiveness through religion. Turner expanded the notion of social and individual development through ritual. Both of these authors create frameworks that will be useful in analyzing Luhrmann's discussion.

Religion as Illusion: Freud and Marx developed theories that classified religion as a kind of illusion or, in the case of Marx, a delusion about society. Both theorists see alienation as a key developmental problem: the worker who is alienated from the value of his work is Marx's concern. Freud, on the other hand, is concerned about an individual's alienation from their own self. They both see religion as filling a lack or imbalance in society.

Religion as Real: phenomenology: Finally, Geertz and Smart provide you with some important tools for analyzing religious phenomena. Geertz focuses on the human tendency to develop symbolic systems that come to seem quite real as people invest time and emotion in understanding them. Geertz's "thick description" can be quite easily used to analyze Luhrmann's approach to how people create and begin to live within a framework created around religious ideas. Finally, Smart's discussion of the seven dimensions of religion are helpful in sorting out the different kinds of activities and beliefs that we find in religion.

In this critique, you will use what you learned in the first part of the course to discuss and analyze Luhrmann's approach. Remember, you have already mastered some of this material - it is now part of how you think about religion. Use these approaches to help you write the paper. Herling's description of self-awareness in the study of religion will be generally useful. Then you must choose which theorists you want to use: you should use at least two theorists from different topics, but the rest is up to you.

pur-new-sol

Related Questions