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- | # The Weber Thesis | + | # Can you learn to hear God? # |
- | ## The Weber Thesis | + | ## Can you learn to hear God? ## |
Ryan Schram | Ryan Schram | ||
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ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au | ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au | ||
- | April 2, 2015 | + | April 6, 2016 |
Available at http:// | Available at http:// | ||
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### Readings ### | ### Readings ### | ||
- | Haynes, Naomi. 2012. “Pentecostalism and the Morality of Money: Prosperity, Inequality, and Religious Sociality on the Zambian Copperbelt.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18 (1): 123–39. doi:10.1111/j.1467–9655.2011.01734.x. | + | Luhrmann, Tanya M. 2004. “Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary U.S. Christianity.” American Anthropologist 106 (3): 518–28. doi:10.1525/aa.2004.106.3.518. |
+ | |||
+ | Deren, Maya, Cherel Ito, and Teiji Ito. ca. 1947–1954. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. Documentary. http:// | ||
- | Robbins, J. 1998. “Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Desire among the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea.” Ethnology 37 (4): 299–316. doi: | ||
### Recommended readings ### | ### Recommended readings ### | ||
- | Robbins, Joel. 2001. “God Is Nothing but Talk: Modernity, Language, and Prayer in a Papua New Guinea Society.” American Anthropologist, | + | James, William. 1984. William James, The Essential Writings. Bruce Wilshire, ed. Albany: SUNY Press. |
- | Cannell, Fenella. 2005. “The Christianity | + | James, William. 1994 [1902]. The Varieties |
+ | Luhrmann, T. M., Howard Nusbaum, and Ronald Thisted. 2010. “The Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity.” American Anthropologist 112 (1): 66–78. doi: | ||
- | ### Other media ### | + | ## What do the Twelve Tribes' |
- | DuBois, Bastien. 2013. "Cargo Cult" (Trailer). https:// | + | What do the neighbors of Peppercorn Farm in Picton think about the Twelve Tribes? |
- | ## Weber's four types of religion ## | + | Hint: They don't think " |
- | * **Other-worldly mysticism**: | + | ## Is there any truth to religion and religious belief? ## |
- | * **Worldly mysticism**: | + | |
- | * **Other-worldly asceticism**: | + | |
- | * **Worldly asceticism**: | + | |
- | These are **ideal types** and as such no real religions fit perfectly in any of these. | + | a) A potentially explosive issue. It almost sounds |
+ | asking which religion is right. | ||
- | A question for this week is where do you put Pentecostalism, | + | b) More generally though I want to ask are there any grounds on which |
+ | one can believe in something unseen | ||
- | ## A persisting question ## | + | c) We've ducked the issue. |
+ | ## A velvet rope | ||
- | We understand that Durkheim and Weber complement each other, but we are still stuck with a nagging question. Aren't some religions more appropriately understood | + | {{ : |
- | ## Individualism and society ## | ||
- | I want to take as given that some societies exhibit individualism as a chief value. Relationships and groups are ideally based on choice. People create their own paths in life. | + | ## The limits of social science ## |
- | By contrast other societies exhibit a different orientation. Societies based on all-encompassing social institutions such as kinship structure and hereditary leadership, for instance, tend to place obligations to the group over individual choice. | + | Social scientific approaches to religion can only look at concrete, observable, empirical facts about people' |
- | This does not mean that some societies | + | This means that social scientific explanations |
- | ## The rationality of salvation ## | + | It also means that social scientific explanations assume that, being from an outsider' |
- | The Weber thesis is that the development of an ascetic form of | + | In other words, we are looking at religion as culture. |
- | Protestant Christianity spurred the development of market exchange and | + | |
- | capitalist production. This is presented in his famous book //The | + | |
- | Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism// | + | |
- | ## The Protestant Ethic ## | + | ## William James ## |
- | Calvin teaches | + | * James is a philosopher interested in the nature of human |
- | can do to earn salvation. | + | |
+ | | ||
+ | were active at about the same time. | ||
+ | * James is also a leading figure within | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | from evidence, facts and the sense. | ||
+ | * What do you suppose Pragmatists thought about religion? | ||
- | What you do with your life has nothing to do with your relationship to | + | ## What is happening in this religious event? ## |
- | God. | + | |
- | If you were successful, it was a **sign** that you were in the | + | A clip from the *The Divine Horsemen: Living Gods of Haiti*, a film by Maya Deren et al. |
- | elect. Wealth is not valuable for its own sake. | + | |
- | A person should follow one's " | + | https:// |
- | The **means** | + | The beginning |
- | (a living, wealth and success). Thus if one is wealthy, one can be | + | |
- | deatched from this wealth and deal with objectively. | + | |
- | ## The disenchantment of the world ## | + | ## A sidebar on research questions |
- | Protestant reformers condemned | + | Many people |
- | worldliness: | + | |
- | Because their philosophy was based on a new way of thinking of the | + | What questions do you want to ask about this topic? |
- | person as an individual, they actually paved the way for disembedding | + | |
- | the economy from social relationships. | + | |
- | More generally, Weber claims that the Protestant calling paved the way for greater institutional specialization, | + | Write some down now. |
- | Also, this new kind of ' | + | ## Asking questions ## |
- | This is also generally speaking what Weber means by rationalization. He does not mean that religious thought is irrational, but that certain kinds of religious ethics have led to a more rational (formalized and specialized) organization of social life. | + | Aristotle had some advice for his students about asking questions: |
- | ## Analysis | + | > Not every problem, nor every thesis, should be examined, but only one which might puzzle one of those who need argument, not punishment or perception. For people who are puzzled to know whether one ought to honour the gods and love one’s parents or not need punishment, while those who are puzzled to know whether snow is white or not need perception. The subjects should not border too closely upon the sphere of demonstration, |
- | *Erklaren*: Analysis. Identifying which facts belong to which ideal categories. | ||
- | *Verstehen*: | + | Take a minute to think about this passage and try to get down the main idea here in your own, more contemporary language. |
- | Weber is never simply labeling or defining things. He also wants to draw out a more general story or interpretive understanding | + | ## The three types of questions ## |
+ | Aristotle says there are three types of questions. Let's come up with examples of each kind. | ||
+ | * Type I: Factual questions | ||
+ | * Type II: Belief questions | ||
+ | * Type III: Research questions, or *why* questions | ||
- | ## Pentecostalism | + | ## Do I know what rhetorical means?? Do I know what rhetorical means!?? |
- | ### Origins | + | A question someone might want to ask is this: |
+ | |||
+ | > How does Vodou possession help people to resist cultural domination? | ||
+ | |||
+ | Another one could be: | ||
+ | |||
+ | > How does Vodou help people adapt to the modernization of Haiti? | ||
+ | |||
+ | Are these questions " | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ## There are many varieties of religious experience | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Healthy-mindedness: | ||
+ | through your own actions and behavior you can cultivate goodness in | ||
+ | yourself and the world. | ||
+ | * The sick soul. You see the world as a war between Good and | ||
+ | Evil. Everyone, including yourself, need to be saved from inherent | ||
+ | evils. | ||
+ | * Conversion. You feel incomplete and imperfect, and so feel like you | ||
+ | need to seek change. | ||
+ | * Mysticism. You feel like you have an intuitive knowledge about the | ||
+ | world from experience. You have a wisdom which you feel, but cannot | ||
+ | put into words. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ## God is real ## | ||
+ | |||
+ | "God is real because he produces real effects" | ||
+ | |||
+ | ## The origins of Pentecostalism | ||
The Asuza Street Revival, led by William Seymour, 1906-1909: | The Asuza Street Revival, led by William Seymour, 1906-1909: | ||
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- | ### How it differs from other holiness churches | + | ## How Pentecostalism |
* The receipt of Pentecost, or a baptism of the Spirit. | * The receipt of Pentecost, or a baptism of the Spirit. | ||
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early on. | early on. | ||
- | ### The global movement | + | ## The global movement |
* Spreads through grass-roots networks. | * Spreads through grass-roots networks. | ||
* Paradoxically both world-making and world-breaking (Robbins 2004). | * Paradoxically both world-making and world-breaking (Robbins 2004). | ||
- | |||
- | |||
- | ## Christianity across cultures ## | ||
- | |||
- | Do Christian converts adopt a new culture when they convert to a foreign religion? | ||
- | |||
- | Is Christianity inherently individualistic because of its basis in ' | ||
## References ## | ## References ## | ||
- | Robbins, Joel. 2004. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (1): 117–43. doi: | ||
- | |||
- | Synan, Vinson. 1997. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic | ||
- | Movements in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Mich.: | ||
- | Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. | ||
+ | James, William. 1984. William James, The Essential Writings. Bruce Wilshire, ed. Albany: SUNY Press. | ||
+ | James, William. 1985 [1902]. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. | ||
+ | Robbins, Joel. 2004. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 117–43. | ||
+ | Synan, Vinson. 1997. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. | ||
2667/5.1427772719.txt.gz · Last modified: 2015/03/30 20:31 by Ryan Schram (admin)