Which came first, the individual or the social?

We're settling into a rhythm now: Milbank talks about the next historical movement of 'secular' thought, we think, ah, now we're really getting to the birth of secularism, and he says haha, no, actually they're totally dependent on theology still. So that's the essence of this chapter, which deals with sociological thinkers from Malebranche to Durkheim. Honestly, I struggled a little here, both in terms of caring and understanding, as half the people Milbank talks about I've never heard of and the other half I've never read: apologies in advance if that makes this post less sensical than its predecessors.

So, 'sociology' emerged as a discipline which, unlike the political economists or the liberal thinker who thought that the basic constituent of human society was the independent individual, saw 'society' as a basic fact to be reckoned with and accounted for. One of the basic problems of political and social thought is the question of the relationship between the individual and society: do individuals construct society or does society construct individuals? Sociology was an attempt to answer this and, surprise surprise, Milbank thinks they basically nicked their fundamental assumptions from theology. The really sneaky thing, on Milbank's account, is that the early sociologists didn't just steal their ideas from theology, they then pretended that those same ideas were not theological, and used them to explain theology. The cheek!

Milbank locates the origins of sociology in the thought of Joseph de Maistre and Louis Jacques Marie de Bonald. Both of them draw in turn on the thought of Malebranche, who basically thinks that human beings can't possibly create anything new, and so all new ideas have to come directly from God. In de Bonald and de Maistre, this becomes the idea that it's God who holds the collection of individuals together by directly creating social institutions like language, writing, the family and political sovereignty. 'The social' isn't something that humans have made, it's entirely dependent on God.

Next up is Comte, who basically thinks he's doing away with God, although actually he leaves the basic theological structure of de Maistre and de Bonald's metaphysics intact. Comte thinks that it's not God but religion which holds the random collection of individuals together into a society. But the essence of religion is basically the celebration of humanity: what we worship isn't actually God but a mythologised version of 'humanity'. Eventually, Comte thinks, this will evolve into a more explicitly humanistic, secularised sort of religion; but it will still, essentially, be religion.

Then comes Durkheim, whose version of the 'God' figure holding the social world together draws on Kant, whose categorical imperative means that freedom paradoxically means that we should be obedient to a general ethical law. But even though Durkheim talks about the way that all our knowledge and laws and so on are socially constructed, he still basically assumes that there is an Absolute Transcendental Truth out there, keeping everything in place. He still (sort of) believes in God.

So, basically, the problem with sociology is that it assumes that things like society, law, politics, are just given, universal, basic facts of society as if they'd been magicked into being by God rather than constructed in complicated, messy and historically variable ways by human beings. Sociology relies on some (dodgy) theological assumptions that have been dressed up as if they're Science. And worst of all, for Milbank, is that sociology looks at human society throughout the ages, and sees that all human societies involve sacrifice. Because it can't conceive of such a 'basic' social fact being changed, it can't understand the way in which Jesus radically transforms the notion of sacrifice, making a peaceful society possible, and so one of the basic assumptions of sociological discourse in general is that humans are basically violent towards one another and unable to play together like good children. Sacrifice, violence, war and crime are just there, inescapable facts.

The real problem, Milbank thinks, lies in the attempt to try to resolve the chicken-and-egg question of the individual and society. But it's a problem that just can't be resolved: every individual action is formed by society and forms society in return, and so any 'science' which takes the social whole rather than the individual (or vice versa) as the basic fact is screwed from the outset. The only way to deal with the question is to tell stories about it: historiography is necessary but social science isn't. Did Milbank really just argue that the entire discipline of sociology is pointless? I think he did.

The Gospel according to Steve Jobs

As the Western world has become less Christian, and involvement with organised religion has declined, sociologists have become interested in the question of what other forms spirituality is taking, and have started studying the ‘inarticulate’, ‘unconscious,’ ‘mystical’ and ‘symbolic’ aspects of religious experience. They’ve come up with the concept of ‘implicit religion’, which is basically the idea that the sorts of language, behaviour, and beliefs traditionally associated with religion can be found in non-religious contexts: among environmentalist groups, for example. There’s also been a lot of discussion of the religious aspects of the human relationship to technology, and it’s within this discussion that Pui Yan-Lam wrote his 2001 article ‘May the Force of the Operating System be with you: Macintosh devotion as Implicit Religion.’

Yan-Lam argues that ever since the birth of industrial capitalism, people have used religious language about technological innovations. Inventions like the steam engine and the telephone have been seen as offering the hope of salvation, and the possibility of ‘transcendence’, offering to set us free from the constraints of time, space and scarcity. Technology has been seen as a way of building heaven on earth, and the people who created these new technologies viewed as secular priests (a good contemporary example of this would be transhumanism, which basically argues that we can use technology to overcome human failure and even death). We tend to talk about new technology as though it contains some mystical power to transform or destroy the world.

Several sociologists have argued that our relationship with computers is different to our relationship with other forms of technology. We see computers as created in the image of our own minds, and as a result, think of computers as mirrors of our own humanity. People respond emotionally to computers, and use them to shape their identities and sense of self. We’ve all been there: your computer is slow, and you shout at it; you get an iphone because you think it will make you cooler as a person; you buy a Mac and you really love it, and look! It even does that thing where it looks like it’s breathing while it’s asleep.

Ah, Macs. Yan-Lam argues that Macintosh users are more prone than other users of technology to exhibit signs of implicit religion. Bear in mind that he is writing before the iPlayer, the iPhone and the Macbook, back in the days when Mac users were a beleagured minority, and Macintosh as a company looked like it was in danger of going under. He identifies four areas of implicit religion in users’ devotion to their Macintosh computers:

The Search for Meaning: Apple have always seen themselves as unique pioneers. Steve Jobs is often described as a prophetic figure, proclaiming a counter-cultural message in the face of Apple’s rivals: first IBM and then Microsoft. Apple have always painted themselves as the good guys, the ones who play fair, the good side of the force; Microsoft are the bad guys who break the rules and steal other people’s ideas; the Dark Side.

Sacred bonds: Back in 2001, it was normal for commentators to refer to Mac users as fanatics, cultists and zealots, and to compare Mac devotion to religion. Plenty of Mac users embraced this, tending to use language inspired by Eastern religions of individual spirituality, emphasising the sacred bond between humans and computers. Macintosh devotion works on two levels: the bond between computers and humans and the bond between Mac users. Mac users tended to see their bond with their Mac as something special and unique, comparing their Macs to friends. They tended to envisage a future in which this special bond between humans and computers would create a utopian situation in which humans and computers worked together in harmony. Mac users also tended to belong to websites and user groups, which functioned a bit like churches: building community, encouraging Mac ‘evangelism’ and testimonials about how Macs had changed their lives. Mac users see Mac evangelism as being about more than just persuading other people to buy computers: it’s about a philosophy, a way of life; and they tended to think that people’s lives would be transformed if they could be converted.

The Hidden Message: Sociologists have traced a change in our relationship to computers: where early on, computer culture was about mastering complicated programming, a ‘musical’ culture slowly emerged in which computers became seen as the tools of creativity, enabling human innovation. Much of this change was due to Apple. Mac users thought of themselves as different from other people. Just like in the PC/Mac adverts, they thought of themselves as nonconformists, slightly better than everybody else. They talked about the reality of this profane world in which Mac users are a persecuted minority and bad people like Bill Gates are rewarded, and their hopes for a future in which Mac users will be justified.

The Quest: Mac users tended to see themselves fighting a holy war against the Dark Side of the Microsoft world. They found a spirituality in this quest, which others might look for in religion.

Yan-Lam concludes by arguing that Mac addicts have adopted what can best be described as a ‘technotheology.’ He argues that our ideas about computers have, for some people, taken the role of creation myths, helping us understand what it means to be human and formulate our hopes for the future. He identifies three major themes in this new technotheology: the transformation of humanity into divinity, the quest for eternity, and the vision of the ‘blessed community.’ Makes you think twice about that iphone, huh?

Mary and Catholic Women

Michelle Spencer-Arsenault (Ponder for a moment the possible meanings of 'Arsenault') published an article in the journal Sociology of Religion in 2000 called Mother Mary: the (Re)Construction of a Female Icon. As a woman who had grown up in a Catholic family, though no longer considering herself a Catholic, she was fascinated by the role of Mary in relation to the way that women in the Catholic Church understood themselves.

Various sociological studies have suggested that not only does religion have an important role in shaping the way that men and women understand their gender, and in maintaining gender differences, but that women and men actually have different experiences of religion. Spencer-Arsenault (every time I write her name I giggle a little, which is of course terribly rude, but I just can't help it) wanted to answer some of the following questions: How do Catholic women construct their identities within a religious context in which Mary is held up as a role model? Can the image of Mary, which often represents so many patriarchal ideas, really be relevant for modern women? While Mary is often held up as a model for all Christians within Catholic teaching, there's often a particular emphasis on devotion to Mary for Catholic women. The Catholic church tends to particularly emphasise Mary's role as virgin, ideal mother, and an example of quiet obedience. To understand how Catholic women related to these ideas about Mary, Spencer-Arsenault spent time interviewing Catholic women in Eastern Canada.

Mary, an image of ritualised awe
Spencer-Arsenault describes the annual May crowning of Mary in which many Catholic women participate. Young girls dress up in white and blue, and parade through the streets to the church, where they process down the aisle to the altar, where there's a statue of Mary which the girls crown before leading the congregation in the Hail Mary.

Spencer-Arsenault says that, for most of the Catholic women she interviewed, this ritual was at the heart of their understanding about Mary, and they'd often describe their experiences of the May crowning whilst trying to explain the importance of Mary. Many of the women she interviewed saw the high value that Catholic church placed on Mary as representing a high value of women in general, especially of women as mothers and as people responsible for transmitting their faith to their children. Because of motherhood, many women saw Mary not only as an object of awe and reverence, but also as a friend, who they could relate to through their own motherhood. Like them, Mary often experienced difficult things during her time on earth, and this helped Roman Catholic women to feel that there was someone who understood their own struggles, and could act as a bridge between heaven and earth.

I found the questions that Spencer-Arsenault asked more interesting than her answers, to be honest (I got to the end of the article and thought, 'Oh. Is that it?' I had to scroll to the end of the bibliography just to make sure there wasn't any more). Even in the Catholic church, not all women use contraception, some are infertile, and some never even get married: what happens to women who never become mothers? Still, some interesting insights.

Photo credits: May-crowned Mary by Clare O'Hagan; Catholic girls by webchicken on Flickr.

Does theology make you happy?

A sociologist called Idler once (eventually) got round to proposing four ways in which religion might have an impact on people's well being:

1. providing a sense of comfort in times of trouble,
2. providing access to a large network of potential support providers,
3. discouraging behaviour which might lead to health problems (smoking, drinking, sleeping around, taking drugs etc. This could, depending on how you look at it, make religious people either happier or sadder),
4. furnishing a cognitive framework through which people can better understand the meaning of pain, suffering and death (that's the whole set of theological explanations for why bad stuff happens, including but not limited to repeated singing of Blessed Be Your Name).

Apparently, a lot of research has been done into 1-3, but not so much into 4, so a guy called Marc A. Musick did some research into the effect of Christians' theodicy on their life satisfaction, published in the Journal of the Sociology of Religion as a paper called Theodicy and Life Satisfaction among Black and White Americans.

Theodicy is about answering the question, 'How can there be a good God when there is so much suffering in the world?' Musick wanted to find out the effect of different theological answers to this question on how satisfied people were with their lives. He did this by getting hold of information from a national social survey, and comparing people's answers to questions about their wellbeing to information about their denominational membership (different denominations tend to have different theologies about the problem of pain), ethnicity (more on that later), how often they went to church, and how much they saw the world in terms of good or evil.

Musick identified one key difference between different theodicies: whether they saw the world in as fundamentally good, or as fundamentally evil, life being seen in terms of a spiritual battle against evil forces. He came up with four hypotheses about the effects of these different sorts of theodicy:

1. "Theodicies that place more emphasis on sin and evil are associated with less life satisfaction." If you're constantly aware of the gap between the way the world is and the way God intended it to be, you're more likely to be dissatisfied, and feeling like you're constantly threatened by the forces of evil is probably not that cheering.
   

2. "The negative effects of holding a sin theodicy on life satisfaction are stronger among Whites than Blacks." This one's less obvious. In addition to demographic differences between black and white Christians (Black Christians tend to be more religiously involved and committed, to view the Church more as one of the key institutions in their lives, and to be more deprived, which leads them to rely more on the church for different kinds of support), Musick thinks that a strong sense of the fundamental goodness of the world in African American Christianity was key to black American Christians' survival of slavery, segregation, and the long and difficult process of emancipation, and that it continues to shape their worldview.
   

3. "The effects of holding such a sin theodicy vary by levels of interaction with fellow believers such that the negative effect is strongest amongst those who interact less frequently." It's like the difference between walking round the haunted house on your own or going round with a friend.
   

4. "The effects of holding a sin theodicy vary by levels of stress such that the negative effect is stronger among people experiencing stressful circumstances." Well, duh.

So, he did his research, and all his hypotheses seemed to be supported by the evidence he found, but the strongest association he found was between service attendance and life satisfaction. Moral of the story: don't skip church, kids, it will make you sad. Overall, he found that religion seems to make people both happy and sad, satisfied and dissatisfied. This reminds me of something my dad once told me, church should 'comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable'. Which perhaps sort of answers an interesting question that this research raises for me: should theology make you happy?

Photo credit: Celestial Photography on Flickr.

Ernst Troeltsch on Church and Sect

Ernst Troeltsch was born in 1865 and died in 1923. He was a German Protestant theologian, and one of the things he wrote about was the difference between Churches and Sects – two different expressions of Christianity, which distinction is still used a lot in sociology today. Don't be too put off by the names of the two 'types' – sects aren't necessarily crazy brainwashing groups. I found his discussion interesting because to me it seemed to illuminate quite clearly some of the distinctions between the charismatic/evangelical/non-denominational/house churches I grew up in and other more 'institutional' churches. If I'm right, I think you could make the case that there's a good dose of crazy on both sides, though perhaps Troeltsch can help us think about the variety of crazies on offer within Christianity as a whole.

Church
Troeltsch says that churches are conservative – they accept the relationship between Church and state as it is, and see themselves, in principle at least, as universal, able to include the whole of humanity under their wings. They base themselves on the 'objective concrete holiness' of the priesthood, the Apostolic succession and the sacraments. They tend to be intertwangled with the State and the 'ruling classes' – they feed off each other, and so the Church becomes part of the social order.

The essence of the Church 'type' is that it's institutional. Individuals are born into it, and the institutions of the priesthood and the ecclesiastical hierarchy mediate grace by virtue of their place in the institution rather than their individual holiness. The Church is prepared to compromise with the world, because they see the institution as remaining holy in spite of individual inadequacy. The Church's main priority is to ensure that every individual comes within reach of the influence of the sacraments, which are the means of grace and this is why the Church wants to dominate society – in order to ensure universal access to the means of of grace. Churches tend to see the New Testament and early church as the starting point, which leads to a willingness to see doctrine as something which develops over time, and also to compromise.

Sect
Sects are smaller than churches, and their main aspiration is inward perfection and personal fellowship within the group. They organise themselves in small groups and don't expect any sort of dominance within society – they treat society with an attitude of indifference, tolerance or hostility. Where Churches focus on the 'objective concrete holiness' of their structures and sacraments, sects tend to focus on the moral demands of Jesus' teaching. Sects tend to exist either among the lower classes, or in other parts of society which don't get on so well with the state. They tend to be a lot more disengaged from society – they might refuse to engage with secular law, to swear to tell the truth in court, or to fight for their country. They tend to see the kingdom of God as opposed to all secular interests and institutions.

Characteristic features of sects include an emphasis on lay Christianity (i.e., no ordination), an emphasis on personal ethical behaviour, brotherly love, direct and personal relationship with God, criticism of 'official' theologians, and appeals to the New Testament and early Church. Sects tend to see the New Testament and early Church as a permanent ideal, which can lead to radicalism and rather literal obedience. This is partly why they struggle to become big organisations, and also why they need to constantly renew their ideal, why they tend to show a lack of continuity, a pronounced individualism, and an affinity with oppressed groups within society where 'an ardent desire for improvement of their lot goes hand in hand with a complete ignorance of the complicated conditions of life.'

All of this means that Christian life within sects tends to be very intense, but lacking in a sense of universalism as they can't help but see the wider church as degenerate. They tend to have low expectations of the possibility of changing the world through human effort, so often emphasise eschatology. Sects are also big on voluntary membership, and see spiritual progress as dependent not on the impartation of grace through the sacraments but on individual personal effort.

Troeltsch argues that these are two distinct types of church, although in real life there might be some overlap. He thinks that they're both valid expressions of important strands within Christianity, both with their strengths and weaknesses. He's been critiqued a fair bit, though I get the impression that sociologists of religion still use some version of his distinction. There's also some interesting stuff out there about the process by which sects can sometimes move towards the church type. What fascinates me is the way that I see both types expressed in some of the churches I've encountered, and I think it raises all sorts of interesting questions about churches' unacknowledged theological assumptions.

Whaddya reckon?

The Death of Christian Britain

I was all going to stop talking about gender for a while, but then I went to a seminar yesterday with Callum Brown, a Scottish cultural historian, and he was so interesting that I thought I'd serve him up fresh for your delectation.

Brown's argument goes a little something like this: historians often talk about the secularisation of Britain as a slow process which took place over several centuries. They are wrong. Actually, the 1870s-1890s saw a high point of church attendance and of the Church's integration into popular culture. At this point, there was a change in the way that people understood piety – where before the archetypal pious person was male, there was a dramatic shift, with piety becoming understood instead as distinctively feminine. The characteristics of femininity and piety came to be seen as basically the same. At the same time, masculinity was conceived as religiously vulnerable: while women were devoted mothers, good Christians, and pure of heart, men were easily tempted by the dangers of drink, drugs and sex. Men were the problem, and women the solution.

This gender world broke down in the 1960s, with the beginning of free love, sexual liberation, the Pill, and second-wave feminism, and as it fell apart, so did Christianity's dominance in popular culture. Piety and femininity were uncoupled, and so began the long decline of Christianity in Britain over the rest of the 20th century.

Brown is unusual among historians in using Foucault's ideas about discourse as a tool for doing history – to understand the changes in the relationship between Christianity and popular culture of the last few centuries, he looked at the way that people's language about religion, piety and gender changed over the period he focuses on. This was a dramatic change for him – as recently as the mid-90s he was sitting in pubs bitching to fellow historians about this pesky postmodern history; a few years ago he wrote a book about postmodernism for historians. He's got quite a lot of flak for this, but he's tough enough to take it, and is about to rerelease his original book with an extra chapter explaining why he's right and his critics are wrong.

Subliminal eroticism in contemporary charismatic worship

Thought that would get your attention. My Director of Studies gave me this article to read years ago, though I really can't remember why. Anyway. Martyn Percy is a sociologist who's written quite a bit about charismatic churches, and in this article he argues that there's an awful lot of eroticism going on in charismatic worship (by which he means “the bit of the meeting where we sing”).

He makes the following points:

• “Charismatic worship” tends to portray the worshipper as very passive, and God as active
• The worship experience as a whole tends to be individualistic, subjective, self-indulgent, and therapeutic.
• As such, it provides an emotional outlet and form of empowerment for women in a church culture where often only men are given official leadership positions
• Love is portrayed in an idealised, adolescent, simplistic manner, and people sing about a fairytale happy ending where God comes along and solves everything
• Related to this, God/Jesus is often portrayed as a Prince Charming-style superhero, who turns up and magicks everything better
• Songs portray Christians less as sinners in need of forgiveness than as unfulfilled people in need of healing. The cross of Christ is almost absent, and is replaced by an emphasis on the majesty and closeness of God.
• Most of the songs talk in terms of I/You, and focus on subjective experience
• The Christian is portrayed as passive in the “Potter's hand”, but this passivity gives no account of suffering or pain – the source of problems is ignored.
• “Lord” is used of God in a way which encourages trust in a community where everyone worships the same God.
• In the end, Percy argues, what we find in charismatic worship is just a sacralised version of a secular culture which is steeped in erotic imagery, where love is like the love you find in a Mills and Boon book – there's no cost, no commitment to working through difficulty and pain, and it's all about feelings and subjectivity.
  

There are clearly some bones to pick here. To the extent that charismatic worship is erotic, that's nothing new – go read some mystical theology, some Hans Urs von Balthasar some old commentaries on the Song of Songs, or even the Bible and you'll find plenty of (often surprisingly explicit) uses of erotic language to talk about our relationship with God.

I think Percy's more interesting not for the suggestion that charismatic worship is erotic, but for his criticisms of the sort of erotic love that is portrayed – shallow, individualistic, adolescent – these are the things that struck home when I read him. He's describing, I think, quite a particular moment in the history of charismatic worship. The songs I remember singing in the late 80s were much more about being bold and strong, strongholds tumblings down – all weirdly military. And more recently there's been a bit of a shift, I think, towards songs which deal with suffering, "Blessed be your name" the classic example. Maybe the songs Percy talks about are adolescent because so, in many ways, is the charismatic movement, which hasn't been around that long. But still, something there strikes me as quite insightful.

And whether you buy Percy's reading of charismatic worship or not, it highlights the theological element of the songs we sing – the words matter, because they shapes how we see our relationship to God, the church and the world. More meaning, less na na na na na, please.

Foucault - History of Sexuality

Michel Foucault was a French thinker (he lived from 1924-1984), and as such was gloriously broad-ranging in the things he wrote about - crime and punishment, sexuality, hospitals, and all sorts. He was fascinated by the way that power operates in the stories we tell about the world and ourselves, where those stories came from, and how they change us. He didn't invent the famous pendulum - that was another Foucault - which is a bit sad, because it would be quite funny, given the topic of this post.

Foucault's History of Sexuality (or Volume 1 of it anyway, which is the only bit I've read) basically asks this: We tell ourselves a story that we are a sexually repressed society, that from the 17th century we began to be ashamed of sex, and reluctant to talk about it where before we were free and easy and happy to be bawdy. No longer comfortable telling dirty jokes, we became like the Victorians, so terrified of our own sexuality that we started covering up suggestive table legs. The twentieth century, then, has seen the beginning of our liberation from this repression, but we're still basically repressed. And yet, Foucault says, is that really what happened? Didn't the 17th century in fact see a new explosion of different ways of talking about sexuality - the emergence of psychoanalysis, of new laws regulating exactly what sort of sex was and wasn't ok, of medical names for specific perversions, of programmes designed to regulate the sexuality of children. We, Foucault says, are a society which “has been loudly castigating itself for its hypocrisy for more than a century, which speaks verbosely of its own silence, takes great pains to relate in detail the things it does not say, denounces the powers it exercises, and promises to liberate itself from the very laws that have made it function.” The question isn't “why are we repressed?” but “Why do we say with so much passion and so much resentment against our most recent past, against our present and against ourselves, that we are repressed?”

Foucault locates the start of the change in the practise of confession. Apparently, in ye olde days, confessing a sexual sin meant describing in great detail who did what to whom, in what position, the precise moment of pleasure. But from around the 17th century, they changed: less focus on practicalities, and much more on the internal things: thoughts, desires, feeling, which before had been unimportant as long as no one acted them. Sex became something much more internal, much more deeply rooted in the centre of the person, much more essential to their identity. And as sex extended throughout the whole person, Foucault argues, so did power - doctors, psychiatrists, educators, lawmakers - all were given new abilities to control and dictate behaviour and even thoughts. Sexuality was born: the idea that the nexus of thoughts, desires and preferences each person has was in some way deeply constitutive of their very self.

Where before, marital sex was much discussed and everything else seen as basically the same category of adultery/promiscuity, we began to define specific perversions, and instead of having people who did perverted things, we saw the emergence of people who were perverts - homosexuals, paedophiles, sadists, masochists (and actually, it was this creation of new positive identities for people that enabled them to fight for their rights - until we believed in gay people, instead of people who perpetrated gay acts, we couldn't really even think about gay rights).

Our sexuality isn't just there, Foucault argues - it is formed, moulded, directed and dictated by the stories we tell within our society, by the theories and laws and standards of "normality", and within these stories, power operates, controlling all of us in different ways, making us who we are, making our sexuality what it is.