Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown by Jonathan Z. Smith Review by: Thomas E.

Dowdy Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1984), pp. 97-98 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1385464 . Accessed: 03/12/2011 20:45
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BOOK REVIEWS TOWARDTHE ESTABLISHMENT OF LIBERAL CATHOLICISM IN AMERICA. By Joseph A. Varacalli. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983. 310 pp. No price indicated.

97 In suggesting an alternativeinterpretationof the history of the Bicentennialprogram,the authoroffers a fresh way of thinking about the directionof change in the CatholicChurchin the United States. As with all such intepretations,however,the problemis one of verifiability; one must wait for future events. This analysis is far from conclusive. Several of its theoreticalformulationsare problematic(e.g., the application of a Marxist frameworkis treated in far too and simplistica manner) often rest on a weakempirical base. Nevertheless,it is a richand provocativeone, and despite the criticisms which can be raised at many junctures, it represents an important contributionto the study of AmericanCatholicismsince Vatican II. DANA A. FARNHAM
University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California

In this book, the author examines the Bicentennialprogramsponsoredby the American bishopsof the CatholicChurchand intended to implement the principles of the Second VaticanCouncil,specificallywith regard to social justice issues. The focal point of this program was the convening of a national Catholic assembly in 1976. Fromthis, the authordistinguishes the Bicentennial movement, which he sees as part of "the ongoing historical attempt to institutionalize a liberalagenda"in AmericanCatholicism Although (xi). the program was generally regarded as a failure by liberals, the authorcontends that, in fact, it served to strengthen their position in the Churchby providing them with a legitimateoutlet for the expressionof their views. This movementis led by what he terms the "New Catholic Knowledge Class," composed of highly educated Churchbureaucratsand professionals,both lay and religious. It is this "class" which constitutes the liberal vanguard of the Church.Using a Marxist framework,the author sees this vanguardengaged in a struggle with the ecclesiastical hierarchyfor control of the "mode of production"within the Church,the product,in this case, being socio-religiousknowledge, symbols, and ideas. It was this group of elites which dominated and shaped the Bicentennial program. Through the national assembly, which was held in Detroit in October of 1976, they issued a numberof far-ranging proposals, calling for greater social activism by the Churchand reformof its governmental structure. Although the programwas drainedof its impetus conservativebishops, who movby the predominantly ed to contain the process of change within the traditional institutional structureof the Church,the movement emerged as a legitimate and vital force in contemporaryAmericanCatholicism.Vatican II provided the theologicalfoundationfor the aims of the liberal wing; in a stimulating excursion into intellectual history,the authorrevealsthe linkagebetweenVatican II theology and the democraticprinciplesunderlying American civil religion, which he views as the most meaningfulreligiousdimension,historically,for liberal American Catholics. The Bicentennial program, he argues, succeeded in establishing a commitment to humanisticsocial action as an alternativeand authentic Catholic paradigm, and he sees this leading to greater democratizationof the Churchand increased of accommodation pluralismwithinit. (Whether inthe creasing retrenchment of the Church hierarchy, emanating directly from the present occupant of the throne of St. Peter, will continue to justify such optimism remains to be seen.)

IMAGINING RELIGION: FROM BABYLON TO JONESTOWN. By Jonathan Z. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. xiii + 162 pp.

This quite extraordinarybook is composedof lectures and papers deliveredby Professor Smith over a period of seven years. This particular configuration displays an enormousanddiversedepth of scholarship, and each essay represents an incredible amount of research and erudition. In his introduction, Smith notes that when investigating some historicalphenomena,the student of religion must make an articulate choice from a wide issue variety of examplabearingon some fundamental in the active process of what he terms "the imagination of religion."He states that "... there is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar'sstudy. It is createdfor the scholar'sanalytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparisonand generalizations"(p. xi). ProfessorSmith'sperspectiveis that of a historian of religion,and one having this position is bound "to insist on the all but infinitenatureof the plenumwhich confronts man in his religiousness while at the same time pointing to the reductionof this plenum by the varioushistoricaland culturalunits they study" (p.41 . In his analyses, Smith introducesthe idea of "ingenuias ty" whichhe operationalizes active humanendeavor. This is one of the central themes which he demonstratesutilizing an almost overwhelmingarray of scholarship.He opposes this conceptionof ingenuity to those emphasizingthe "givenness" of the basic elements in religion as primordial. He states "historiansof religion have traditionallyresisted the

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JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION EXISTENCE: METAPHYSICS, SOCIAL MARXISM, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. By Richard Quinney. Beverly Hills, Cal.: Sage Publica$10.95 (paper). tions, 1982. 194 pp. $22 (hardcover);

anthropological as the cost of preserving the theological, preserving what they believe (I think wrongly) to be the irreduciblesui generis, nature of religious phenomena"(p. 41). Further he states that the genericabstractionof man as Homo religiosus,i.e., man responding to religion "in general," to be an impossibility. This "generalized"conception makes religion an essentially inhumanactivity. Oneof the majorthemes then is to augmentthe idea of man as Homo rtligiosus with the idea of man as Homo faber, that is, religion as human labor. Smith also contends that religious myths are best approached as pieces of prosaic discourse rather than multi-valent condensed highly symbolic speech. "In short, I hold that there is no privilege to myth or other religious materials. They must be understood primarily as texts in context, specific acts of communicationbetween specified individuals at specific points in space and time about specifiable subjects" (p. xii). He therefore sees the focus on the historian of tradition,"or that whichis conreligionas "theological cerned with a particular canon and its exegesis. He maintains that the arbitrary and radical reduction representedby the notion of canon and the ingenuity represented by the exegetical enterprise of applying the canon to every dimensionof humanlife is the most characteristic religious activity and is a supremely human endeavor. The remainder of the book works from these methodologicalpremises. For example,in chapterone he concludesthat we cannotconceiveof a "normative" Judaism but rather "we must conceive of a variety of early Judaisms, clustered in varying configurations." That is, we must abandonthe notion of some sort of primordial Jewish "essence" as conceived by phenomenologists. In chapter six a similar process is followed as Smith shows how a contemporaryCeramesemyth in the ancient canonical tradition reflects a native strategy for dealingwith an incongruoussituation,one that draws upon indigenous elements. The myth then but is not a primordium rathera humanand historical tradition. This is a work often fascinating in its detail, ahtoughit is not "easy"to read.ProfessorSmithoffers some unorthodox albeit brilliantly researched and presentedideas. His call for a new mannerof "imagining religion" and suggestions for ways of accomplishing this are stimulating and well worth the effort of working through the book. THOMAS E. DOWDY
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Massachusetts

The authorbegins what he himselfterms a treatise by proposing that there be a shift from the dominant (and sole) metaparadigm- the secularizedparadigm - in the social sciences to a new holistic Quinneymeans "the By metaparadigm. metaparadigm broad level of unquestioned presuppositions" which undergird theory and guide research in the social sciences. Probablythere will be little disagreementwith his description of the present metaparadigm, but one will wonderswhetherQuinney'snew metaparadigm be met with a rejection worse than disagreement namely, indifference.For, his proposal comes across with neither clarity nor cogency. Quinney'smetaparadigmwoulddo away with the old separationbetween the sacredand the secular,between this-worldlyand transcendentalconcerns, and replace the assumed rightness of capitalism with a Marxist model of society. It is extremely difficult to reviewthis book,becauseone strains to imposea unity that is not there. Quinney's attempt to relate phenomenology, existentialism, Marxism, nature religion,and socialist revolutiondoes not succeed.But then, he is writing about his presuppositions,and can one fault him that they appear arbitraryand that he leaves the reader unconvinced that there is among them an "elective affinity" (to use the classic phrase)? One could go on to examine Quinney'sconcept of social existence and criticize him for his reificationof society. Onecouldmentionone's exasperationwith the sheer abstractionismof this book. Can he never give an exampleof what he is talking about? Isn't it ironic that a sociologist, which Quinney is, can ignore the need for empiricalreferents!But these are comments tangential to the centralcriticism this reviewerwould make of this book:it is at once too long and too short. Too long because it is repetitious; too short because it never gets beyond asserting the point that social science needs a new set of presuppositions (or metaparadigm),and that in the writings of certain philosophersand theologiansand in the actions of cerwe revolutionaries can findpointers tain contemporary to what these presuppositions should be. Quinney asserts but he develops no logical argument.He gives us his vision of the good society, but he does not flesh it out, nor does he tell us how it will be achieved;that is, in a way that gets beyond an ideologicalstance into philosophicalor sociologicalanalysis. As it stands, the material in this book would make a good journal article; as a modern summa it falls flat. Yet one sympathizes with the kind of integration of fields of knowledge which the book's sub-title denotes, and with the yearning for the synthesis of