Syncretic sociology: towards a cross-disciplinary study of religion - 1997 Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture

Sociology of Religion, Fall, 1998 by Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo

Cassandra, the mad prophetess of mythology, reported to the Greeks the threats from the fates and the Trojans. But her message was not accepted because of her madness. Cognizant of Cassandra's reception, I am not sure how to share with you my fears about the way religion is being taught and analyzed today. Dare I assume the airs of a classical-age prophet, bringing dire predictions about the analysis of religion today?

Haughty Theology has succumbed to the spells woven on her by the evil seductress, Post-Modernism. The wizened King Orthodoxy has sent forth the powerful warrior called Dogma, who scours the land in a cruel hunt far and wide for those who sing of empirical fact. The unfortunate are brought to the circus where they are forced to dance to a music without sound. The virgin, Religious Studies, has been set at bay by the hounds of higher FTE's and easy A's. Thus has she abandoned her quest to set sail upon the deep seas of thought. Trapped instead in the forest of political correctness, she is condemned to plow over and over again sparse and sterile fields.

While this way of expressing concern is hyperbole, the crisis in academia's analysis of religion is very real. I believe it affects anyone who would study religion, including sociologists. In less dramatic language, I would state the problem as follows: Epistemological challenges to objectivity in the study of religion have made more important sociology's focus on empirical and statistical data, but paradoxically this focus makes sociology more inaccessible to the other fields of religious analysis. Although I am a theologian by training and a faculty member in a religious studies program, I believe that only by adopting a sociological approach has my academic production been rescued from trends that are both current and destructive (if not also deconstructive). But if I urge theology and religious studies to make proper use of empirical data, I also want to oblige sociology to become more "user friendly" to scholars of religion in other disciplines. Only if all the disciplines recognize a common task of research and teaching, can the analysis of religion become an enriching collaboration.

I claim no special credit for discovery of this need, which is well known (Diaz-Stevens and Stevens-Arroyo 1997:6-9). All the disciplines that study religion with essentialist, historical, and functionalist analyses have been challenged. Critical theory - which many of us can live with - has become entangled with issues of multiculturalism and political correctness. Often what needs to be said is not as important as membership in one or other ideological tribe. It has become increasingly difficult to cross the boundaries of disciplines and ideologies in order to analyze religion. Moreover, the paths to solution seem to be different for each discipline. I fear that among my colleagues in theology and religious studies, the empirical perspective is the least sought remedy. But based on my own experiences with this widening disciplinary gap, I venture to suggest that the quest for a more satisfying cross-disciplinary methodology is related to changes in religion itself. In other words, we are not facing a problem caused by an unwillingness of scholars to use a more apt methodology in the study of religion: rather, I think that substantial changes in contemporary religion have undermined standard approaches. The greater attention to religious subjectivity has not been caused by post-modernism. Rather, because religious practice in the US is heavily influenced by personal and individual motives, the old loyalties of denominationalism and conformist orthodoxy have been eroded. Theology and religious studies have had to address this change. They have become more sensitive to contextual meanings and the subtleties of discourse. This has moved the disciplines further away from generalizations and easily verifiable definitions of behavior and belief. As a result, precious little of the works produced in theology and religious studies resemble social science analysis.

I would not want to be understood to suggest that sociologists of religion should remain smug and content that theirs is the perfect approach and one superior to all others. If sociology hunkers down within the trenches of empirical and statistical analysis, then there will be no coordinated attack on an elusive target. My message is a challenge to become more "user friendly" to other disciplines and more content-focused in applying methodology. Sociology, I would say, is called today to be ancilla religionis just as a thousand years ago philosophy was crowned ancilla theologiae. The road to this outreach is what I want to call "syncretic sociology."

THE MEANING OF "SYNCRETIC" IN CIVILIZATIONAL STUDY

I derived the word "syncretic" from Arnold Toynbee (1946/1974:vol 2:473-481). It is different from cross-, multi-, or inter-, disciplinary sociology, because "syncretic" refers not to methodology, but to the theme and focus of study. You may recall that Toynbee began his monumental work in the 1930s when there was concern about the future of civilization in Europe. Sir Arnold searched world history for parallels with the crisis confronting his generation. Today, we see much Neo-Postivism in Toynbee's cycles and models; there is Euro-centrism and favoritism towards Christianity in his analysis; most awkwardly, he uses the term "civilization" to set up categories of high and low, superior and inferior cultures that reflect an elitist conception of culture (Kennan 1989). But like a pearl diver who spends days of work plunging to the depths and surfacing to discover one hidden prize, I believe that one finds in Toynbee something of great value: the concept of syncretism.