Reconceptualizing religious change: ethno-apostasy and change in religion among American Jews

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2006 by Benjamin T. Phillips, Shaul Kelner

APOSTASY AND SWITCHING AS CULTURE-SPECIFIC CONCEPTS

As noted, the distinction between switchers and apostates has been an important theme in the study of religious change among American Jews. The applicability of general definitions of apostasy to ethno-religious communities is not without problems. The sociologist's interest in the abandonment of religious faith is not that of the theologian. It concerns the implications for human to human relationships rather than human-Divine relationships. As a result, sociological analysis must take into account the different meanings and different implications that the phenomenon has in different communities. Within an American Protestant paradigm, the renunciation of faith has been assumed to indicate the severance of social ties with religious communities and the weakening of religious communities generally. Scholarly interest in the phenomenon has emerged accordingly. Such assumptions seem misplaced, however, when applied to American Jews. It is not merely that "in groups with ethnic or quasi-ethnic characteristics, ties to the community through language, folklore, custom, intermarriage, and solidarity make disaffiliation difficult" (Sherkat 2001:1464), but that in Jewish culture the boundaries between religion and other aspects of life are blurred, and native discourse defines piety more in terms of practice rather than belief. It is to these native discourses that one must look to find appropriate indicators of the social phenomena that the abandonment of faith are typically thought to indicate.

The language of social science differs markedly from discourse indigenous to Jewish communities. "Apostasy," in Jewish parlance, is associated with those who exchange the Jewish faith for another religion, particularly Christianity or Islam (Ben-Sasson et al. 1971; Cohen 1999; Endelman 1987). In contrast, social scientific literature on religion typically reserves this term for the abandonment of all religious faith (i.e., becoming an agnostic or atheist) regardless of the religion in which one was raised. Jewish communities historically have had no specific term for those who abandon all faith, except perhaps for "apikorsim," which is used as a pejorative catch-all term for the religiously unorthodox (broadly construed) of all stripes, (1) provided that they possess the requisite religious learning that enables them to be "informed heretics. (2) The lack of an exact term may reflect a comparative lack of concern; religious faith is not the only or even the primary criterion for Jewish affiliation, and those who have renounced their religious beliefs have often remained committed Jews. By contrast, those who join another religion are called "meshumadim" ("mumarim" and "minim" are also used)--meaning "ones who are destroyed" (cf. Wagner 1982). The multiple terms that exist indicate the salience of this phenomenon to Jewish communities throughout history. The finality of the term--if one leaves, one is destroyed--is a reflection of the fact that joining another faith has historically been seen as an active renunciation of Jewish identity, whereas being a secularist Jew has not.