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Inside the Christian religious frame, pilgrimage may be said to represent the quintessence
of voluntary liminality. In this, again, [pilgrims] follow the paradigm of the via crucis, in
which Jesus Christ voluntarily submitted his will to the will of God and chose martyrdom
rather than mastery over man, death for the other, not death of the other.1
FortheTurners,pilgrimageasaliminoidphenomenonheldbothanthropologicalandtheologicalimplications.
It established the relationship of this popular and material religious practice to more institutional forms of
Christianity while at the same time suggesting a new theological interpretation of pilgrimage not primarily
as penitential, but as an imitation of the voluntary nature of Christ. It is not only the seriousness with which
the Turners’ treat pilgrim practices, but also their reverence, that has made this text a foundational work
for both religious scholars and theologians. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture stands as an early
example of the intersection between practical theology and scholarship on religious practices, inspiring
work in both fields. The influence of this monograph can be felt even here on the pages of Practical Matters
Issue 9: Sacred Places, Sacred Journeys. In this issue, our contributors continue to broaden and expand this
conversation begun by the Turners by raising new questions about the way sacred journeys and sacred sites
situate themselves within contemporary cultures.
Sacred spaces and sacred journeys
Hillary Kaell’s Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies speaks to the state of the field of Pilgrimage
Studies. Highlighting both the inherent benefits and risks of a disciplinary pursuit that has been marked
from the beginning by a deep intersection between scholars and practitioners, Kaell suggests that the real
potential of Pilgrimage Studies lies in its interdisciplinary contributions to fields both within and beyond
Religious Studies. Kaell’s predictions bear out across the pages of this issue as scholars introduce scholarship
on sacred spaces and sacred journeys into a variety of discussions on tourism, leisure, and travel.
Thomas Bremer, Daniel Olsen, and James Bielo all work to blur the boundaries between pilgrimage
and tourism and between religion and economics. Bremer argues that distinctions between tourism and
pilgrimage are often difficult to uphold in practice. By tracing the history of travel to Yellowstone National
Park, he argues convincingly that that the meaningfulness or sacredness of a place is often constructed
through both religion and commerce. Daniel Olsen resists dominant voices that tend to focus on the ways
religion is repackaged or commodified for consumption and instead explores the way the Mormon Church
has embraced tourism to its religious sites as part of their evangelical mission. By introducing readers to the
“Christian leisure industry,” James Bielo also resists the narrative that pits commodification against religious
purity. Bielo suggests that these bible-based attractions ought to be observed as hybrid places that integrate
“religion and entertainment, piety and play, fun and faith, commerce and devotion, pleasure and education”
and that such a shift in understanding requires a corresponding shift in methodology for those who would
study such practices.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-6-320.jpg)
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time. However, my point also runs deeper than that. The burgeoning subfield of Pilgrimage Studies is deeply
shaped by an engagement between practitioners and scholars; it informs which questions and assumptions
are foregrounded or excluded. Discussing failure, for example, may be deeply problematic as a result. While
this fruitful/fitful coexistence of scholars and practitioners is relevant to all branches of Religious Studies, it
is especially important in Pilgrimage Studies since its resurgence in the last decade.
At one level, this close association between practitioners and scholars is to be expected, especially in
work on Christianity, my field of expertise. The study of pilgrimage was greatly shaped by (even born out of)
the 1978 publication of Victor and Edith Turner’s aforementioned Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture,
a great anthropological work that dovetailed with the couple’s own conversion to Roman Catholicism. More
recently, the growing interest in pilgrimage among white, middle-class North Americans and Europeans has
been driving many (North American and European) scholars’ interest in the topic. The Camino de Santiago
in Spain is a primary example of the rather spectacular resurgence of older pilgrimages.
The Euro/American rise in pilgrimages has drawn scholars’ attention in part because it seems to address
the (supposed) anomie of post-modernity. As a recent volume puts it, “the pilgrim…represents the human
being in its closest relationship with nature, something which is difficult to achieve nowadays thanks to
advances in technology…For this reason walking is increasingly valued, both in its purely mechanical
form…and also in its form in which the walker has a goal, we might almost say a destiny, as is the case with
pilgrimages.”8
Although this passage is framed as a general statement, the author clearly has in mind the
Camino and other ‘renewed’ walking routes.
Pilgrimage’s new place of cultural prominence has also meant that more scholars (caught up in the
zeitgeist) have had important personal experiences as pilgrims—often on the Camino—that have led them
to undertake its study. George Greenia, director of the Institute for Pilgrimage Studies at William and
Mary College, is a good example. So is Ian S. McIntosh, an Indiana University-Purdue University expert on
aboriginal rights and reconciliation, who has recently begun leading interfaith walks and co-organizing an
international pilgrimage conference.9
The third such conference, “Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimages in the 21st
Century,” meets in Prague in May 2016. The organizers pointedly welcome proposals from pilgrims and
religious leaders and frame the main topics of discussion such that they reflect important emic assumptions
related to transformation. The first topic—“Defining Pilgrimage”—begins,
‘Travel for transformation’ embraces the sacred journey as a potential turning point in one’s
life. Witness the avalanche of books by pilgrims who have experienced the Camino, or
those who have been influenced by the transformation of others….Questions arise as to
how and when a journey becomes ‘sacred’ and how and when pilgrimage devolves into a
mere tourist endeavour, and what constitutes an ‘authentic’ pilgrim…
Reflecting McIntosh’s interests, the next topic posits that pilgrimage can “Reinforc[e] the Vision of the
Ultimate Unity of Humanity,” citing Greenia’s “insight that ‘pilgrimages generate the least violent mass public
gatherings [that] humankind has designed for itself’...”10
While the Sacred Journeys conference organizers](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-12-320.jpg)
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to connect our work on pilgrimage to larger questions in scholars’ respective disciplines and more broadly,
in Religious Studies. Doing so helps push us beyond the synoptic vision of a “canon” and the gate-keeping
institutions that concern Eade and Albera.
To my mind, some of the liveliest current conversations are those that engage ideas about ritual creativity
and the secular, such as Anna Fedele’s Looking for Mary Magdalene (2012). Recent work on secularism
in Religious Studies can glean much from Pilgrimage Studies, which has debated questions about space,
secularity, and the sacred since the early 1990s. Ian Reader and Tony Walter’s well-known 1993 volume on
popular pilgrimages, taken together with David Chidester and Edward Linenthal’s 1991 book on sacred
space, has informed numerous studies that use the pilgrimage idiom to push the boundaries of what we
think of as religion.17
Pilgrimage lends itself well to such analyses since it is usually lay-centered and often
takes pilgrims well beyond clearly demarcated or authorized religious zones (on the journey, if not the
destination). Excellent case studies of the relationship between official and popular forms of piety have been
highly developed by scholars of Islam in work on ziyara, the visits to local saints’ shrines that are under
increasing attack from Islamic reformers.18
As Religious Studies scholar Thomas Bremer has recently noted, pilgrimage and tourism studies
potentially reorient static ideas of religion even further by helpfully “setting aside lexical and intuitive (‘I
know it when I see it’) definitions of religion that rely on essentialist assumptions; instead [they] highlight
a more performative, constructivist view...”19
Scholars have long used pilgrimage as a jumping off point to
explore practices teetering on the edge of the secular, including motorcycle trips, the Burning Man festival,
or “esoteric” journeys to New Age sites like Mount Shasta.20
Other scholars push the idiom of pilgrimage,
and thus “the sacred,” further to include visiting national parks or whitewater kayaking.21
An especially
promising line of work has been Simon Coleman’s sophisticated and ongoing theorization of pilgrimage as a
“lateral” ritual, where participants both affirm and yet distance themselves from official structures. Coleman
argues that pilgrimage may therefore exemplify how people in Western societies interact with religion in
ways that are increasingly episodic, short, but intense.22
Aesthetics, value-making, and performativity also connect with economics in work on pilgrimage.
In my field of American religion, this intersection is a potentially fruitful addition to a recent wave of
studies about market capitalism. In my own work, for example, I explore the business of pilgrimage. More
particularly, I am interested not only in how tours are structured by companies and government bodies, but
in the actual moments when money changes hands in the Holy Land, as well as the discursive use of the
term “commercialized” as American pilgrims seek to draw distinctions between self and other.23
Another
recent example, by social anthropologist Tea Virtanen, uses moral economy as a theoretical framework to
discuss the hajj among Mbororo pastoralists in Cameroon. Cattle are a core constituent of their lives and
thus of the hajj, which they make by virtue of selling their stock; indeed, Virtanen argues that Mbororo
Islam inextricably incorporates cattle within it as a sign of divine blessing and a practical sacrifice on Allah’s
behalf. Thus conceptualizations of pilgrimage are fundamentally linked to (moral) economic activity that is
embedded within broader Mbororo understandings of the world.24
Studies of pilgrimage ought to move towards more sophisticated analyses of economy, as evident in
Virtanen’s work. We must also recognize, to quote Bremer again, how “things deemed religious involve](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-14-320.jpg)
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Theory 2 (2002): 355-68. See page 358. There are some exceptions that did follow up with pilgrims after the trip, at
least by trading some letters, including Anna Fedele, Looking for Mary Magdalene: Alternative Pilgrimage and Ritual
Creativity at Catholic Shrines in France (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Nancy Frey, Pilgrim Stories: On and
Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1998). Fewer still have also worked with pilgrims before departure.
4 Frey, Pilgrim Stories, 191.
5 I tell this story in more detail in Walking Where Jesus Walked:American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage
(New York University Press 2014), 170-175.
6 Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions [1997] (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), x,
102, 248.
7 I should note that it is very difficult to gauge how often this situation occurs since former pilgrims who
experience a sense of failure may opt out of post-trip interviews. When people opted out, it was usually through their
silence and I never knew why.
8 Antón M. Pazos, Pilgrims and Pilgrimages as Peacemakers in Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Farnham,
UK: Ashgate 2013), 1-2.
9 Kanwal Prakash Singh, “A Modern-Day Pilgrimage: The Interfaith Walk in Indianapolis,” Sikhchic.com,
30 October 2012. Accessed 12 November 2015. https://sikhchic.com/current_events/a_modernday_pilgrimage_the_
interfaith_walk_in_indianapolis
10 Ian McIntosh and Rob Fisher, “Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimages in the 21st Century, 3rd Global Meeting:
Call for Participation 2016” Inter-Disciplinary.net, Accessed 12 November 2015. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/
probing-the-boundaries/persons/sacred-journeys/call-for-presentations/
There is a stream of social scientific work on pilgrimage that also focuses on interfaith relations. See for example
Glenn Bowman, ed. Sharing the sacra: the politicsand pragmatics of inter-communal relations around holy places
(London: Berghahn Books, 2012).
11 In Europe and Israel, the two areas beyond North America with which I have some familiarity, more
universities maintain departments of tourism studies. Scholars in this field often work closely with government or
local stakeholders to address the challenges of ‘managing’ sacred sites. Their goals may include trying to learn how to
encourage pilgrimage and make it more profitable (monetarily, ideologically, etc.).
12 Cf. Simon Coleman, “The Janus Face of Pilgrimage,” in Pazos, ed. Pilgrims and Pilgrimages as Peacemakers
in Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2013). Publications about marketing and managing
pilgrimage are too numerous to detail here and not my own area of expertise. Such studies are especially prevalent
among researchers working in business management, often outside of Europe and North America. They are not
generally in conversation with scholars grouped ‘Pilgrimage Studies.’ Typical recent examples include Farooq Haq
and Ho Yin Wong, “Branding Islamic Spiritual Tourism: An Exploratory Study in Australia and Pakistan” European](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-16-320.jpg)
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I could but admire the modestly beautiful little cataract hid away in this lonely yet lovely
solitude, where it would not be observed by the curious hundreds passing near, and I
returned to camp feeling myself a better man, and meditating upon the greatness, wisdom,
and goodness of Nature’s God.2
Such spiritual revelry, though, paled when he reached the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. After an
arduous climb down to the river’s edge deep in the chasm, Stanley and his companions felt the sublime
power of the canyon’s magnificence:
[W]e were awed into silence and reverence, feeling that we were in the very antechamber
of the great God of Nature, and that he was talking to us and teaching us lessons of his
greatness, his grandeur, and his glory, that human language must ever fail to express. A
sense of the awful pervades the mind, and we almost felt that we were trespassing upon
sacred ground. I felt like baring the head and bowing the knee to One who could pile up
rocks in such stupendous majesty, and carve and paint them in such matchless splendor,
“who cutteth out rivers among the rocks;” “who holdeth the waters in the hollow of his
hand,” and spreadeth them out in such grandeur and beauty. “Great and marvelous are thy
works, Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”3
Rev. Stanley’s experience in Yellowstone, though, was not all spiritual elevation. His moments of awe-
inspiring piety were punctuated by evidences of a frightening underworld bubbling up in the park’s thermal
features. He recalled images from John Bunyan’s popular Protestant allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress as his
party toured the boiling lakes of the Lower Geyser Basin:
Could we but have heard the cries of the tormented, Bunyan’s picture of the pit in the
side of the hill which the pilgrims were shown by the shepherds on their way to the Celestial
City, where they “looked in and saw that it was very dark and smoky;” thought that they
“heard a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry of some tormented, and that they smelt the
fumes of brimstone,” would have been complete.4
Yet,suchfrighteningevocationsoftheinfernalregionsnotwithstanding,Stanleypredictedthepopularappeal
among future spiritual seekers of the park’s geysers, hot springs, and bubbling mud pots. With rapturous
enthusiasm he recounted his tour of the Upper Geyser Basin, “the centre of attraction in the National Park,”
where, he surmised, “in future years, not far hence, either, the philosophers and tourists, and the lovers of
the sublime and the wonderful in Nature, will gather from all countries and climes to make investigation, to
behold and wonder, and even worship at Nature’s shrine.”5
Yellowstone would soon become, as this itinerant
minister of God rightly predicted, a pilgrimage shrine of international repute.
At “Nature’s shrine” in the precincts of Yellowstone National Park, Edwin Stanley encountered what he
regarded as an authentic spiritual experience of divine reality. He was not alone in finding God in nature’s
marvelous attractions. In fact, Stanley’s sojourn to Yellowstone typified a nineteenth-century Christian piety
inclined toward a reverence for nature and encouraged by the commercial interests of a tourist economy.
This confluence of piety and profiteering, of course, was nothing new in the annals of religious travel:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-20-320.jpg)
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that end, responsibility for the park is granted to the Secretary of the Interior with a duty to “provide for
the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders
within said park, and their retention in their natural condition.”21
Thus, Yellowstone’s enabling legislation
emphasizes both public enjoyment and perpetual preservation of park resources “in their natural condition,”
burdening the Secretary with an impossible task of self-contradictory goals: retaining Yellowstone’s wonders
in their natural condition, it seems, would preclude the presence of people who have come to experience
a pleasuring-ground set aside for their benefit and enjoyment. Fulfilling this difficult challenge requires
intense management of the park and its resources as well as policing the visitors who arrive by the millions
each year.
The Yellowstone Shrine
People travel to Yellowstone with a variety of motives and interests, nearly all having to do with nature.
Some come for the stunning vistas of mountain scenery, others for the curious spectacles of thermal features,
while yet others are captivated by the allure of wild animals in their natural habitats or the adventure of
pitting oneself against the challenges of a wild land.22
And similar to most pilgrimage destinations, the
difficulty of the journey heightens the attractiveness of this authentic western place. Yellowstone is not
conveniently located near major population centers, and getting there requires some planning and effort.23
But modern transportation makes the journey far easier than it was in the early days of the park. In fact,
the history of development in the park centers around convenience, comfort, and safety of visitors, but an
authentic aesthetic of rustic proportions remains an appealing attraction for many people who arrive in the
Yellowstone wilds.24
Before the railroads offered service to the park, visitors arrived on horseback or on foot. Yet despite
the difficulties and dangers involved in getting there, visitors were touring Yellowstone even before the
establishment of the national park in 1872. A report from that year discussing relations with Indians in
Montana notes, “Even on the Yellowstone, which is considered the most dangerous and exposed portion of
the Territory, tourists and parties of pleasure, (in one case including ladies,) were safely traveling to and fro
during last summer [1871], and examining with delight and astonishment, the geysers, hot springs, canyons,
waterfalls and mud volcanoes of this most wonderful of all places on the earth.”25
Accommodating these
visitors was in fact an early priority for the park. Ferdinand V. Hayden, head of the U.S. Geological Survey of
the Territories, included in the maps drawn during the official expeditions that he led to Yellowstone in 1871
and 1872 recommendations for “five localities where buildings could be erected for the accommodations of
visitors. These localities could be leased to suitable persons for a term of years. They are in close proximity
to the principal curiosities in the Park.”26
Visitor accommodations likewise were among the earliest concerns
of the national park’s first superintendent, Nathaniel P. Langford, who noted the numerous requests he had
received for permission to put up small hotels in the new park. He remained cautious, though, about rushing
headlong into development projects, preferring instead to put off any plans until a thorough survey of the
park could be conducted. In his initial response in May 1872, to the Secretary of the Interior acknowledging
his appointment as park superintendent, Langford stated, “I do not think it best to grant many leases for](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-23-320.jpg)
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hotels &c., nor these for a long time:— but at least one stopping place for tourists should be put up this
year.” In seeking clarification of his authority as superintendent, he asked the Secretary in the same letter if
his powers included authorization “to make all necessary regulations for the building of one public house,
or more if needed, and generally, for the protection of the rights of visitors [specifically against exorbitant
tolls on private roads], and the establishment of such rules as will conduce to their comfort and pleasure.”27
Without clear guidance from Washington and lacking funds to manage the park, development in
Yellowstone was negligible in the early years. Getting to Yellowstone remained a daunting adventure through
much of the nineteenth century. Philetus Norris, the park’s second superintendent, argues in his 1877 report
for the need to develop better routes to Yellowstone:
The permanent opening of this great natural route from the North and East, and the
assured extension, of the Northern, Utah road, into, at least, the Snake river valley, from
the South, will develop rivalry in excursion tickets, from all the important cities, of the
Nation, inviting teeming throngs of tourists, to the bracing air, the healing, bathing pools,
and matchless beauties of the ‘Wonder Land.’28
Even after the railroads laid tracks right up to the entrances of the park, the first in 1882 with the initial
Northern Pacific Railroad terminus at Cinnabar, Montana (later moved a short way to Gardiner, Montana,
adjacent to the north entrance of the park), a visit to Yellowstone remained a bit of an ordeal. As one visitor
in the 1890s complained, his Yellowstone trip “would have been far more comfortable if there had been
less dust, fewer mosquitoes, and better roads.”29
Another commentator, Carter Harrison, the former mayor
of Chicago who toured Yellowstone in 1890, observed that the carriages transporting tourists throughout
the park were not able to follow too closely to each other, “For at times the dust on some of the reads is
very deep, causing passengers in some of the vehicles to be choked and rendered very uncomfortable.”30
Overcrowded hotels was another of his complaints: “At such times one is compelled to take a bed in a room
with several others and may even be forced to crowd two in a bed.”31
Harrison’s summary assessment notes
the unevenness of available accommodations in Yellowstone during his 1890 visit:
The hotels at Mammoth Hot Springs and at Yellowstone canyon are large, each capable
of housing two or three hundred guests. The beds are clean and soft, the table fair and
the attendance quite good. At Norris, the hotel is poor and the managers are impolite. At
the Lower and at the Upper Geyser Basin, the houses are unfinished, and the rooms not
sufficient in number, but the people do their best to please. This endeavor should cover a
multitude of sins.32
A good number of nineteenth-century visitors did not avail themselves of hotel offerings, preferring
instead (either from aesthetic preference or financial necessity) to enjoy a more rustic experience. During
his visit in 1890, Carter Harrison mentions that he saw many parties who “take tents and enjoy a regular
roughing life.”33
For some people of means, though, “roughing it” included considerable help. Harrison’s
account notes that some parties “have a number of attendants who generally go ahead to prepare the camps
for the night, while the tourists loiter along the way to inspect the marvels or to botanize.”34
For at least a few](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-24-320.jpg)
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exemplifies the confluence of devotional travel and trade: “The great-house sites were scenes of pilgrimage fairs where
visitors consumed goods and services under a ritual metaphor”—Nancy J. Akins, “Chaco Canyon Mortuary Practices:
Archaeological Correlates of Complexity “ in Ancient Burial Practices in the American Southwest : Archaeology, Physical
Anthropology, and Native American Perspectives, ed. Douglas R. Mitchell and Judy L. Brunson-Hadley (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 167.
7 For an overview of place and identity in geographical studies, see Marco Antonsich, “Meanings of Place and
Aspects of the Self: An Interdisciplinary and Empirical Account,” GeoJournal 75, no. 1 (2010). In my own earlier work
on place and space as analytical categories, I noted the commonplace idea (at least among cultural geographers and
others interested in the social constructions of space) that “the making of place always involves the making of identities,
and, conversely, the construction of identity always involves the construction of place.” See Thomas S. Bremer, Blessed
with Tourists: The Borderlands of Religion and Tourism in San Antonio (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2004), 4-5.
8 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 20.
9 Michael Stausberg notes that “religion in various forms is present on the itineraries of other forms of tourism
[besides ‘religious/spiritual tourism’] including but not limited to cultural tourism, diaspora tourism, ecotourism,
heritage, urban, and wellness tourism”— see Michael Stausberg, Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations,
and Encounters (New York: Routledge, 2011), 28. Similarly, Alex Norman draws attention to the sometimes blurred
distinction between tourist and spiritual seeker in his study of “spiritual tourism,” which he recognizes in circumstances
involving “a tourist who undertakes a spiritual practice or seeks spiritual progression in the course of their travels,
usually with the intention of gaining ‘spiritual benefit’”—see Alex Norman, Spiritual Tourism: Travel and Religious
Practice in Western Society (New York: Continuum, 2011), 17.
10 A version of this argument appears in Thomas S. Bremer, “Consider the Tourist,” in The Wiley-Blackwell
Companion to Material Religion, ed. Manuel A. Vásquez and Vasudha Narayanan (Wiley-Blackwell, (forthcoming,
expected publication in 2016).
11 Russell T. McCutcheon, The Discipline of Religion: Structure, Meaning, Rhetoric (New York: Routledge, 2003),
186.
12 An expanded version of this point is made in Bremer, “Consider the Tourist.”
13 R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994), 5.
14 Bremer, Blessed with Tourists: 6.
15 Lynn Ross-Bryant, Pilgrimage to the National Parks: Religion and Nature in the United States (New York:
Routledge, 2013), 4.
16 Ibid., 5.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-28-320.jpg)
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17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 5-6.
19 Ibid., 6.
20 Mark Daniel Barringer emphasizes the commercial interests in park management; he contends that “parks
like Yellowstone were the sites of some of the most intensive commercial activity in the American west”—see Mark
Daniel Barringer, Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
2002), 7.
21 A transcript of the 1872 Yellowstone Act can be viewed at http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_
books/anps/anps_1c.htm.
22 Two significant and overlapping appeals that drew nineteenth-century visitors to national parks, and are still
relevantmotivationsformanyvisitorseventoday,were“promotionsandadvertisementsthatconstructednationalparks
as places of natural curiosities and nationalist vistas of canyons and waterfalls—uniquely American ‘wonderlands’—
but also . . . those that portrayed the parks as ideal representations of spiritually uplifting nature preserved, protected
from the corrupting effects of development”—see Barringer, Selling Yellowstone: 35.
23 Salt Lake City, Utah, is just over 300 miles away, and the slightly larger city of Boise, Idaho is nearly 400
hundred miles from Yellowstone; Denver, Colorado, the twenty-first largest city in the United States, is more than 600
miles away.
24 For a history of development of Yellowstone accommodations, see ibid.
25 James Richard Boyce Sr., Facts About Montana Territory and the Way to Get There (Helena: Rocky Mountain
Gazette, 1872), 8.
26 Hayden points out his recommended sites for development in a letter of February 9, 1874 to Hon. C. Delano
[Secretary of the Interior]; a typescript copy of the letter is in the Horace Marden Albright Papers, 1918-1972 (Collection
2056), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles:
Box 27.
27 A typescript copy of the May 20, 1872 letter from N. P. Langford to Hon. C. Delano, Secretary of the Interior,
is in the Horace Marden Albright Papers, 1918-1972 (Collection 2056), Department of Special Collections, Charles E.
Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles: Box 27.
28 These conclusions from his 1877 Superintendent’s report appear in a manuscript copy of Philetus Norris, “The
Great West. Introductory to a Journal of Rambles over Mountains and Plains,” available in the manuscript collection of
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
29 CharlesJ.Gillis,AnotherSummer:TheYellowstoneParkandAlaska (NewYork:Printedforprivatedistribution,
1893), 29.
30 Carter H. Harrison, A Summer’s Outing and the Old Man’s Story (Chicago: Dibble Publishing, 1891), 61.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-29-320.jpg)
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in part because religious prescriptions and proscriptions have long affected the types of activities in which
people choose to engage in during their leisure time, and also affect why people travel, where they travel to,
and the activities in which people engage as tourists.5
Religion has long affected how hospitable cultures are
to strangers, what constitutes appropriate dress in religious spaces, the creation of gendered religious spatial
practices, and the use of aesthetics to enhance religious experiences at sacred sites as well.6
However, very few religious faiths outside of the Roman Catholic Church have articulated a specific
“theology of tourism” which “examine[s] the religious meaning, justification, or legitimation of tourism and
relate[s] it to broader religious goals and aspirations.”7
This is also odd considering that most major world
religions have some sort of doctrinal basis for pilgrimage travel. In some cases pilgrimage is a required
element of religious worship, whether it is essential for a happier afterlife or for initiatory purposes.8
But
even faiths that do not fully embrace the notion of pilgrimage in its traditional sense, such as Protestantism,
usually have informal pilgrimage-like practices that take place among their adherents.9
As well, religious
communities have also long used their religious sites and culture to educate non-believers of their religious
values and as a way to gain new converts, such as the Shakers in the nineteenth century and The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the present day.10
Also, with millions of people visiting religious sites
and sites related to the history of different belief systems,11
religious leaders not only have had to come to
terms with how to deal with the non-adherents that visit their religious and historical sites but also with
how to engage in pastoral or outreach activities for those within their congregations who are “on the move”
recreating themselves through recreational and tourism pursuits.12
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints use tourism as a medium to further the religious goals and mission of their faith. While leaders of
LDS Church have not promulgated a specific “theology of tourism,” and, like Protestants, feel that “Neither
shrines nor pilgrimages are a part of true worship as practiced by the true saints....[T]here is no thought that
some special virtue will attach to worship by performing [pilgrimage to sacred sites],”13
they recognize, as
do Church members, the existence of sacred spaces and have long held that certain places are more holy or
sacred than others.14
As such, every year thousands of Church members travel to places associated with the
history and practice of the Church, whether that travel involves attending Church-run pageants or pioneer
re-enactment treks, taking tours related to Book of Mormon lands or to the Holy Land, viewing Christmas
displays at Temple Square and Church headquarters in Salt Lake City, or participating in informal worship
and ritual activities away from home, such as performing temple rituals at different temples throughout
the world, being baptised in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania where Church founder Joseph Smith
was first baptised, or having a prayer meeting in the Sacred Grove where Joseph Smith experienced his first
theophany.15
[Insert Map 1 here]
While I have written elsewhere on the travel motivations and patterns of Church members and how
Church leaders use tourism to their historical sites and temples—which uses revolve around the key
themes of hospitality, remembering and witnessing, proselytizing, and outreach16
—in this paper
I wish to delve a little deeper to examine particular aspects of Latter-day Saint religious belief that might](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-32-320.jpg)
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While Church leaders have long focused on active proselytization as a means of spreading the
messageoftheChurchtoothers,tourismhasbecomeanothervehiclethroughwhichChurchmessagescanbe
disseminated. In particular, hospitality towards non-Mormon visitors has long played a key role in fulfilling
the Church’s mission of proclaiming the gospel. In addition to hospitality being a religious responsibility in
the Old and New Testaments,38
specific modern revelations to the Church relating to hospitality have been
given. For example, in 1841 a revelation was given to the Church to build a boarding house or hotel where
visitors to Nauvoo, Illinois who were interested in learning more about the Church could rest.39
According
to Hyrum Smith and Janne Sjodhal, “this revelation proves that the Lord wanted the tourists of the world to
visit and become acquainted with the Saints. [They] were not to be surrounded by a wall of isolation. They
had nothing to hide from the world.”40
Hospitality as a way of spreading the gospel message was also practiced in Salt Lake City. The
establishment of the Church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City and the building of the Salt Lake Temple in the
city center was seen by Church leaders as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy where “in the last days…the
mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the
hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in
his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”41
Tourists were
seen as one of the groups that would travel to the “tops of the mountains,” and as such the Latter-day Saints
have a responsibility to be hospitable and courteous to visitors who, according to this scripture, will actively
come to Salt Lake City to see the “house of the God of Jacob,” as well as a responsibility to prepare to receive
those who seek to learn the “word of the Lord” through visiting the Lord’s house. Thus, when curious visitors
came to Salt Lake City soon after the Church was established in Salt Lake City Church leaders not only
actively greeted and attempted to educate tourists, most of whom came with strong views and prejudices
against the Mormons, on the beliefs and culture of the Church and its members,42
but also helped build the
Hotel Utah to house these visitors from the east.43
As such, Church leaders continue to use tourism to educate the general public about the Church.
Throughout its history, the Latter-day Saint Church has weathered abuses from various media sources that
perpetuated stereotypes and falsehoods by focusing on the unique Latter-day Saint beliefs that differed
from other Christian groups, with the media often depicting Mormons as a group to be admired because
of their moral and social convictions but not “truly belong[ing] in mainstream society” or mainstream
Christianity.44
While public relations efforts have helped to improve the image of Mormonism over time,45
the fact that non-Mormons come to Salt Lake City and dozens of other Latter-day Saint heritage sites and
interpretive centres throughout the United States provides both fertile ground and a captive audience for
sharing its religious message and history to non-Mormon visitors.46
The expectation is that visitors who
come to these religious heritage sites will leave with at least a more correct understanding of the tenets of
the LDS Church, if not a desire to learn more about these beliefs by inviting Latter-day Saint missionaries to
their homes.47
Presently the Church owns and operates over thirty-five religious heritage sites and nineteen
interpretive centres, which stretch from Vermont to California.48
As mentioned earlier these sites and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-35-320.jpg)
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interpretive centres are staffed by the Missionary Department of the Church, which explains the missionary-
focused agenda at many of these sites.49
At some historical sites the proselytizing is overt, in that service
missionaries bear their “testimony” or “witness” to visitors as they take tours,50
while at Temple Square in
Salt Lake City the proselytizing is more passive, in that people are educated about the history and beliefs
of Mormonism and then invited to have Latter-day Saint missionaries visit them in their homes to learn
more about the Church without overt witnessing taking place.51
The fact that the Missionary Department
is responsible for the management and interpretation of these religious heritage centers demonstrates the
importance of these sites as a part of fulfilling the mission of proclaiming the gospel.52
Perfecting the Saints
According to Linda Charney, while people have different motivations for becoming members of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they all share three common experiences when they join.53
First, people interested in the Church meet with the Church’s full-time missionaries and go through a series
of lessons about the basic beliefs of the Church. Second, prospective members must demonstrate in a pre-
baptism interview that they are making an informed decision to be baptised of their own free will. Third,
every convert receives the ordinances of baptism and confirmation by authorised representatives of the
Church. However, the conversion process “implies not merely mental acceptance of Jesus and his teaching[s]
but also a motivating faith in him and his gospel—a faith which works a transformation, an actual change
in one’s understanding of life’s meaning and in his [sic] allegiance to God—in interest, in thought, and in
conduct.”54
The transformation part of the conversion process occurs through the gaining of a “testimony,”
which is “the sure knowledge, received by revelation from the Holy Ghost, of the divinity of the great latter-
day work.”55
Prospective converts are invited to pray to receive a spiritual witness through the Holy Ghost
of the truthfulness of the teachings of the Church,56
which witness, according to Bruce McConkie, revolves
around three great truths:57
• That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world;
• That Joseph Smith is the Prophet of God through whom the gospel was restored in this dispensation;
and
• That The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “the only true and living church upon the
face of the whole earth.”58
Receiving a spiritual witness of these truths through the Holy Ghost, then, is “the dominant element in the
Latter-day Saint understanding of conversion.”59
Conversion in the Latter-day Saint Church, therefore, is
more of an experiential process rather than a rational one.
Conversion to the Church is not precipitous,60
however, as spiritual transformation through
conversion is an ongoing process which continues throughout converts’ lives as they learn more about the
doctrines of the Church and conform their lives to the teachings of Christ. As a part of the baptismal process
individuals covenant to serve God and keep his commandments—in other words, to strive for holiness.61
Davies defines holiness as “the value attributed to a focal source of identity that furnishes the moral
meaning of life for members of a social group in a process that transcends ordinary levels of experience.”62](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-36-320.jpg)
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While Latter-day Saints believe that they are saved through the grace of Christ’s atonement, Latter-day
Saint understandings of soteriology (i.e., the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ) suggest that the
atonement “becomes operative in the life of an individual only on conditions of personal righteousness.”63
While “Latter-day Saints readily acknowledge that though [their] efforts to be righteous are necessary, they
will never be sufficient to save [them],”64
the importance of works leads Church members to strive to emulate
the behaviour and develop the characteristics of Christ.65
Latter-day Saints, therefore, feel strongly that their belief in Jesus Christ should translate into their
daily practice.66
Davies argues that this preoccupation with holiness through works serves as a foundation
through which Latter-day Saint identity is created and maintained. In particular, efforts at holiness create
a Latter-day Saint lifestyle and an identity that is related directly to aspects of embodiment, such as the
emphasis on modest dress, the activities they choose to engage in, the language they use, and the way in
which they treat others.67
As such, Church members believe in being “honest, virtuous, chaste, benevolent,
virtuous, and in doing good to all men [sic].”68
In taking on these virtues and behaving in a Christ-like
manner, Church members believe that they strengthen their testimonies of the gospel as restored through
the Prophet Joseph Smith and increase their desire to be holy.
Recreation is one of the ways in which Church members attempt to strengthen their faith. Church
leaders have long encouraged Church members to participate in wholesome recreational activities as a way
to relax from one’s labours.69
McConkie notes that recreation plays a vital role in the gospel of salvation,
as wholesome and proper recreation can be physically and spiritually edifying after one’s duties have
been fulfilled.70
An important recreational activity that many Church members participate in is travelling
with family members to religious heritage sites where important historical Church events took place.71
However, travel to religious heritage sites by Latter-day Saint adherents, as noted earlier, does not constitute
a “pilgrimage” in the traditional sense. Rather, travel by Church members tends to fit Lloyd Hudman
and Richard Jackson’s idea of “tourism pilgrimage,” which “describe[s] tourism that combines travel for
recreation or pleasure with religious beliefs, whether or not church doctrines promote pilgrimage.”72
Many
Church members, then, combine other recreational and tourism activities with visiting Church heritage
sites. As well, as noted earlier, some Church members also visit locations in Central America related to The
Book of Mormon and sites related to the life of Christ in the Holy Land.73
Increasing interest by Church members to travel to Church heritage sites stems in part from the
perspectives Latter-day Saints have on the role of history in the restoration of the Church.74
The maintenance
of these religious heritage sites by the Latter-day Saint Church, Steven Olsen argues, would occur even if no
one came to visit them,75
as they serve as reminders of God’s hand in guiding the Church to its present state.
Indeed, the historical events of the Church is seen in and of itself as evidence of “the living God-who-acts-
in-history.”76
Therefore, Latter-day Saints believe in a form of “salvation history”;77
that divine intervention
has played an important role in the restoration and establishment of the Church. As Douglas Tobler and
George Ellsworth note:
The foundations of the Church are grounded in a series of historic events, without which
the Restoration would be incomprehensible and impotent. Joseph Smith recorded many
visions and he received the gold plates from the angel Moroni, from which he translated](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-37-320.jpg)
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the Book of Mormon. There followed many revelations to Joseph Smith and to the prophets
who have succeeded him, revealing doctrines and applying eternal principles to existing
historical and individual situations. That living prophets receive revelation from God, who
is vitally interested in human needs in changing conditions, underscores the LDS view of
God’s continuing place in history.78
As such, part of the Latter-day Saint conversion process includes a belief in the reality of certain key authentic
historic events within the restoration of the Church. As Douglas Davies observes, “there are many Mormons
for whom the primal story of the Restoration does constitute the truth: a basic epistemology that furnishes
a template for history and for the stories of family life.”79
In essence, the early events of the restoration of the
Church play a critical role in the constitution of Latter-day Saint theology, with Latter-day Saint historians
bearing the burden of producing “theological history,” which in other religious faiths is a task left to full-time
theologians.80
While Church authorities have not explicitly stated that Church members should visit the religious
heritage sites the Church maintains, many Latter-day Saints desire to visit the places where many key
historicalrestorationeventstookplaceto“engagewiththematerialremnantsandremindersofthe[religious]
history through embodied memories of their engagement with the objects, buildings and narratives of
their theology.”81
Since the process of conversion and gaining a testimony is experiential in nature, coming
about through intangible qualitative, spiritual, or emotional experiences, “visiting Mormon historical sites,
museums [including art exhibits] and key buildings [have become] one way in which Mormons are able to
participate actively in their theology and cosmology.”82
Some of these visits to Church history sites are multi-
generational in nature, for the Church’s strong emphasis on the importance of family relationships leads
many Latter-day Saints to travel with immediate or extended family groups to Church religious heritage
sites. Family trips, as Charles Lee suggests, “help develop a sense of attachment to a destination and support
the notion that childhood travel with family members positively influences an individual’s attachment to a
destination”83
and also “assure[s] the passage of a given content of beliefs from one generation to another”
through grounding faith in sites of historical and religious significance.84
These visits to Church history sites are facilitated informally by Church leaders in a number of ways.
For example, the Church’s main website has a number of links that highlight the historic importance of a
variety of Church historic sites, pageants, and visitors’ centers, and interactive maps allow users to highlight
certain key areas of the United States and specific monuments or sites.85
As well, newer versions of Latter-
day Saint scriptures contain a series of maps that show the location of key heritage sites, in part acting as
tourist maps for those who wish to visit these sites as well as sanctifying these sites as sacred spaces.86
The
Church also sanctions a number of pageants, special celebrations related to important foundational events
of the Church—such as Pioneer Day which celebrates the entrance of Brigham Young and the Saints into
the Salt Lake Valley—and Church-sponsored pageants such as the Hill Cumorah pageant in New York,
held at the site where Joseph Smith obtained gold plates from which he translated The Book of Mormon,
which draws thousands of Latter-day Saints to these locations.87
Thus tourism serves a pastoral function for
Church leaders, using their religious heritage sites to recover and maintain Latter-day Saint identity.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-38-320.jpg)
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Redeeming the Dead
Latter-day Saint views of salvation go beyond accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ, being baptized and
receiving the Holy Ghost through the proper priesthood authority, and enduring to the end. To Latter-day
Saints, there is no monolithic state called heaven,88
for “if God rewarded every one according to the deeds
done in the body the term ‘Heaven’ as intended for the Saints’ eternal home, must include more kingdoms
than one.”89
Therefore, in Latter-day Saint thought there are various levels of salvation or heaven.90
The
rationale for this thinking stems in part from both Christ’s reference to his father’s kingdom having “many
mansions”91
and the writings of the apostle Paul about three bodies, these being compared to the sun, the
moon, and the stars in terms of glory or brilliance.92
Latter-day Saints believe that revelations given to Joseph
Smith provide additional information about these three glories, or “kingdoms” as they are referred to by
Latter-day Saints, to which everyone will be assigned depending on their levels of acceptance of Christ’s
gospel and reception of the saving ordinances while on earth.93
The highest degree of glory is the celestial glory or celestial kingdom, which will be the eternal
home for those who have accepted Christ’s gospel, been baptized, received the Holy Ghost, and endured
in righteousness while on earth.94
To achieve the highest level of this kingdom men and women must both
receive the “endowment” (discussed below) and be “sealed” together in marriage for eternity.95
Within
this kingdom there are different “privileges and powers.”96
For example, Latter-day Saints believe that in
attaining this highest glory—sometimes referred to as “exaltation”—they can become Gods and have an
“increase” or have spirit children of their own in the eternities.97
The second glory, the “terrestrial” glory,98
is a place for those who either received the testimony of Jesus but were not sufficiently obedient to God’s
commandments,99
or those who “died without the law” but who lived honourable lives while on earth.100
The
“telestial kingdom” is reserved for those who rejected Christ’s gospel and did not live honourable lives.101
While Latter-day Saint missionary efforts focus on sharing the Plan of Salvation to people in the
present, the questions arises as to what happens to people who do not get an opportunity to hear the Plan
of Salvation during their time on earth and do not receive the saving ordinances? One of the distinctive
doctrines of the Church is that when men and women die, their spirits go to a spirit world, “a time between
death and the resurrection when men and women can continue their progression and further learn principles
of perfection before they are brought to the final judgment.”102
In essence, this spirit world is an extension
of mortal life.103
Joseph Smith taught that those in the spirit world “converse together the same as we do on
the earth,”104
and McConkie adds that “life and work and activity all continue in the spirit world. Men [sic]
have the same talents and intelligence there which they had in this life. They possess the same attitudes,
inclinations, and feelings there which they had in this life.”105
Church doctrine holds that in the spirit world “every man, woman, and child who has ever lived
or whoever will live on this earth will have full opportunity, if not in this life then in the next, to embrace
or reject the gospel in its purity and fullness.”106
This is made possible, according to Latter-day Saint belief,
from a visit Jesus Christ made to this spirit world which occurred during the time between his death and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-39-320.jpg)
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resurrection. During this visit, he inaugurated the preaching of the gospel to those who had not had the
opportunity to hear it while living.107
He organised the faithful spirits who had already accepted Christ’s
gospel in mortal life to preach the gospel to those who had not had a chance to receive it. From that time
until the present, Christ’s gospel has been
…preached to those who [have] died in their sins, without a knowledge of the truth, or
in transgression, having rejected the prophets.
These [are] taught faith in God, repentance from sin, vicarious baptism for the remission
of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands,
And all other principles of the gospel that [are] necessary for them to know in order
to qualify themselves that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live
according to God in the spirit.108
This doctrine of salvation for the dead, according to Joseph Smith, demonstrates the great justice and divine
compassion of God: “One dies and is buried having never heard the gospel of reconciliation; to the other
the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one
become the partaker of glory and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition?…Such an idea is worse than
atheism.”109
WhilethegospelofJesusChristmightbepreachedtospiritsinthespiritworld,atthesametimethese
spirits need to have the saving ordinances of the priesthood performed on their behalf, as these ordinance
must be performed on those living on earth. Most of the sacred ordinances pertaining to the salvation of
both the living and the dead are performed in Latter-day Saint temples.110
Temples are deemed the most
sacred spaces in the Church,111
and only Church members who meet standards of personal worthiness
and religious living are allowed to enter.112
Temples differ from regular meeting houses in that they are
reserved for initiatory-type activities that focus on making sacred covenants, whereas meeting houses or
chapels are reserved for weekly Church and Sabbath-day worship activities. While meeting houses are the
most dominant physical symbol of an established Mormon presence in an area,113
the building of a temple
changes the status of a city or area in the eyes of Latter-day Saint members and establishes an ideological and
physical center of the surrounding Mormon community.114
Currently there are 173 temples in operation,
under construction, or whose construction has been announced.115
Within each temple there are rooms for different kinds of ordinances. A large baptismal font on
the backs of twelve oxen is used to perform baptisms for the dead.116
This practice stems from a Latter-day
Saint reading of 1 Corinthians 15:29, where the apostle Paul, in arguing for a future resurrection, wrote “Else
what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for
the dead?”117
Church members, acting as agents or proxy, are baptised for people who have died. Another
ordinance is the “endowment”, which is a “ritual drama” where Church members are instructed “in theory,
in principle, and in doctrine”118
pertaining to the Plan of Salvation, which, John Widtsoe argues, “makes
temple worship one of the most effective methods of refreshing the memory concerning the entire structure](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-40-320.jpg)
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of the gospel.”119
The endowment also includes Church members entering into a number of covenants, which
include the “covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent,
tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the
[human] race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the
great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive…Jesus Christ.”120
An additional ordinance
performed in LDS temples is the sealing ordinance, where husbands and wives and their children are sealed
to each other in eternal family units.121
Referred to as eternal or celestial marriage, this ordinance is seen as
the culminating ordinance of the LDS priesthood and allows families to remain together for the eternities
and not just “until death do you part”. Even though these ordinances are done on behalf of those who are
deceased, those for whom the ordinances have been performed have the agency in the spirit world to either
accept or reject those ordinances.122
Once Church members perform the endowment and the marriage
sealing for themselves, they return to temples often to perform these ordinances for the dead.
In many ways the doctrine of salvation of the dead kindles a motivation in Latter-day Saints to search
out their ancestral family so they can perform these saving ordinances on their behalf.123
This motivation is
sometimes referred to as the “spirit of Elijah” by Church members, in reference to the prophecy in the Old
Testament where in the last days the prophet Elijah “will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the
heart of the children to the fathers.”124
To Latter-day Saints, doing genealogy is a commandment. As Dallen
Oaks points out, “[Latter-day Saints] are not hobbyists in genealogy work. We do family history work in
order to provide the ordinances of salvation for the living and the dead”.125
As such, thousands of Church
members travel to Salt Lake City to do in-depth genealogical research at the Church’s Family History Library
or one of the Church’s over 4700 Family History Centers located in over 134 countries around the world.126
At the Family History Library or at one of these Family History Centers members, as well as anyone from
the general public, can visit and do genealogical research. The Family History Library in Salt Lake City in
particular is a large draw for genealogy tourists who wish to take advantage of the largest genealogical library
in the world with over 2.5 million rolls of microfilm and about 300,000 volumes related to family history.127
Over 1,900 people a day visit the Church’s Family History Library—many of them tourists—making the the
second most visited attraction in Salt Lake City after Temple Square.128
In some ways, this emphasis on finding deceased ancestors and performing the saving ordinances for
them in temples expands concerns for salvation from a personal level to a group level. Through the sealing
power of the priesthood, past, present, and future loved ones can be bonded together for time and eternity.
As such, Church members are encouraged by Church leaders to do genealogy work on their deceased
ancestors and also to travel to temples often to both receive the saving ordinances necessary for exaltation
and perform those same ordinances for those who have died.129
In many ways this makes travel to temples a
semi-obligatory ritual for Latter-day Saint adherents.130
As a part of this travel to temples is for genealogical
purposes, some Church members desire to “collect” temples or to visit as many temples as possible in their
travels, even though rituals do not vary from temple to temple. Some tour agencies, especially those based
in Utah, Arizona, and other areas where many Latter-day Saints reside, organize temple tours in conjunction
with regular tourist activities. For example, some tour operators combine visits to Church temples in Central
and South America with visits to Book of Mormon lands, or mix European temple visits with cultural events,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-41-320.jpg)
![Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 54-69. © James S. Bielo 2016.
Published by Emory University. All rights reserved.
54
Materializing the Bible: Ethnographic Methods for the Consumption
Process
James S. Bielo
Miami University
Abstract
Throughout the world there are over 200 sites that materialize the Bible,
that is, sites that transform the written words of biblical scripture into
physical, experiential attractions. These sites are definitively hybrid,
integrating religion and entertainment, piety and play, fun and faith,
commerce and devotion, pleasure and education. Religious studies scholars
and anthropologists have published insightful works about selected sites,
but no genre-wide analytical appraisal exists. In this article, I focus on
how religiously committed visitors approach and experience these sites.
Framed in a comparative register with research in religious tourism and
pilgrimage studies, I propose analytical and methodological frameworks
for the ethnographic study of Bible-based attractions.
Introduction
A
global “multibillion-dollar Christian leisure industry [is] today integral to how Americans practice
their faith.”1
This industry, and the forms of pilgrimage and religious tourism it fosters, is threaded
together with the structures of late capitalism, modern technology, and other cultural imprints
(e.g., entertainment). Scholars of lived religion are tasked with understanding how the destinations that
comprise this industry fit into the religious lives of consumers. Might Christian leisure destinations occupy
a distinctive role vis-a-vis other sites of religious practice and theological formation? Do these destinations
open devotional potentials that are limited, muted, denied, or cut short in the course of day-to-day, week-
to-week, routinized religious lives?
In this article, I explore how religiously committed visitors approach and experience a particular
species of the Christian leisure industry: Bible-based attractions. My aim in this article is to propose
feature](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-58-320.jpg)
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Experiential Engagement
The focal point of the consumption process is visitors’ experiential engagement at the site. Similar
to preparation, we can divide this stage into the contextual frames for engagement and the agentive forms of
engagement. This analytical division should not be mistaken for any discrete division in practice. Contextual
frames and agentive forms are always joined in a dialectical relation. To illustrate, I highlight three potential
contextual frames.
First, we can consider the site’s location and spatial organization. Anthropologist Simon Coleman has
emphasizedthisframeinhisresearchattheEnglishsiteofWalsingham,asmallvillagethathostsCatholicand
Anglican Marian shrines.25
The shrines commemorate an apparition experienced by a Saxon noblewoman
in 1060, in which Mary requested that a replica of “the Holy House” (the house where Mary and Joseph
raised Jesus in Nazareth) be built. The original replica and shrine were razed in 1538 during Henry VIII’s
Dissolution. A replica of the replica, claiming to be on the apparition’s original location, was built in 1931.
Today, it is England’s “foremost site of Christian pilgrimage.”26
Coleman observes how the site’s physical and spatial properties help structure the experiential
engagement. The rural setting invokes the “image of the medieval” and a distinct set apart-ness from the
“urban eyes” of most visitors. The rural signifies “a place very different from the everyday (appropriate to
the liminal space and time of pilgrimage) [and] the ability to reach into a past world that can speak to the
present.”27
The site’s divisions between Catholic and Anglican shrines are also significant. There are various
opportunities to engage physically with the site, from lighting candles to collecting holy water from the site’s
well (an artifact claimed to date to the time of the apparition). The jumble of ritual forms brought together
at the site creates a “liturgical incoherence [where] different groups of pilgrims from different locations can
be engaged in separate liturgies simultaneously.”28
Then, there are the site’s erasures. A 1961 archaeological
finding most likely identified the original replica’s actual location, but it is largely ignored and noted only by
a small plaque. In turn, visitors spend far more time at the 1931 replica.
A second frame for experiential engagement is the social context in which visitors go to a site. Do
they go as individuals? With family? With friends? As part of a congregational group? A pre-packaged tour?
I once met a Seattle pastor who visited Kentucky’s Creation Museum as part of a denominational pastors’
retreat. He walked the exhibit not with his wife and children, but with his ministerial colleagues - perhaps
trading notes for sermons and Bible study curricula? The relevance of social context has been visible in the
Ark Encounter pre-visit interviews. Jesus sprinkles were not the only anxiety. The married couple hopes the
Ark will be built with kids in mind. They have four children, all under the age of 12. They spoke at length
about what features make a site enjoyable for children and adults together, and what features create hurdles
to enjoyment. Their sentiment was clear: if the kids aren’t happy, no one is happy.
Guiding materials and performances are a third contextual frame. Visitors often experience Bible-
based attractions with the aid of pre-made guidebooks, maps, directions, pamphlets, flyers and/or a trained
guide.29
By no means determinative, guiding does significantly structure the experience. Paper or electronic
guide materials direct visitors in many ways: suggesting ideal routes through the attraction, raising particular
theological questions (and not others), highlighting particular scriptural passages (and not others), and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-65-320.jpg)
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he would prefer to whack them together with some 2x4s that he had on hand.5
This is characteristic of the
determination and faith that has fueled his life, which began on the shortest day of the year during a cold
Buffalo winter in 1947.
Phil ran cross-country and track in high school, served in the Marine Corps for three years, and after
studying fine arts at SUNY Buffalo, moved to Washington State. He spent another year studying fine arts
at the University of Washington and eventually worked as a carpenter, founding the company Phil Volker
Custom Woodwork. He is married with two children, and had developed a deep fondness for Europe after
a trip to Barcelona, Rome, Malta, and Athens in 2003. Given his love of art and carpentry, it is appropriate
that he took the name of Saint Joseph the Worker when he was received into the Roman Catholic Church
two years ago, in 2013. After blazing a half-mile trail in his backyard, he calculated that 909 laps would get
him from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, and so he strapped on his boots and
started walking.
The tradition of building scaled-down versions of popular pilgrimage sites in domestic and also urban
locales is not a new phenomenon in Catholic culture. The spaces, usually replicas of a site where a holy
apparition appeared or where relics are housed, are usually believed to retain a trace of the original and
persist as places of healing, spiritual renewal, joy, and hope. Phil’s Camino fits into this tradition with its
mapping of an efficacious and historical locale onto a relatively mundane place, such as one with familial
or community significance rather than ties to an apparition or relic – in this case, Phil’s own backyard.
Miniature Lourdes grottoes, for instance, have been built in cities and college campuses across the U.S.
Notable examples include the version on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, a gift from the Rev.
Thomas Carroll at the end of the nineteenth century;6
the chapel at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, a major pilgrimage site in and of itself, with the opportunity for
several mini-pilgrimages within its doors; and the Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother in Portland, Oregon.
In June of 1874, Fr. Nelson Baker was one of the first American pilgrims to visit Lourdes and he created
a replica shrine at the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory in Lackawanna, New York. His remains are now
interred in the reconstructed grotto, which he had commissioned as an ex-voto, or object of thanksgiving,
dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Fr. Baker believed that it was her intercession which brought him many
gifts, including “his vocation to the priesthood, his recovery from a serious illness, his opportunity to be
part of the first American pilgrimage [to Lourdes].”7
Around Easter of 2015, the Director of Programs at
the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory graciously allowed me to leave a number of voluntary surveys near the
replica Lourdes grotto and site of Father Baker’s tomb, addressing a number of questions to ‘pilgrim’ visitors
specifically. The survey invited them to share how they felt at the grotto and at the Basilica more generally.
Pilgrims responded with enthusiasm. Joseph from Cheektowaga, NY wrote, “I feel prayerful, awestruck,
and overwhelmed, plus much more. This church takes your breath away, plus so much more.”8
Another
anonymous pilgrim commented that she felt a great sense of authenticity at the grotto, which seemed to
spiritually transport her to France.9
Phil’s Camino, however, is set apart from these replicas in the sense that it is not the Cathedral of Santiago
de Compostela that was reconstructed, but rather the pilgrimage route itself. In this way, his Camino project
can find roots within an even deeper historical trajectory, stretching back to the European Middle Ages.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-76-320.jpg)
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Then, as now, literal journeys were themselves understood as metaphorical in the sense that they were
microcosmic, geographic versions of the universal pilgrimage of the soul.10
Recent scholarship in the field
of medieval studies has established the importance of manuscripts, maps, and labyrinths as sites of surrogate
pilgrimages for those who could not travel for a variety of reasons, such as tenure to the land, lack of
resources, and economic hardship.11
Kathryne Beebe has discussed Felix Fabri’s commission (by cloistered
nuns) to recall, in written form, his actual pilgrimages to the Holy Land so that they, too, could make the
journey by proxy as a devotional and contemplative exercise.12
From a broader perspective of pilgrimages
and world religions, Simon Coleman and Jas Elsner have discussed not only the metaphorical resonances
of geographical pilgrimages but also the function of objects and texts as memorials for the pilgrim and as
a link to the sacred goal for those who would undertake a future journey.13
In some cases, as in a medieval
illuminated manuscript in the collection of Francis Douce at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
(MS Douce 51), a tin pilgrimage badge – a souvenir of the journey - would be carefully sewn on to a vellum
page of a Book of Hours. Such an object, which retained the memory of both site and journey, would
enhance the devotional experience for the viewer engaging with the book.14
Through touch and sight, she
would have recourse to the pilgrimage site itself through the cognitive faculties of memory and imagination.
The focus on the present day and its inherent links to the distant past through the project of mapping an
ancient European pilgrimage route onto a backyard in North America complements and expound upon the
notion of place-based pilgrimage as a spatial manifestation of “temporal past and future manifested in the
spatial, [symbolic of] eschatological hope as well as paradigmatic memory”, as Wendy Pullan, for example,
has posited in her study of pilgrimage in the early Christian era.15
This is reflected in several ways through
Phil’s intentional but also instinctive ritual practices. Since the foundations of the Vashon Island Camino
were laid, pilgrims have chosen rocks and stones from the trail onto which they attach prayer intentions.
At the end of the journey, these stones are deposited in a pile and Phil and others continue to pray for these
stones imbued with hope for the future and memories of the past.
Phil has also constructed “stations” along the way, in the form of simple birdfeeders that give some
space for pause in ambulation and restful reflection. These are rooted in his practice of praying the Rosary
when he walks (usually, this is done when there are no visitors, although on occasion he will pray with a
companion). The cyclical journey of his backyard circuit reflects the equally cyclical words of the Glory
Be which concludes the rosary – “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end”:
All along both here and in Spain, I prayed the rosary. Matter of fact I learned that
walking while doing the rosary was my preferred way and that occurred even before
building my trail. All along the rosary has been a large part of the project. For instance the
trail is .88 of a kilometer long and I can say one round of the prayer in one lap of the trail. It
was a perfect fit. Then at some point I placed bird feeders at approximately the place where
I should have completed my Our Fathers, six of them. So, my rosary is integrated with my
Camino. If I say it somewhere else I walk my trail in my mind and keep track of things
that way, the two are one.16](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-77-320.jpg)
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place along the Camino Frances and probably that is true for anyone who has experienced
it. 31
The celebratory food and drink at Phil’s table is inspired by the tapas along the Camino de Santiago, so it
is easy to really feel a sense of communitas and connection to the root of the route. Besides, Phil’s feet had
processed all the way down into the crypt of the cathedral of Santiago where the relics of Saint James are
kept in a silver reliquary. He prayed and left a petition, and then trod all over the earth back home, bringing
with them a bit of the sacred dust perhaps. Phil’s boots could not doctrinally be considered third-class
relics, of course (classified as something which has touched the corporeal remains of a saint). There is,
however, a Catholic popular devotional practice that involves lovingly pressing a prayer card or ribbon to the
reliquaries protecting the remains of the saint, or even (as Bede tells us) gathering the dust that accrued on
the sacred container. 32
In a way, his pilgrim feet have brought a sense of sacredness to the Island Camino, a
further transfer of “spirit” from original site to Raven Ranch on Vashon Island.
Phil has welcomed visitors to his backyard circuit where the sense of communitas is just as present as it
is while praying with the Stations of the Cross with a group during Lent or walking the ancient labyrinth at
Chatres. In one of our early correspondences, I received a photograph of an assemblage of three significant
objects that Phil had found while working in his corn patch: a heart-shaped rock, a compass, and a key-hole.
He called it “a message” and “the centerpiece of our whole effort here; you have to find your way to opening
your heart.”33
On any Camino, it is imperative to let go and be willing to open one’s heart to the possibilities
that can occur; Pope Francis has taught that, “[w]alking in community, with friends, with those who love us,
that helps us. It helps us to arrive precisely at that goal, that ‘there where’ we’re supposed to arrive.” 34
People
seeking just this have already begun to travel to Vashon Island to walk in community with Phil:
Everyone who has walked with me is in the logbooks. I bet there is somewhere between
a hundred and two hundred easy over the last two years. They come for all sorts of reasons.
Some have driven from as far as Portland and a group just flew in from Salt Lake. It is a
pilgrimage for them to come here.35
Phil began with two laps every day that he was not at the hospital for appointments and eventually worked
up to twelve; now he has regular hours for walking posted on a whiteboard by the stone pile so that friends
and visitors can join him. When he walks with companions, he recounts that conversations range from very
intimate to casual, but emphasizes that “the whole idea is to be present. If people are there, I am present to
them.”36
Artwork and the built environment can be thought of as a temporal reminder of an imagined Holy Land
where the logos is made visible and can (in the best examples) create a liminal point of contact between the
earthly, visible world of forms and that of the unseen. This idea has roots in the teachings of Augustine and
is embedded within the tradition of Christian Neoplatonism.37
Phil would visualize the early Renaissance
devotional paintings by the Dominican artist Fra Angelico and an image of the Assumption by Don Silvestro
dei Gherarducci (mid-fourteenth century) as he walked. It was a powerful way to bring to life the joyful,
sorrowful, glorious, and luminous mysteries of the rosary. This is, in a sense, an imaginative parallel to the
wayside crosses, Baroque polychromed shrines, and chapel paintings along the Camino de Santiago. The](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-80-320.jpg)
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21 In a different context, C. Wood has characterized all pilgrimages as re-enactments of those that had come
before, noting that “[t]he point of interest is where the re-enactment slips a gear – where there is a medial shift, a
transfer of meaning from original building to a replicated building to painted building,” in Forgery, Replica, Fiction:
Temporalities of German Renaissance Art (Chicago, 2008), p.239.
22 Eliot, T. S. 1943. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. p. 58.
23 Connolly, “At the Center of the World: The Labyrinth Pavement at Chartres Cathedral,” Blick, Sarah, and
Rita Tekippe. 2005. Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles. Leiden:
Brill, pp. 285-286.
24 Connolly, ibid., p. 286.
25 Phil Volker in a correspondence with the author, May 4, 2016.
26 Turner, Victor W., and Edith L. B. Turner. 1978. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological
Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, p.13.
27 Alston, George Cyprian. “Way of the Cross.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1912. 12 Dec. 2015. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15569a.htm>.
28 Alston, George Cyprian, ibid, “Way of the Cross.” I am grateful to Gina Hens-Piazza for pointing out that up
until Pope Clement XII fixed the number at 14, there had been 37 sites in Jerusalem, beginning at the Mt. of Olives, and
During the 18th century Jesuits and Passionists incorporated the 14 stations as part of their missions and retreats.
29 Indulgences became attached to Holy Land pilgrimages, but Innocent XI realized that comparatively few
would be able to undertake the journey so granted the Franciscans the rite to construct Stations in their churches in
1686, “declaring that all the indulgences that had ever been given for devoutly visiting the actual scenes of Christ’s
Passion, could thenceforth be gained by Franciscans and all others affiliated to their order if they made the Way of
the Cross in their own churches in the accustomed manner.” Innocent XII went on, in 1694, to support this, and
subsequently Benedict XIII extended the privilege ‘to all the faithful’. Alston, George Cyprian. “Way of the Cross.”, ibid.
30 See, for example, Genesis 12:1, where Abraham leaves his home and family and goes into the wilderness;
the Emmaus narrative in Luke Ch. 24; 1 Peter 2:11 where Christians are beseeched as “pilgrims and strangers,” and
Hebrews 11:13 where the Christian condition is described as that of ‘pilgrims and strangers on earth’.
31 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, December 9, 2015.
32 Rock, Daniel. 1852. The Church of our Fathers, as seen in St Osmund’s Rite for the Cathedral of Salisbury,
iii, 353-4 and 441. “…sometimes [tombs of the saints] arose as tiny Minster-like buildings, overshadowing the silver or
the stone case which held the saints’ relics, and allowing, through a hole or window in the side, those who might like, to
stretch forth their hands and gather the dust which lay upon the coffin lid,” p.353-4 and n.19: “Obiit autem Ceadda ;—
constructa ibidem ecclesia beatissimi apostolorum principis Petri, in eandem sunt ejus ossa translata. In quo utroque
loco ad indicium virtutis illius solent crebra sanitatum miracula operari.—Est autem locus idem sepulcri tumba lignea
in modum domunculi facta, coopertus, habente foramen in pariete, per quod solent hi, qui causa devotionis illo
adveniunt, manum suam immittere ac partem pulveris inde assumere, &c.” Bedae, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv, C. iii.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-83-320.jpg)
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1. Roman Catholic Parishes
All Saints Catholic Church. Religion scholar Brett Hoover describes the frequent and often contentious
interaction between Anglos and Latinos at the pseudonymous All Saints Catholic Church in a Midwestern
city. Hoover calls this a “shared parish,” that is, “two or more cultural groups, each with distinct masses
and ministries, but who share the same parish facilities.”10
He claims that this arrangement “has become,
whether in incipient, intentional, or ad hoc form, the primary local way in which Roman Catholics address
cultural diversity within the [U.S.] Church.”11
Hoover argues that this parish model “institutionalizes both
avoidance and connection,” requiring continual negotiation between the two groups.12
Although All Saints has one administrative structure and seeks to serve all parishioners,13
asymmetries
of power and privilege affect the relationship between the dominant Anglo group and Latinos on many
levels.14
Significantly, the two groups have differing understandings of rules and norms, including protocols
for facilities usage. Hoover reports that the Latino priest “on many occasions pleaded that his parishioners
obey the parking rules so that they not incur the wrath of the americanos, potentially limiting their ability
to conduct ministry.”15
“Duplex” and “Integrated” Parishes. High levels of intergroup tension characterized certain Catholic
parishes in previous periods of American immigration history even though the frequency of group
interaction was quite low. Italian immigrants were accommodated in “duplex parishes” in the late 1800s,
relegated to the basements or annexes of established churches in an arrangement so untenable that the
Catholic hierarchy eventually abandoned it in favor of the ethnic parish model.16
Catholic historian Silvano
Tomasi quotes from the written history of Transfiguration Parish in New York City regarding the minimal
group interaction in 1897: “Father McLoughlin did his best to make the two races coalesce, by compelling
the Italians to attend services in the upper church, but found that far better results could be obtained by
having the two people worshipping separately.”17
The inequities and denigrations of such an arrangement were patently obvious. “The immigrants were
not even in full control of the church basements [and other spaces] they were using,” writes Tomasi.18
“What
a humiliation,” complained the Italian priest serving the Italian parishioners of the cathedral in St. Paul,
Minnesota, “for us, here, numerous as we are . . . to have to come here in this low and humid hall, placed
under the feet of a dissimilar people who sometimes look down on us.”19
For Puerto Rican migrants to New York City following World War II, the archdiocese instituted
an “integrated parish” model analogous to the Italian duplex model.20
Here, again, interaction with the
dominant parish group was both relatively infrequent and inequitable. In describing the typical relationship,
church and society scholar Ana Maria Diaz-Stevens explains that “the faithful in the basement church often
felt treated as second-class citizens and second-class Catholics, because the basement represented social
distance from the upper church.”21
Diaz-Stevens finds the phrase “internal colony” more suitable than
“integrated parish” in describing the Puerto Rican experience.
St. Catherine’s Catholic Church. The arrangement at the pseudonymous St. Catherine’s Catholic Church
in Houston also exemplifies low frequency and contentious group interaction.22
In the past, whites seemed
to have been the de facto dominant group at St. Catherine’s, a remnant of whom still attend. In addition,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-88-320.jpg)
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St. Catherine’s today features “a totally segregated Vietnamese Mission” plus “five ethnically based Catholic
Communities which function as effectively parallel—often hostile—congregations.”23
Anthropologist
Kathleen Sullivan notes how little group interaction takes place in the parish, even at the “multicultural
evenings” held four times a year,24
but she also reports that “inter-ethnic conflicts” flare up around scheduling
snafus.25
Although some complain that the white minority still wields undue influence in the parish, authority
is invested in the official statuses of the Vietnamese Mission and the five Catholic Communities, and the
pastor has made strides in broadening the representation of the parish’s oversight councils.26
St. Francis de Sales Parish. We began this section with the case of All Saints Catholic Church, a “shared
parish” characterized by high frequency/high tension group interaction. Brett Hoover advocates a different
model, which he calls “communion,” based on Catholic theological and ecclesiological principles, offering
St. Francis de Sales Parish in Holland, Michigan as an example.27
The pastor of St. Francis, Fr. Stephen Dudek, has chronicled the transformation of the church from a
shared parish dominated by whites to a communion model characterized by high frequency/low tension
group interaction.28
A fire that destroyed the church facility provided an opportunity for the constituent
ethnic groups—“English, Spanish, and Vietnamese speakers”—to build a new church “designed to sustain
the faith life of three unique communities and to promote among them cross-cultural understanding and
dialogue.”29
In this design, reverence replaces antagonism: “reverence must be shown for all cultural groups
within the parish, as well as for what is proving to be a new culture, the multicultural context itself. Reverence
is exhibited for self and others as a mutually enriching two-way process.”30
Dudek offers several strategies
and practical suggestions for creating a reverent multiculturalism in a parish, including acknowledging loss
of group privilege,31
empowering subordinate groups,32
and establishing a broad-based but nimble decision-
making process.33
Dudek also encourages “intercultural dialogue” instead of “[t]he natural tendency in
multicultural parishes [which] is to minister using a parallel-tracks approach where each ethnic group
worships, catechizes, and functions as Church in a way that affirms individual group identity but rarely
promotes true dialogue across cultural boundaries.”34
2. Jewish Synagogues
Congregation Shearith Israel. This synagogue in New York City offers a historical case of internal
congregational conflict over ethnic identity and religious beliefs and practices. Sephardic Jews founded
Shearith Israel in 1654, the first synagogue in North America and the only synagogue in the city for more
than a century and a half. Ashkenazi Jews attended early on, and although the two groups “differed from
each other linguistically, culturally and in the manner in which they practiced their religion,” explains one
account, “they lived together harmoniously and shared the same synagogue until 1825.”35
The congregation
followed the Sephardic minhag, or custom, in its worship services.
The harmonious space-sharing arrangement began to unravel as the number of Ashkenazi members
increased in the early 1800s: “The new immigrants found the rituals of Shearith Israel very strange, and
repeatedly asked the trustees to hold separate services for them. They were denied.” Tensions escalated
when the Sephardic leaders denied membership to most of the Ashkenazi applicants in 1825 and barred](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-89-320.jpg)
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an Ashkenazi member from reading the Torah passage in synagogue services after he refused to offer the
customary monetary donation to do so. A contingent of Ashkenazis left Shearith Israel and established their
own synagogue, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, according to the German and Polish minhag, though the two
congregations maintained an amicable relationship.36
AlthoughShearithIsraelstillcallsitself“TheSpanish&PortugueseSynagogue”andfollowstheSephardic
minhag, its membership includes Ashkenazi Jews. “Today,” proclaims its Website, “Jews of all backgrounds
make up our welcoming, traditional community.”37
Congregation Beth Elohim. This synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina offers another historical case of
internal congregational conflict. Here the Sephardic/Ashkenazi division was overlaid with tension between
traditionalists and reformists that eventuated in the first Reform synagogue in the United States. Beth Elohim
was established by Sephardic Jews in 1749, and although Ashkenazi Jews joined the congregation from the
beginning, the Sephardic minhag was followed by all and those who favored that tradition dominated the
synagogue.38
By the 1820s, Beth Elohim was “severely autocratic” and religiously moribund, according to one
historian.39
In 1824, a group of reform-minded members petitioned the synagogue’s board of directors to
make several changes in the religious services: inclusion of English, deletion of “superfluous” elements, and
reduction of the overall length.40
The board refused to consider the petition, leading several of the reformists
to depart and establish the Reformed [sic] Society of Israelites, which lasted into the 1830s.41
But in the early
1840s, a reformist contingent in Beth Elohim (some from the defunct Reformed Society) again pushed for
innovations (including installation of an organ) and were opposed by the traditionalists.
As historian Robert Liberles reports, “The synagogue’s minute books attest to the bitter divisions within
the congregation” over the proposed changes.42
At one point the president refused to allow the board to
meet in the building, defying them to break in if they dared. For a time, the contending parties agreed to
worship in the building on alternating weekends.43
The dispute was finally settled in the courts in favor of
the reformists. This shift at Beth Elohim was influenced by cultural factors in the larger society, including
the American Reform Jewish movement.44
Kehilat Chovevei Tzion. This “dual” synagogue in a Chicago suburb offers a contemporary case of
Sephardic and Ashkenazi groups sharing a common facility, the only such arrangement in the area and
one of only a few in the United States.45
Jewish solidarity and ethno-religious sensitivity have undergirded
the relationship between the two groups from the start. As one of the rabbis puts it, “We fully accept each
other as brothers and sisters in faith. But at the same time there is a concern that we want to preserve the
individual rituals that we cherish as sacred.”46
The building features separate sanctuaries for Ashkenazi and Sephardic worship. The men’s and women’s
sections are positioned side-by-side in the Ashkenazi sanctuary, front-and-back in the Sephardic sanctuary.
In both, the podiums for the Torah reading are adjustable in order to accommodate the Ashkenazi practice
of reading from a slanted surface and the Sephardic practice of reading from a flat surface.47
The building also has areas used by both groups, including a social hall, classrooms, and kosher kitchen
facilities. The rabbi calls the overall design a combination of “sacred space and shared space,” saying, “Our
children will play together, our children will attend groups together, we will have kiddishes [celebrations],](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-90-320.jpg)
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social functions, educational programs, but at the same time there will be unique prayers.”48
The rental
agreement for use of the building specifies that a supervisor approved by the synagogue must be present for
all group activities and an approved mashgiach, an expert in kosher rules, must oversee the preparation of
food in the kitchen.49
One Sephardic member of Kehilat Chovevei Tzion expressed her appreciation for the relationship
between the synagogue’s two constituencies: “[We are] more than friends. We are family.” Even so,
worshiping separately can be “bittersweet” for some members, as another member remarked about the first
Rosh Hashanah services in the new building, though he hoped that the sounding of the shofar would inspire
both groups “to look back and realize there’s no way we could’ve done this in any way without the help of
God. Simple as that, it doesn’t happen otherwise.”50
3. Muslim Mosques
Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago (ICCGC). This mosque was preceded by a Bosnian mutual aid
and benevolent society (est. 1906) and two iterations of a Bosnian ethno-religious organization (est. 1955,
reconfigured 1968), the most recent of which created ICCGC in 1972 in order to build a new mosque in
suburban Chicago.51
In the words of a promotional booklet for the mosque’s opening in 1976, ICCGC was
intended to be “a fraternal Islamic organization, dedicated to serve all Muslims, regardless of their ethnic
background.”52
ICCGC’s board of directors comprised both Bosnian and non-Bosnian representatives.
Despite this equitable co-ethnic polity, some perceived ICCGC to be a de facto Bosnian organization
like its precursor ethno-religious bodies. Leaders from the Montenegro region of Yugoslavia in particular
sought membership in ICCGC’s Bosnian parent body in the late 1980s, which Bosnian leaders interpreted
as an attempt to take control of both organizations. The dispute escalated, and at one point the dissident
group changed the locks on the mosque, which “prevented many persons of Bosnian descent from entering
the mosque or using it for religious or social activities,” according to a court document filed by ICCGC’s
Bosnian parent body.53
In June of 1989, the contending parties sought arbitration before the Cook County
Circuit Court. A written history produced by ICCGC not long after the dispute would deem this period
“troubled times.”54
The turmoil within the mosque mirrored that in the homeland of many members which culminated
in the Yugoslav Conflict of 1991-1995. At one point in the litigation, two of the principals laid out the full
parameters of the ethnic battle: “Unfortunately, as the Court is aware, the ethnic tensions, both within the
Yugoslavian community and between certain members of the Yugoslavian community and non-Yugoslavian
Muslims, are quite intense at this time.” The ethnic conflict was also placed into its larger religious context:
“Islam is a world religion, whose adherents come from numerous ethnic groups. Unfortunately, as this Court
must recognize from the painful history of this litigation, the common ties of religion do not necessarily
preclude the existence of fierce ethnic and cultural animosities within Islam.”55
In 1990, the court appointed a temporary Custodian Committee comprising one person from “the
Montenegran faction,” one from “the rival Bosnian faction,” and “a Muslim of Arab descent who is not
[a] member of either faction.”56
The committee was charged “to further the Center’s goals of cooperative
action by Moslems [sic] for religious and cultural purposes . . . and [to] have primary responsibility for](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-91-320.jpg)
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management of the Islamic Cultural Center.” The court also named a local Muslim university professor to
serve as advisor to the committee, and issued this stern warning: “All parties are restrained from using force,
violence, or threats of force or violence to interfere with the peaceful use of the Islamic Cultural Center.”57
The Custodian Committee labored to keep the peace as the judge watched its progress toward negotiating
a fair conclusion to the conflict. In March of 1992, representatives of four parties—two Bosnian groups,
Montenegrans, and non-Yugoslavian Muslims—failed to broker a resolution outside of court.58
The final
outcomeinNovemberofthatyearcalledforareconfiguredICCGCboardofdirectorsthatprecludedBosnian
domination, thus reestablishing the original intention of equitable co-ethnic oversight of the mosque.59
North Hudson Islamic Educational Center. This predominantly immigrant mosque in Union City, New
Jersey has actively recruited members from the local Latino community.60
Estimates vary, but Latinos may
comprise 25 to 35 percent of the worshiping congregation. The two groups interact at regular religious
events like Friday jumah prayers and Islamic holidays. The mosque also provides services and activities
tailored for Latinos, such as Qur’an studies in Spanish and an Annual Hispanic Muslim Day. The 2009 Day
featured halal (religiously acceptable) empanadas, speakers relating stories of their “reversion” (the term
often preferred to “conversion”) to Islam and experiences as Latino Muslims, and a martial arts display by
students of a Puerto Rican Muslim teacher.61
The page for the mosque’s Dawa (“Outreach”) Committee
advertised several events for Ramadan 2015 targeting converts/reverts (both words are used), such as an
Iftar dinner pairing them with “Muslim hosts,” and quoted the Qur’an in both English and Spanish.62
The imam reports the welcoming attitude of the immigrant majority: “The non-Latino Muslims in
our [mosque] think highly of the Latino converts. They believe they are real brothers and sisters in Islam and
they treat them as such.”63
One Latina thinks that acceptance has taken some time but is now at a high level:
“It’s not so shocking nowadays when you hear a Latina Muslim speak her language in front of other Latinos.
It still does raise an eyebrow but the power in numbers is helping familiarize others about the growing
numbers of Latinos in Islam.”64
4. Hindu Temples
Pittsburgh Hindu Temples. Ritual studies scholar Fred W. Clothey describes the emergence of two Hindu
temples in the Pittsburgh area stemming largely from a dispute over spaces dedicated to various deities.65
In
March of 1973, a local group representing several Indian regional identities incorporated the Hindu Society
of North America, Pittsburgh, an affiliate of the organization of the same name in New York City. The
following month, they established a temporary temple facility in a former Baptist church in the Pittsburgh
suburb of Monroeville, with images of several Hindu deities as well as ritual spaces to accommodate the
local Jain and Sikh communities.
Later in 1973, representatives of the famed Sri Venkateshvara temple in Tirupati, south India, approached
the leadership of the Monroeville temple with a plan to build a Venkateshvara-affiliated temple on the site.
Approvals were secured and groundbreaking for the new temple took place in April of 1975. But, as Clothey
explains, it quickly became “evident that the community was profoundly divided,” especially over the issue
of ritual spaces in the new temple.66
At a general meeting in July of 1975, a resolution was passed that called for images of the Venkateshvara](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-92-320.jpg)
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sect to be located in the center of the temple, but also for images of other Hindu deities to be included in
the temple and for provisions to be made to add more such deities in the future if desired. The resolution
promised to refund the contribution of anyone who had supported the new temple “under the impression
that this will be exclusively [a] Lord Venkateshvara Temple” and now felt dissatisfied with the “non-sectarian
and broad-based” identity of the temple.67
The Tirupati Venkateshvara temple withdrew its support of the project upon hearing of the resolution.
Various attempts at compromise failed, including a suggestion to configure the new temple with separate
spaces dedicated to the respective deities plus an adjacent common hall. A general meeting in December
of 1975 revealed the “hostile feelings” within the community over the issue, and that same month a
group formed a corporation to establish a Venkateshvara temple in the Penn Hills suburb of Pittsburgh.68
Groundbreaking for that temple took place the following June.
Hindu Bhavan. Hindu Bhavan temple in Morrisville, North Carolina (between Raleigh and Durham)
presents a much different picture than the Pittsburgh case. Its parent organization, the Hindu Society of
North Carolina, established Hindu Bhavan in the mid-1980s. The temple exemplifies what religion scholar
Steven W. Ramey calls a pan-Indian philosophy that seeks to unify the many Indian regional identities and
deity-particular Hindu groups in the area,69
an “ecumenical” approach found in many Hindu temples in
the United States, including the Monroeville temple discussed above.70
From the start, Hindu Bhavan has
employed “democratic” procedures, to use Ramey’s term, in selecting the deity images for the temple. By
popular vote of temple members, Krishna and Radha took center place in the sanctum, flanked right and left
by several other Hindu deities. An image of Mahavira sacred to Jains was also installed. Several other Hindu
images were later added at the request of temple members.71
Hindu Bhavan’s facilities are heavily scheduled by numerous Hindu ethno-religious groups.72
The Jain
Study Center of North Carolina also uses the temple and has designated an official liaison with the temple.73
Stipulations for facilities usage are clear and detailed in the rental contract. Allowable and not allowable
activities are listed for the various spaces in the temple. For instance, “Bollywood / Western Music and
any kind of Filmy Dancing, DJ, Garba, Bhangra, and loud nonreligious related Music etc. is not allowed
in Temple Hall. Temple Hall is a place of worship and only Religious events are allowed. Floor dancing is
not allowed except for HSNC Navratri Garba” (emphasis in original). Moreover, the temple authorities
responsible for facilities usage are identified in the rental contract.74
The various constituent groups interact at times, for instance at the annual Indian Independence Day
celebration. Describing part of the event one year, Ramey writes, “a standing-room-only crowd attended
a pan-Indian fair. Representatives of each region prepared the culinary specialties of their regions and
performed dances and music for the entire community.”75
But more often, the groups use the temple in serial
fashion for their own unique celebrations. Certain popular celebrations like Holi have multiple iterations,
as Ramey explains:
For example, in 2000, although the Hindu Society conducted a Holi celebration for the
entire community, the Gujarati association and at least one other organization held their
own festivities at the Bhavan. While some people attend several of the Holi celebrations,
naturally the celebrations organized by a person’s own regional association has [sic] an](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-93-320.jpg)
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Some—perhaps many—may wish for a maximalist definition of effectiveness. Can an aloof space-
sharing arrangement among congregational subgroups truly be considered effective? Should not active
congeniality be the gold standard?
I would defend a minimalist definition on three counts. First, the positive value of a relatively conflict-
free intergroup relationship should not be discounted, especially in contentious times. The mere fact that
distinct groups can “get along” enough to share a common space should be celebrated, especially when
thresholds of dissonance can cause conflict in their own respective circles as well as in the larger society. It is
no small task to share common space, and to do so without serious or sustained conflict presents a positive
model whatever the frequency of group interaction.
Secondly, we should not expect too much of congregations. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow helpfully
differentiates a congregation and a community:
Community . . . implies a supportive set of interpersonal relationships that forge a
common bond of identity and caring among people. It requires interaction, give and take.
A congregation in contrast connotes something more akin to a gathering or an assembly
than to a community. To congregate means literally to come together. People can be part of
a congregation without knowing each other or interacting on a personal level. . . . Having
community in the form of a membership that cares for one another and interacts socially in
a deep and intensive way . . . is not absolutely essential [for a congregation].82
In other words, subgroups within a congregation do not need to relate to each other with the depth and
intimacy of a community.
Thirdly, congregations (and their larger religious traditions) have different gold standards or norms for
how interactive their constituent groups should be. For instance, the Hindu emphasis on individual, family,
and region-specific religious practices renders intergroup activities less important in Hindu temples than in
the Catholic model of communion exemplified in the St. Francis case.
Other Space-Sharing Contexts
This article has examined space-sharing arrangements among congregational subgroups defined by
distinctionsofethnicidentityand/orreligiousbeliefsandpractices.Iassumethatspace-sharingarrangements
among congregational subgroups defined by other distinctions, such as social status, generation, gender, or
sexual orientation, involve dynamics similar to those found in the cases discussed here. For instance, we
see both effective and ineffective arrangements between the immigrant and American-born generations in
Korean Protestant churches.83
I will conclude with some speculations about other iterations of the space-sharing phenomenon in the
hope that further research will tease out both the similarities and the differences across types.
More than twelve percent of the reporting congregations in the National Congregations Study use a
building owned by another group.84
Such arrangements emerge for a variety of reasons, such as economic
feasibility and/or geographic proximity. To take just one group, sociologist Pyong Gap Min reports that the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-97-320.jpg)
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employers have established elaborate mechanisms for accommodating a multifaith workforce, like the
Ford Interfaith Network, one of several corporate-sponsored Employee Resource Groups at Ford Motor
Company.93
Moreover, hotel conference rooms, public school auditoriums, and other rented facilities are
often used for multifaith events. In all such contexts, several design principles are probably in place: (1) the
boundaries of the commons and its legitimate users are clearly defined, (2) the rules of use match the local
context, (5) users’ behavior is self-monitored, (6) a system of sanctions is in place for rules violations, (7)
conflict-resolution mechanisms are easily accessible, and (8) large-scale commons use involves multiple
layers of governance. But what about principles 3 (users have opportunities to modify the rules) and 4
(outside authorities respect the users’ right to create their own rules)?
In the review of studies of natural resource commons mentioned earlier, Cox, Arnold, and Tomás
cite a critic who sees Ostrom’s design principles as “an interesting point of exit . . . [that] only partly explain
the success of management institutions.” This critic goes on to say, “the real ‘glue’ that keeps an institution
alive over time are the social mechanisms, i.e., trust, legitimacy, and transparency.”94
This is not an either/
or proposition. Adequate and clear design principles and social mechanisms of trust, legitimacy, and
transparency are crucial to creating and maintaining an effective space-sharing arrangement by religious
groups, no matter the context.
Notes
1 My thanks to R. Stephen Warner and four anonymous reviewers of earlier drafts of this article. Also to
students Alexandria Long and Jodi Keith of Trinity Lutheran Seminary (TLS) and Joel Wildermuth of Methodist
Theological School in Ohio (MTSO) for valuable research assistance, to Randy Litchfield (MTSO) for introducing me
to commons management research, and to my deans Lisa Withrow (MTSO) and Brad Binau (TLS) for supporting my
research. An early version of this article was presented in the Religion and the Social Sciences Section of the Annual
Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, November 24, 2015.
2 See Indiana University’s Digital Library of the Commons (accessed January 9, 2016, https://dlc.dlib.indiana.
edu/dlc/) and the four-volume series from Lexington Press, Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School of Political
Economy.
3 Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, “Introduction: An Overview of the Knowledge Commons,” in
Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, ed. Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2007), 4.
4 Dick and Meinzen-Dick’s study of churches and one synagogue in the St. Louis area comes closest, but it
focuses on congregational financial resources, not the use of congregational space per se. They cite only three sources
from the commons management literature that deal with religion, none of which focuses on religious institutions
(Laura Dick and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, “The Congregational Commons,” paper presented at the 13th Biennial
Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Hyderabad, India, January 10-14, 2011).
Hess lists only five sources on the topic of “sacred commons” (Charlotte Hess, “Mapping the New Commons,” paper](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-99-320.jpg)
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to the practical considerations that influenced our participants’ veiling choices—considerations that were
activated by particular “traditions, powers and discourses that grant legitimacy to some concerns over
others.”10
This technique revealed that the women we interviewed were not passive participants in a religious
tradition, but were engaged in a dynamic practice with the possibility of change and that their commitments
to cover could take on different forms over time, even be remade time and time again. The women seemed
acutely aware of the boundaries that shaped their hijab use, including particular social spaces, gender
dynamics, and religious beliefs. At the same time, they expressed contradictory attitudes or ambivalence
toward hijab. Rather than viewing the coexistence of such certainty and contradiction as problematic, we
see it as an illuminating and inherent aspect of our participants’ complex, lived experiences. We approach
the hijab much as Schielke does Islam, that is, instead of regarding it as a “thing” per se, we examine it as
an unfixed aspect of the everyday that is “actively imagined, contested, give different paths and meanings”
connected to other ordinary matters in life.11
Hijab in Theory
The term hijab comes from the root h-j-b, which indicates a “covering”, “partition”, “curtain” and
“protection”, among other, similar ideas.12
It is now a standard name for a piece of cloth commonly worn as
a headscarf, and also in other styles of cover. Today, the word hijab is used so commonly to describe forms
of veiling that it has been rendered vague. Even in this paper, we use the term loosely. Nevertheless, we
note that the term does not stand for any single mode of practice, for as prominent anthropologist Fadwa
El-Guindi points out, the word hijab is not just Arabic for “veil.” Rather, it is “a complex notion that has
gradually developed a set of related meanings” (1999, 152).13
Along these lines, the exact origins of hijab
practice in Islam remain open to discussion. Some suggest that the concept of hijab was first imposed on
men who wished to communicate with or be in the presence of the Prophet Mohammed’s wives14
through
a revelation stating, “And when you ask [his wives] for something, ask them from behind a partition. That
is purer for your hearts and their hearts.”15
In line with this theory, El-Guindi has notably argued that the
notion of hijab refers to a sacred divide or separation between two realms, such as good and evil, believers
and nonbelievers, aristocracy and commoners, among others, and that in the context of women’s clothing,
it implies a combination of sanctity and privacy. Today, the mainstream belief is that hijab is a Quranic
institution for women16
which began with the revelation to:
…say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their
modesty; that they should not display their beauty and adornments except what ordinarily
appears thereof; that they should draw their head cover (khimar) over their bosoms and
not display their ornament except to their husbands, fathers, and their husbands fathers,
their sons, their husband’s sons, their brothers or their brother’s sons, or their sisters’ sons,
or their women or the slaves whom their right had possess, or male servants without sexual
needs, or small children who have no sense of women’s pudenda and that they should not
strike their feet to draw attention to their hidden ornaments.17](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-109-320.jpg)
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Interpretations of how veiling forms should be practiced are influenced by theories about the historical
contexts in which the Quranic commands referencing them were revealed. In a preliminary study of hijab,
Mostafa Sherif notes that schools of thought have been sharply divided on its implementations, with some
Muslim jurists stating that the Prophet’s wives had their entire bodies covered, including hands and face, in
both life and death (implying that this is the example all Muslim women should follow).18
Meanwhile, other
jurists concern themselves with questions of separate spheres, arguing that the women of early Islam were
under no obligation to partition themselves from society, even if they were obligated to cover. Furthermore,
historians of Islam remind us that hijab practices were not invented by Islam and were customary among pre-
Islamic Jews, Christians, and others (including the women of Classical Greek and Byzantine empires).19
This
line of reasoning suggests that hijab is not an Islamic practice per se, but a cultural one that became meshed
with Islamic values over time. For example, religious scholar Reza Aslan contends that in Mohammad’s
time, hijab was only meant for his wives as a means of distancing them from his associates who would visit
and pitch their tents within feet of the women. Aslan argues that extension of hijab rules to Muslim women
generally occurred only after the death of Mohammed as a means of reasserting male dominance.20
Discourse about modesty—another concept that lends itself to ambiguity—also plays a vital role in
whether and how Muslim women practice hijab. A lengthy discussion about modesty (haya) as a virtue
in Islam would be redundant here, as many scholars of Islam and Muslim societies have written about the
concept extensively.21
To summarize, dominant schools of Islamic thought consider modesty a principle
that goes beyond clothing and cover, requiring the moderation of demeanor in general: speech, thought,
and other actions. Avoiding speaking with angry tones or lewd connotations is one example of the self-
consciousness (often conceptualized as “shyness” or “shame”) involved in the practice of haya. In terms
of clothing, it is required that the awrah of both men and women be covered. “Awrah” describes sexual or
intimate regions of the body, which includes male and female genitals, women’s breasts, and other parts
of the body (such as the torso and legs). The method and extent of coverage, however, ranges in practice
depending on textual exegesis and cultural context. As a result, understandings of what constitutes “proper”
cover were variable among the women in this study.
For instance, Susan was a Dominican convert to Islam, an Ivy League trained scientist who changed
careers to run an Islamic clothing shop in New York City. At the time of interview, she understood khimar
(the form of cover recommended by the Quran passage above) to be “a very specific thing… a covering of
the head, including the ears.” She went on to say that, “A Muslim woman understands hijab. She understands
the religious significance of modesty.” This significance inspired her to make Islamic clothing. But religious
duty was not her only consideration. She wanted her styles to meet both religious and secular demands,
allowing Muslim women to remain “modest” while tackling the mundane tasks of daily life.
I think about really, initially, what I go through being a single woman, with a cat,
sometimes I have to take her to the vet. I have to think of what’s the easiest style I can wear
that can guard my modesty but can get me through the [subway] turnstiles with a sixteen
pound cat. New York is a pedestrian city. People are carrying babies, books... what’s the
easiest thing [to wear]? She [a woman who wears hijab] wants to have a certain amount of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-110-320.jpg)
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upbringing in Iraq as highly secular, noting that sometimes people in her ethnic community could even be
adverse to hijab. Her family treated the practice with apathy. She explained, “I was against it [hijab] because
I was raised in a family that didn’t care that much about religion, that nobody told me I have to wear hijab.
Nobody told me I had to pray. If I was doing it, I was fine—without it, I was fine also.” It was only when her
husband, who was not Kurdish, requested it of her that she began to wear hijab.
He told me a couple of times, he really wanted me to wear hijab for a long time, but I
wasn’t ready at all. But after 2002, when I go to Harrisonburg, I saw the women wearing
hijab and I thought, “I’ll try it.” …Since 2003, there are a lot of Kurdish around here, so now
people in Harrisonburg know that it is part of our religion.26
While Tajev did care about accommodating her husband, his repeated requests for her to wear a headscarf
were, on their own, not enough for her to take up cover. Only when she arrived in Harrisonburg and found
hijab a common sight among her peers did the practice become normalized in her view and she felt open to
wearing one. Even so, she described taking up hijab as an onerous endeavor that she was still not habituated
to and treated with ambivalence.
It was difficult. Oh, it was so difficult… if you don’t grow up with it, if you don’t do it
all the time when you’re a kid… you just don’t get used to it. I’ve been wearing it since 2003
and I still don’t feel too comfortable. Sometimes, I even forget to wear it. But when I have to
be with strange men, then I have to wear it. So I mix it already, but some people are really
strict about it because of their religion.
Furthermore, when Tajev returned to Iraq for visits, she would follow local custom and resume life without
a hijab:
Actually, when I go back to Iraq, I completely lose my hijab. In the United States, I feel
much better about my hijab but in Iraq I don’t. Sometimes I wear it but not like I do here. I
don’t wear it in front of my husband’s family or relatives—I should, but I don’t. I live with
them for a long time, they are my relatives… it’s not that every woman who makes hijab is
perfect and good.
When asked why she felt more comfortable wearing hijab in the US, Tajev was unable to elaborate. Her
discomfort wearing hijab in Iraq may have been a reflection of cultural milieu, for in Harrisonburg, wearing
one was a common practice among women, whereas it was not so in her area of Iraq. And although she
believed that women were ordered by the Quran to abide by certain rules of cover, her statement showed
that, for her, hijab was not a straightforward adherence to religious rules but a complex process of reasoning
in which several factors informed when, where, and how she practiced it. For example, she acknowledged
that although there were rules requiring coverage in front of certain male relatives, she made an exception
with her male in-laws; that by having lived with her for an extended period of time, they became as her
own brothers, father or uncles. In other words, she related to these men as mahrems27
and granted herself
exception from rules of cover in their presence. In treating orthodox understandings of male-female taboos](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-113-320.jpg)
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as flexible, Tajev formulated a personalized understanding of hijab requirements. She also challenged the
link commonly made between hijab and morality by emphasizing that wearing a hijab is not what makes a
Muslim woman “perfect and good.” This is similar to the argument Elizabeth, above, made when defending
other black Muslim women from the criticisms of non-black Muslims.
Zaynab, a white, American convert of over thirty years, also highlighted the idea of hijab practice
depending on a woman’s social location. Like Tajev, she too lived in Harrisonburg and explained how her
styles of cover evolved according to how she was perceived by people in different times and arenas of her life:
I would wear black…people would say, “You’re so young, why are you wearing that?”
And I had trouble getting a job covered. I got better results when I wore brighter colors to
my interviews, but then when I got to graduate school, I didn’t want to walk around campus
looking like a flower all the time, so I started toning it down a little bit.
She added, “I’ve thought about, you know, maybe now that I’m older it’s not necessary, but I decided
to continue with it.” Just as Tajev felt hijab to be less necessary around her male in-laws, Zaynab, now in
her mid-fifties, felt it less necessary as one grew older. There is a widespread assumption (certainly not
confined to Muslim groups) that older women are less appealing sexually, resulting preoccupation
with shielding their bodies from the male gaze. Alluding to the sexual appetites of men, Zaynab and
other participants—including Elizabeth, above—frequently used the word “protection” to describe
their headscarves, explaining that it “kept [them] out of danger” or transformed them so that were “no
longer an object.” Once she passed a certain age, Zaynab did not feel as much need for such protection.
* * *
Anthropologist Gabriele Marranci notes that Muslims are generally “seen as followers of Islam rather
than followers of their desires, imaginations, identities and passions.”28
Examining our participants’
viewpoints and practices with Islam as the focal point would conceal that women who wear hijab are, first
and foremost, “acting, reacting, thinking, feeling humans”29
whose understandings of hijab are adapted to
the realities of their everyday lives. This pragmatism results in notions of cover and modesty that are far
from straightforward, always complicated, and often contradictory (for example, Tajev’s use of hijab in the
United States but not in Iraq).
The issue of readiness, i.e., “becoming ready” to wear the hijab, continually revealed the intricacies of
the practice. Several participants spoke of wearing hijab after much contemplation, only to give it up and
then take it up again. This was especially true for Saima, a Bangladeshi-American in her twenties who,
at the time of this research, was studying economics and starting a wedding planning business in New
York City. During our afternoon visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic World exhibit, she
began reflecting on how Muslims are perceived negatively in the United States. She expressed her desire to
respond competently to anti-Muslim perceptions in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, including the common
allegation that Islam facilitates the oppression of women. It was in this context, she explained, that she
began studying Islam and feeling increasingly devout. Initially, she decided to wear the hijab to “identify
with being a practicing Muslim,” as the covering provided her the visibility to challenge representations
of Muslims as violent fanatics, and to call attention to the fact that the vast majority of her coreligionists](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-114-320.jpg)
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were usual, everyday people like herself. This is not to say that her motivation to cover her hair was purely
political. Together, her religious reflections and halaqa (religious study group) peers had convinced her that
“true” Muslim women should wear hijab as a way to stress modesty. Therefore, she indeed dressed in hijab
out of political concern, but also out of a genuine commitment to piety. This commitment proved fragile
over time, as Saima’s outlook on modesty shifted. As she said, “…I realized that modesty is immaterial. And
after I realized that… I took it [the hijab] off.” When asked how her ideas of modesty changed, she answered
that another group of peers, outside the halaqa, introduced her to the idea of modesty being subjective30
:
I guess it was the other Muslims in the community… I had a lot of people saying,
“You know, this [wearing hijab] isn’t what modesty is; there are so many different kinds of
people.” I guess I just didn’t hang around those people at the time [at beginning of hijab].
When I started, I felt that to identify with a certain faith [Islam], I had to wear hijab.
Upon removing her hijab, Saima felt anxious about the judgments of certain women who covered, and
appeared to harbor some guilt about her inability to commit to the practice. “I don’t know how to answer
when they say, ‘Why did you take it off?’ Am I supposed to say, ‘Because I wanted to?’ I don’t want to say
that.” She resolved these tensions by simply distancing herself from judgmental individuals who were quick
to be “the haram police”31
and exacerbate her feelings of misconduct.
Saima’s comments continually showed her as being the “acting, reacting, thinking, feeling” person
Marranci refers to, one whose religious practice is informed and swayed not only by her identity politics
and social circles, but by her emotions as well. She said of removing her hijab, “I felt so weird because I had
had it for a whole year before that, so I put it back on.” Her final decision to cover was based not on any
faith obligation, for as she herself put it, “Even if I took it off, I would be Muslim.”32
Nor was it based solely
in social obligations or pressures to fit in with other Muslims, for as she realized, “…whatever course of
action you choose, you’re always going to have critics.” In the end, Saima expressed that she wore the hijab,
in part, because she had grown accustomed to wearing it. Leaving home without it felt strange, “weird,” as it
had become a part of her everyday sense of being. However, habit was not the only factor influencing in her
decision, for as she acknowledged, her hijab communicated multiple meanings that represented so many of
her interests and values that she “couldn’t really put it into words.” She expressed that, ultimately, wearing it
simply “felt right” for numerous reasons. She offered, “Maybe it is dogmatic piety and I haven’t really admitted
it to myself.” Indeed, as Saba Mahmood found in her study of Egypt’s piety movement, it was through
repeated bodily actions such as veiling that particular feelings were cultivated and imprinted in women, and
that in the cycle of body learning and body sense, “your body literally comes to feel uncomfortable if you
do not veil.”33
Fluctuationsandmultiplicityincoveringpractices,suchasthosedescribedbyourparticipants,showthat
Islamisnotaculturedeterminingsocialblueprint,34
therefore,itdoesnotpredictthatMuslimwomenwilldon
hijabatall,letalonethemannerorstyleinwhichtheywill.Asalmostallofourparticipantspointedout,covering
oneself does not necessarily correlate to religious commitment or morality, there are countless practicing or
piousMuslimwomenwhodonotsubscribetohijabpractices,andconversely,manywhowearhijabthatarenot
austere about other Islamic rituals, such as the five daily prayers or almsgiving. Indeed, Muslims are humans
involvedindifferentsocialactionsandinteractionsthatdictatetheirwaysoflife,includingmodesanddegrees](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-115-320.jpg)
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gave me a place to fit in and served as a barrier to intrusive men.” In time, however, Aminah found that her
hijab made her feel like an outsider and exacerbated feelings of being “not white enough, thin enough or
beautiful enough,” and ceased wearing it.41
From identity politics to curtaining oneself from men, Aminah’s negotiation of hijab echoes, in many
respects, our research participants’, though it is important to note that, unlike most of our participants,
she cites no religious or spiritual pull towards it and emphasizes instead that she wore it as an outward
expression of her minority status. Like our participants, she too is caught in a process of (re)negotiation in
which her hijab use is informed by everyday considerations: she wears it in certain circumstances and not
in others—in the Mipsterz video, for example, but not in the author photo that accompanies her response to
critics.
Our participants and the Mipsterz show that hijab practice, like Islam itself, is highly dynamic in
how it is (re)imagined and negotiated in accordance with other aspects of life. Scheilke calls these aspects
“grand schemes” which include every realm of life, from capitalism (as in the Mipster video connecting
hijab to the music industry and fashion) to love (as when the interviewees noted that they wear hijab as
a means of expressing love of God, husband, or self). In hijab practices, then, we can see how secular
experiences become meshed with religious ones in innovative ways. Mipster model Keziah Ridgeway spoke
of this creativity when explaining the fusion of hijab conventions with the contemporary ideals of beauty,
femininity, and style seen in the Mipsterz video:
What these women are… what I am, are our true selves. We’ve found a way to merge
our Islam with our creativity and our view on the world, whether it be loving fashion or
loving make up… So the first thing we’re doing is being true to ourselves, and we’re doing
that within the context of Islam… We have to understand that there are different levels of
modesty; not all Muslim women are going to dress the same…42
[emphasis added]
Ridgeway’s notion of a “true” self implies that Islam, while having a place of great importance in Muslim
lives, is not the defining factor of Muslim women or their practices. In fact, “the first thing” Ridgeway
prioritizes in her statement is not austere religious traditions or divine revelations, but conveying a sense of
herself through creative modes such as clothing and other presentation. These modes make her herself: a
unique person with unique preferences and habits. She carries out her lifeways within an Islamic paradigm,
but that paradigm is subjective (“our” Islam, as she calls it) and allows for individual expressions of hijab.
As she tells us later in her interview, echoing the essence of what Saima’s friends had told her, “Hijab is a
personal journey, a personal struggle.”
Conclusion
Following Schielke’s suggestion to focus on aspects such as ambivalence, contradictions, and change
thwarts a reductive view of women who wear hijab that defines them solely as products of Islam and ignores
the various pragmatic considerations, emotions, personal experiences, and religious interpretations that
go into their decisions to cover. In revealing these complexities, we end up having to present a multitude](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-117-320.jpg)
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that “we continue today [he was speaking in the late 1960s] to live very largely in a context of Christian
axioms” which are not all that eco-friendly.5
Christianity, he famously argues, “is the most anthropocentric
religion the world has seen”6
and it has inherited from Judaism, at least in part, a problematic rendering of
the human-nature relationship. Among other things, White laments its perception of time as non-repetitive
and linear that is in striking contrast to nature’s cyclicity. He highlights Christian emphasis on the particular
“otherness” of humankind—alone in all of creation made in the image and likeness of God and sharing in
the Deity’s transcendence—as setting us on high, as it were, above the created order. In many ways, this kind
of thinking, White contends, allowed for a valuation of nature based almost exclusively on how well it served
human purposes. In addition, throwing out animistic tendencies to vest living and non-living constituents
of the natural world with spirit, Christianity “made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to
the feelings of natural objects.”7
And before one should point the finger at science and technology for the mess that we now find ourselves
in, White reminds that “human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that
is, by religion.”8
Both science and technology, steeped in Christian culture, drew from it a notion of perpetual
progress that encouraged mastery and control. This led to an interpretation of human dominion over the
natural world as despotism (White contends) that is indefensible apart from Judeo-Christian teleology.9
“Modern science,” White says, “is an extrapolation of natural theology” and modern technology is “at least
partly to be explained as a voluntarist realization of the Christian dogma of [human] transcendence of, and
rightful mastery over, nature.”10
Accordingly, Christianity “bears a huge burden of guilt.”11
If Christians were dormant, if not indifferent, up until this point when it came to concerns about the
environment, they were certainly now being roused by the likes of White’s critique; indeed, not a few were
disgruntled by his piercing charges. In some Christian circles, the historian was called “a junior Anti-Christ,
probably in the Kremlin’s pay, bent on destroying the true faith.”12
Religion as Resource: The Catholic Church’s Catechesis on Creation
In spite of his critical evaluation, White did not advocate an abandonment of religion altogether. His
take-home point (although sometimes overlooked in the fury of counter-accusations) was not to forsake
religion as a destructive anachronism of our day nor to employ more science and more technology in order
to get us out of the present eco-crisis.13
“Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious,” White declared,
“the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not.”14
White turned, explicitly, to the model of Saint Francis of Assisi—styling him as the “the greatest radical
in Christian history since Christ”15
—whose humility grasped a much more extensive notion of what (or
whom, rather) constitutes community. Proposing Francis as patron of ecologists, White lauded the saint’s
attempt “to depose [humankind] from ... monarchy over creation and set up a democracy of all God’s
creatures. With him the ant is no longer simply a homily for the lazy, flames a sign of the thrust of the soul
toward union with God; now they are Brother Ant and Sister Fire, praising the Creator in their own ways”
as Brother and Sister Humans do in theirs.16
Incidentally, just over a decade later, Pope John Paul II would officially proclaim Saint Francis as the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-123-320.jpg)
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out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does
not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature
does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation
of beings who evolve.24
The Catholic tradition also teaches—grounded, for instance, in the book of Psalms25
– that the reach of God’s
compassion is over the whole of creation and is not limited to humanhood. To be sure, all of creation—
collectively—is very good26
and it is all—collectively—in statu viae; that is, the whole of creation is in “a state
of journeying” toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained and to which it has been destined.27
However, although the Catholic Church espouses a number of tenets that speak highly of the natural
world, it would be misleading not to list those teachings of this tradition that do not. On the one hand, the
Church claims that (1) Creation (which is good if not only by virtue of its Author) has inherent value, (2)
each of the various creatures are said to be willed in their own being, (3) interdependence and solidarity are
marks of the created order, and (4), God’s providence is over all existents and humans are called to imitate
said providence through the mandate of stewardship.28
On the other hand, the Catholic Church also speaks of the hierarchy of beings, with humankind as
the summit of the Creator’s work since it alone shares in the light of the divine mind29
Furthermore, the
destination of all material creatures for the good of the human race is underlined repeatedly.30
Even though
the Catholic Church emphasizes the interdependence of all beings in the universal order and recognizes the
value of the natural world in its own right (that is, aside from human utility), it nevertheless rejects biocentric
and ecocentric worldviews, arguing that these erroneously propose “that the ontological and axiological
difference between [humans] and other living beings be eliminated, since the biosphere is considered a biotic
unity of undifferentiated value. Thus [humanity’s] superior responsibility can be eliminated in favour of an
egalitarian consideration of the ‘dignity’ of all living beings.”31
And that, the Pontifical Council of Justice and
Peace in its compendium on the Church’s social teaching, just cannot be. White was not, perhaps, entirely
off the mark in his critique of Christianity, however sweeping it may have been.
This said, the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, proclaims that the world is
ultimately made for the glory of God32
and not for humankind. The demand here is for a more theocentric,
rather than anthropocentric, valuation of the natural world that takes its lead primarily from God’s own
explicit pronouncement of Creation as “good” even before the advent of humans and “very good” in its
comprehensiveness. The Catholic Church asserts that humans must not “make arbitrary use of the earth,
subjecting it without restraint to [our] will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-
given purpose, which [we] can indeed develop but must not betray.”33
The struggle to balance instrumental
and inherent value draws out an important practical question: what do we owe nature if it is, at once, a
shared (but limited) resource for survivability and the treasured work of a Deity who has given it its own
worth and purpose? At the very least, the Catholic Church has taught that at the heart of the eco-crisis lies
an “anthropological error” that gives precedence to the idea that nature is something to be used and does
little to consider God’s “original gift of the things that are.”34](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-125-320.jpg)
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Integral Corporeality and the Body as Place
Christianity writ large is replete with body language: from the Incarnation to the Sacraments to the
Church as the Body of Christ, value is given to the physical.35
“The Theology of the Body,” an extensive
corpus of teaching on the subject by Pope John Paul II, underlines the goodness of the body and reminds
that it cannot be reduced to mere matter nor mechanized. Further, the rendering of bodies as atomistic—
that is, as disconnected from context and relationship—is not only suspicious, it can lead to irresponsibility.
The human person—who is a body, rather than just having or experiencing the body36
—as Pope John Paul II
wrote, “belongs to the visible world; he is a body among bodies.”37
Thus,integralcorporeality,aswemightcallit,speaksononeleveltothehumanpersonasbeingcomposite
and covenantal in nature. In a broader sense, though, integral corporeality points to a more profound
sense of interconnection when it is situated in a vision of Creation as bodies in relationship.38
As we have
seen, the Catholic Church recognizes that these bodies—human and non-human—are characteristically
interdependent; this is, in part, by virtue of their shared limitedness. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis urges that
recognizing bodies as such is “an essential element of any genuine human ecology.”39
Whereas some define the potential of the immortal soul as “the central locus of the human-God
relationship and of God’s interaction with humans,”40
the body, too—unified with the soul in the composite
nature of personhood—is a locus or a place. Pope Francis reminds that Christians have not always been
quick to appropriate the truth that “the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body or from nature or
from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us.”41
And, yet,
this body as place motif is not unfamiliar to Christians. In his letter to the Church at Corinth, Saint Paul
incites his reader with a metaphorical question: “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?”42
All of this suggests that it
is in the material, in the body, that the human, God, and nature come together in deeply integrative ways.43
The American phenomenologist Edward Casey explains that “[t]o be in the world, to be situated at all,
is to be in place” and that “[p]lace is the phenomenal particularization of being-in the world.”44
Ultimately,
he says, “just as there is no place without body—without the physical or psychical traces of body—so there is
no body without place;”45
it is the body that orients and disorients.46
As the “vehicle of the here, its carrier or
‘bearer,’”47
the “lived body energizes a place by its own idiosyncratic dynamism, intensifying that place’s own
idiolocal character. If we were to begin to think in this direction, our understanding of place itself—place
as lived and imagined and remembered—would gain by deepening.”48
If we also render our understanding
of bodies in this same way—that is, “as lived and imagined and remembered”—then axioms of nature-as-
place and body-as-place converge, underlining the inseparability of nature and body as Casey urges us to
consider. In a similar way, the Church professes that it is in the bodiliness of the human person that the
sacramentality of creation is made manifest and through the bodiliness of the human person that holiness
can come into the visible world.49
The appeal, relevance, and urgency of this kind of integral corporeality—of “integral ecology”—that
underscores this binding of nature and body is brought to light by the Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor emeritus
of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. Recently honored by the White House as a “Champion](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-126-320.jpg)
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of Change”50
for his efforts in elucidating climate change as a civil rights issue, Durley claims that:
We are seeing its impacts in our own communities in the form of record-breaking
temperatures, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and the list goes on and on. When your children
suffer from asthma and cannot go outside to play, as is the case for many in Atlanta, it
is a civil rights issue. When unprecedented weather disasters devastate the poorest
neighborhoods in places like New Orleans, New Jersey, and New York, it is a civil rights
issue. When farmers […] cannot feed their families because the rains will no longer come,
it is a civil rights issue.51
Evenmore,theevidenceofpoorenvironmentalhealthinvulnerablecommunitiesthataredisproportionately
subjected to toxic air quality further emphasizes the importance of recognizing the bound realities of nature,
body, and place, which together are threatened by the “throwaway culture” that Pope Francis has critiqued
time and again.52
The realization that each body (human and non-human) is actually “a body among bodies”
means that rendering a body (human or non-human) as “disposable,” impoverished, or as an object of
exclusion automatically renders all other bodies as negligible in the same way.53
Notes
1 Roderick Nash, “The Greening of Religion,” in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, ed. Roger
S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 1996), 194.
2 Nash, “Greening of Religion,” 194-195.
3 Nash, “Greening of Religion,” 195.
4 Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155.3767 (1967): 1203-1207.
5 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205.
6 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205.
7 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205.
8 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205.
9 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205.
10 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206.
11 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206.
12 Nash, “The Greening of Religion,” 198.
13 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-127-320.jpg)
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warnings against the seductions of worshipping insensate things are echoed by both the prophet Habbakuk3
and King David.4
They also insist that obeisance to manufactured idols is nothing but a sham, a delusional
practice the end of which is only woody woe.
Were such denigration of nature and trees the predominant attitude in Jewish sources, we would have
merely mentioned such sources as proof positive that whatever knowledge and wisdom we humans possess
or claim to possess derives from our own ingenuity and insight. Of course, such anthropocentricism does
not preclude revelation being a possible source of wisdom and guidance. But this attitude certainly would
refute ab initio any impulse to look admiringly at the natural world beyond the city gates for glimmers of fact,
value, insight or even self-knowledge. It would paint the natural world in a single hue, an undifferentiated
and boring wasteland except for its base utility to city life.
Judaic Nature of Nature & Arboreal Difference
Thankfully such hostility toward nature does not dominate in the Judaic textual tradition. As will
be demonstrated here, ample material exists in classic Jewish sources that acknowledge that nature and trees
in particular are not all alike, and that they offer a variety of goods, such as, for example, being a fiery site of
divine revelation itself.
Consider the fact that the very story of creation narrates a nature into being that is comprised of
ecological niches rich with their own flora and fauna. Kind upon animal kind fly and walk, swim and swarm,
creep and crawl. According to the first version of creation, trees are also dissimilar: there are seed-bearing
plants and fruit trees5
that are for humans to eat, while all the other animals shall consume the other green
plants.6
Such plants are deemed divinely good.
The second version of creation similarly portrays the natural world as composed of different kinds
of things. Here, God trots before the primordial human all kinds of animals in hopes that one might satisfy
the human’s existential loneliness.7
That this experiment fails is, of course, a wonderment on so many levels.
But perhaps even more fascinating is that God plants a garden with a wide array of flora and places therein
the human. Observe the diverse kinds of plants in this Edenic garden:
Adonai God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom
[God] had formed. And from the ground Adonai God caused to grow every tree that was
pleasant to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and
the tree of knowledge of good and bad.8
There are trees that are aesthetically pleasing, there are trees that are nutritious, and there are at least two
special trees—one called the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the other that ominously sits in the
garden’s center. The primordial human is situated in this garden and tasked to till and tend it. Heaped atop
this responsibility is restraint: the human may eat of every tree except for the peculiar tree of the knowledge
of good and evil; consuming from that special specimen curries lethal consequences.9
About the tree of life
in the garden’s center more will be said later.
For now, alone, naked, with barely a trowel in hand, this primordial person is bidden to steward this
divine and edible garden. More, this person must somehow discern which tree is which. Some trees appear](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-140-320.jpg)
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make from trees but how trees make us human.
There is yet more. As we shall now see, Judaism contends that trees are a prime source of ideas, of
all-encompassing conversation, and of contemplation of my very being in existential, philosophical, as well
as theological terms. Some sources go on to hold that humans would do well to emulate trees, for arboreal
existence is in many ways divine.
For example, in this prophetic text Jotham rails against his brother Abimelech who arrogantly
appointed himself king over Israel. He conveys to the Israelites the danger of such monarchical comeuppance
through a parable. Here trees are no longer trees per se but illustrations of some idea, which, in this instance,
is the idea of proper governance. Through Jotham’s mouth, trees bespeak the radical notion that when
populations allow a ruler to be appointed without divine imprimatur, good candidates will and should
rightfully decline the opportunity. This means the people in the end will find themselves a shady and shaky
leader whose thorns promise only a fiery demise for the population itself. In this parable certain trees—the
olive, fig, and vine—stand for the virtues of humility, unselfishness, and restraint, while others like the jujube
tree represent vices of egoism and excessive overconfidence.15
More than merely representing ideas, virtues and vices, trees also speak of them through arboreal
language.
All the trees ()חיש of the field (Genesis 2:5). All the trees, as it were, conversed
()םיחשמ with each other; all the trees, as it were, conversed with mankind; all the trees
were created for man’s companionship [or benefit].16
This special language—hinted at in biblical materials—becomes for the rabbis one of the many secrets of
the natural world that can be learned. No less than Hillel, a great sage who lived in Jerusalem during King
Herod’s reign, took pains to study the natural world and its secret languages alongside human sources.17
If it is true that trees communicate in their own language, it must be possible then to converse
with them. On this account we can learn a great deal from them and of them. This is no fanciful rabbinic
worldview, mind you. Consider that Martin Buber—the great 20th century philosopher and theologian—
situates encountering a tree as the example par excellence of relation and dialogue, even of contemplation
itself.
In one text Buber describes holding his walking stick against an oak tree’s trunk. In that instance
he felt “contact with being.”18
He was simultaneously here and there. Moreover, his stick was the medium
through which conversation—the transportation of ideas—occurs: it is genuine speech. But speech is not
just a thing of this world, a substance like dead ash. Genuine, living speech entails both the physical me here
and the insubstantial me over there where you—tree or person—are. In genuine speech I am simultaneously
natural and supernatural. At one and the same time, I am comprehendible because I am tangible here
(“where I am, where ganglia and organ of speech”) and I am incomprehensible because I must be received
over there (“also there, where he is, something of me is delegated…pure vibration and incomprehensible”).
Though any and every reception is only partial, genuine speech is transcendent insofar as it breaks me from
my groundedness here and transplants me over there where I am received. Genuine speech encompasses
being (“I encompass him to whom I turn”).
Trees communicate and thus also spark contemplation. In his famous I and Thou, Buber describes](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-143-320.jpg)
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the various ways we contemplate and especially the ways we increasingly abstract from the beings we
encounter.19
This process decreases our intellectual proximity to that which we contemplate, dissolving it
and ourselves into a mutual exile. Such is the power of I-It contemplation, of keeping beings as objects. A
wholly different kind of encounter is possible that draws self and other out of exile and into true relation.
Like gravity, there comes a point where “the power of exclusiveness seizes” and two entities encounter bodily,
intimately, requiring no forgetting. And here Buber introduces reciprocity. Reciprocity is neither equality
nor equanimity, but a quid pro quo, an encounter between different selves in which differences matter yet
paradoxically are immaterial to the intensity of the relation itself. How a tree encounters me—whether it
contemplates me at all and if it does, whether it contemplates me as I do it—remains transcendent, beyond
the limits of my experience and knowledge. So even as I set about embracing this tree I encounter in front
of me and allow myself to be seized by its very being, I must also embrace the limits of this encounter, that
is, the limits of my own transcendence. For at one and the same time as I encounter this tree I am here
and there, transmitting language from here and being received over there. I am here receiving arboreal
communication—such as it is—and yet I can never completely situate myself there in and as the tree itself
for I am forever, eternally, just me. The transcendence of such I-Thou relations paradoxically reveals my own
boundedness and limitations, the edges of my existence, the bark of my being.
Buber’s student and colleague Franz Rosenzweig similarly points to trees to investigate philosophical
contemplation.
For experience knows nothing of objects; it remembers, it lives, it hopes and fears.
At best, the content of memory could be understood as an object; [but] then it would be
precisely an understanding, and not the content itself. For [the content] is not remembered
as my object. It is nothing but a prejudice of the last three hundred years that, in all
knowing, the “I” must be present; thus that I could not see a tree unless “I” saw it. In truth,
my I is only present if it – is present; for instance, if I have to emphasize that I see the tree
because someone else does not see it, then, certainly, the tree is in connection with me in
my knowing. But in all other cases I know only of the tree and nothing else; and the usual
philosophical assertion of the I’s omnipresence in all knowing distorts the content of this
knowledge.20
He criticizes the presumption of Western philosophy that its thoughts are atemporal, outside of time,
eternal—as if its thinkers had already consumed of the tree of immortality. This deceit is egotistical, to say
the least. By contrast, he calls for a new thinking that is more humble and earthy.
Why is truth so woefully
Removed? To the deepest ground banned?
None understands at the right time! If we
But understood at the right time, how near and broad
The truth would be, how lovely and mild!21](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-144-320.jpg)
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That contraction was completely uniform around the midpoint, so that the void was
uniformly circular on all sides. It was not shaped like a square with fixed corners, because
the Infinite had contracted itself like a circle, uniformly from all sides.24
Here the past is kept locked within the ever accreting present, the future always awaiting beyond the bark’s
dark edges. The here and now forever contracts away from the tree’s core, its origin and creation.
The other form of tzimtzum is constriction into a point, like onions ever expanding inward. This kind of
tzimtzum pulses from within, pushing and stretching thin and ultimately bursting the past that used to be
within. Try as they might, onions cannot crush themselves enough into a point, into the present, into here
and now. Though true for onions, God is otherwise:
God said, “That which you are explaining [about the building of the Tabernacle] is only
my own explaining: 20 side-boards in the north, 20 in the south, and 8 in the west, and
no more so I will come down and concentrate ()םצמצא my Shechinah inside measure for
measure.”25
Just as we take both forms of plantlife seriously, so too should we consider both forms of tzimtzum. God
both contracts the divine self to allow creation to come into being and God emanates from within the
(relatively tiny) humanly constructed Tabernacle.
Just as trees teach us about God, they also teach us how to relate with God. As if with Socrates
in mind, Jeremiah warns against trusting only humankind.
Thus said Adonai: “Accursed is the man who trusts in people and makes flesh his
strength and turns his heart away from Adonai. He will be like a lone tree in the desert, and
will not see when goodness comes; it dwells in parched lands in the wilderness, in a salty,
uninhabited land. Blessed is the man who trusts in Adonai, then Adonai will be his security.
He will be like a tree planted near water, which spreads out its roots along a brook and does
not see when heat comes, whose foliage is ever fresh; it will not worry in a year of drought
and will not stop producing fruit.”26
Those who do, suffer isolation in salty—and thus deadly—narcissism. Rather, those who trust God
draw sustenance from elsewhere, outside themselves, and because of this they will exist forever fruitful,
unperturbed even when climates change.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-146-320.jpg)
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Levinas, Buber’s I and Thou, Rosenzweig, Saadia Gaon, and Shachter-Shalomi. A third group, inclusive of
Genesis Rabbah 15.6 and Genesis 3 about the tree of immortality, is more skeptical and ambivalent. Even if
we could know what trees are and know, we should not. For this group, we should embrace the limits of our
knowledge and of our being.
I am unwilling, at this stage, to claim that one is the dominant school of thought in Judaism and
the others subordinate or countertraditions. Rather, I suggest that Judaism continues to wrestle with an
ambivalence about the powers and limits of human knowledge. Indeed, all three schools of thought evidence
an ongoing Judaic study of ecology in general and an appreciation of trees in particular.
Indeed, Judaism disagrees with Socrates’ call to close the city gates and presume that wisdom
and flourishing are exclusively humanly derived. Rather, Judaism encourages us to break forth from
narcissistic civilization and encounter the natural world—especially as it is embodied in trees. For out
there, in the embrace of those quietly communicating wise trees, we may encounter both revelation
as well as ourselves.
Endnotes
1 See, for example, Michael Marder, “The Philosopher’s Plant 1.0: Plato’s Plane Tree.” Project Syndicate,
November 26, 2012. www.project-syndicate.org/print/plato-s-plane-tree.
2 Deuteronomy 4:28. All biblical translations taken from the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 2nd
edition.
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999.
3 “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes
it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or
to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.” The
Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” Habbakuk 2:18-20.
4 “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but cannot
speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those
who fashion them, all who trust in them, shall become like them.” Psalms 135:15-17.
5 Genesis 1:11-12.
6 “God said, “See I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has
seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to
everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” Genesis
1:29-30.
7 Genesis 2:18-20.
8 Genesis 2:8-9.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-148-320.jpg)
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Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking
that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is
neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.” Found in Buber’s I and Thou, 57-59.
20 Franz Rosenzweig, “The New Thinking.” In Philosophical and Theological Writings, 120-121. Translated
by Paul W. Franks and Michael L. Morgan.
21 In “The New Thinking”, p 122.
22 “Inasmuch as the Creator of the universe, exalted and magnified be He, is essentially one, it follows by
logical necessity that His creatures be composed of many elements....
[T]he thing that generally gives the appearance of constituting a unity, whatever sort of unit it be, is
singularonlyinnumber.Uponcarefulconsideration,however,itisfoundtobeofamultiplenature.Toreducethis
generalization to simpler terms, when the substances of all beings are analyzed, they are found to be endowed
with the attributes of heat and cold and moisture and dryness. When the substance of the tree is examined, it
is found to include, in addition to the aforementioned, branches and leaves and fruits, and all that is connected
therewith. When the human body, again, is examined, it is found to be composed, besides the elements listed
above, of flesh and bones and sinews and arteries and muscles and all that goes with them. This is a matter
about which no doubt can be entertained and the reality of which is not to be denied.” Gaon, Saadia. The Book of
Beliefs and Opinions, Treatise X. Translated by Samuel Rosenblatt. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1948.
23 Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, “The Rings of Growth,” In Trees, Earth, and Torah, 285.
24 Chayim Vital, Etz Chayim, 11-14.
25 Exodus Rabbah 35:1.
26 Jeremiah 17:5-8.
27 Netsah Yisrael, p 47, section 7; found in Trees, Earth, and Torah, p 298.
28 Timaeus, 90a-b. See discussion in Marder (2012).
29 “When they were about to part, [R. Nahman] said: Pray Master, bless me. [R. Isaac] replied: Let me tell
you a parable — To what may this be compared? To a man who was journeying in the desert; he was hungry,
weary and thirsty and he lighted upon a tree the fruits of which were sweet, its shade pleasant, and a stream of
water flowing beneath it; he ate of its fruits, drank of the water, and rested under its shade. When he was about
to continue his journey, he said: Tree, O Tree, with what shall I bless thee? Shall I say to thee, ‘May thy fruits be
sweet’? They are sweet already; that thy shade be pleasant? It is already pleasant; that a stream of water may
flow beneath thee? Lo, a stream of water flows already beneath thee; therefore [I say], ‘May it be [God’s] will
that all the shoots taken from thee be like unto thee.’ So also with you. With what shall I bless you? With [the
knowledge of the Torah?] You already possess [knowledge of the Torah]. With riches? You have riches already.
With children? You have children already. Hence [I say], ‘May it be [God’s] will that your offspring be like unto
you.’” BT Ta’anit 5b-6a.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-151-320.jpg)
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pilgrimage through Aránzazu, Montserrat, and Manresa before entering Jerusalem on September 4, 1323
after spending nearly one-and-a-half years on the road.
Engaging in the pilgrimage, Ignatius slowly learned not to run ahead but to allow himself to be led by
the Spirit. Step by step, a camino, a road was opened leading to ever deeper conversion and transformation.
As the pilgrim (for this is how Ignatius refers to himself throughout his autobiography) journeyed through
various locations on the physical level, he experienced conversion in the inward journey of his soul. Ignatius
reminisced, “On this journey something happened to [me] which it will be good to have written, so that
people can understand how Our Lord used to deal with this soul: a soul that was still blind, though with
great desires to serve him as far as its knowledge went.”12
It was this recognition of how God works in one’s
life which inspired the Camino Ignaciano Course at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
in Berkeley (hereafter JST).3
In June 2015, six years before the 500th anniversary of
Ignatius’ pilgrimage, the instructors, Prof. Hung Pham, S.J. and
Prof. Kathryn Barush, with a group of twelve graduate students
pursuing various theology degrees —six Jesuit scholastics, one
religious sister, three women, and two laymen —set off from
Berkeley, California following the road where Ignatius once
walked, anticipating a transformative journey of their own.
Collaborating with Fr. Josep Lluís Iriberri, SJ, director
of Oficina del Peregrino del Camino Ignaciano, the Camino
Ignaciano Course at JST was designed to give the students an
opportunity to deepen their personal relationship with God
and to serve as part of the discernment of their life direction.
As Ignatius’ conversion was inspired by the lives of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, students were moved by
Saint Ignatius’ experience and his spiritual exercises. Envisioning the students as pilgrims and the classroom
as the road, the course emphasized the importance of encountering sacred space and objects in situ and
doing theology on the road.
Allknowledgebeginswithexperience. Theologicalideasandconceptsemergefromexperienceofpersonal
encounter with the transcendent. Faith formation and pastoral education often take place in classrooms and
pulpits, far removed from concrete realities and the messiness of the daily human experience of personal
encounter. When disassociated from encounter with lived reality, theological doctrines and discourse run
the risk of lacking depth of meaning. Technology, used to good advantage, means that students can explore
all the events and locations of the world, but on an important level technology distances them from personal
engagement with the potential associative value of such events or locations. It is one thing to watch a live
event. It is another to actually be part of it, to live it. It is one thing to read theology. It is another to wrestle
with and to do theology. It is one thing to theologize about Ignatius’ trust in God. It is another to walk in
the 105 degree Fahrenheit summer heat for 10 to 15 miles in order to personally experience what such a
trust entails. Bodily experience and even muscle memory become important parts of spiritual growth and
theological discourse. It is on the road where both students and teachers participate and engage as pilgrims.
Pilgrims about to depart from Berkeley, CA.
Photo: Oscar Momanyi, used with permission](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-153-320.jpg)
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religious, women and men). Three weeks walking on the Camino seemed to me, at that moment, like an
eternity. What had I gotten myself into? And why? The road ahead seemed reduced into fears that choked
up any previous excitement. Fear intensified and anxiety heightened as we wandered at midnight around
the parking lot of the Barcelona International Airport after the long transcontinental flight, looking for our
Spanish correspondent and guide. The road seemed dark; my spirit immobilized.
In the bunk bed of the tiny hostel, struggling with the darkness of my fear and anxiety, I stumbled upon
the folder of the students’ reflection papers. Slowly and prayerfully, I had a powerful vision of each of their
faces appearing in front of mine so vividly together with their holy desires in wanting to walk the Ignatian
Way. For one Jesuit student, the desire to “gain a deeper sense of Ignatius, who he was, how he thought,
what made him a saint” had energized him to walk.10
For others, the desire to grow in a deeper trust of God
empowered them. Reflecting on her reason to walk, a student wrote succinctly:
Two years ago I spent a year in Ecuador living among those we call the poor. It was the
hardest and most amazing year of [my] life. There I encountered God, witnessed suffering,
tried to fight injustice, and fell in love with people. What happened there led me to JST.
But I am not there anymore, and this life is not like life there. Now I know that it was my
Pamplona moment and I find myself in liminal space. I have been asking deep questions
like how do we know [what] God’s will is? What is my vocation? … With a hunger for
God, desire for adventure and ephemeral joy I applied [to this course in order] to [have the
opportunity to] walk.11
One after another, students’ motivations and desires began
to ignite mine. Recalling some of the graces which I had
received on the past journeys three years ago during my
Jesuit formation brought me deep consolation.12
As the
desire for the students to experience the grace of what it
means to place their trust in God had then moved me to
create the course, so had it now empowered my next step,
continuing on the road with trust and courage.
Walking through the forests of the Basque Country,
Spain. Photo: Hung Pham](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-156-320.jpg)
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St. Ignatius of Loyola was one of those who found
solace at the shrine of the Madonna of Montserrat. It
was there that he surrendered his sword and took up the
symbolic garments and life of a pilgrim, following the
path of Christ.
In their discussion of pilgrimage as a liminoid
phenomenon (e.g. voluntary, non-routine), Victor
and Edith Turner point to the transformative effect of
approaching the final grotto or shrine, where sins are
forgiven and the pilgrim identifies with “the symbolic
representation of the founder’s experiences”—hence
“’put[ting] on Christ Jesus’ as a paradigmatic mask.”18
Even though Montserrat was one stop—or perhaps,
“station”—along the way to Jerusalem (here I am
thinking of the Via Crucis, with its many sacred centers where the pilgrim pauses to pray), it was here where
Ignatius symbolically (and literally) cast off his knightly attire and sword, and clothed himself as a pilgrim
in sackcloth with a gourd to drink from. When he arrived at Montserrat he kept vigil all night and decided
to “clothe himself in the armour of Christ.”19
While at Montserrat, functioning in this context as a both a
destination and point of departure, Ignatius made a written confession for three days—compatible with the
Turners’ notion of the transformative effect of reconciliation during this phase of pilgrimage.
The experience of the students reflects, but also, crucially, continues what Ignatius had experienced in
the sacred mountain. For example, one of the students shared
that “at Montserrat, [a] sense of identification with Ignatius
deepened” and another affirmed that “as [he] walked in places
like Loyola, Montserrat and Manresa, [he] was permeated by the
spirit of the Saint in a more radical way.”20
The student who had
wondered aloud where Mary was among the throngs of people
had a moment of peace and consolation at the shrine where she
was able to leave behind burdens of her own:
In little moments, when I paid attention to the
grace around me instead of the pain of my feet and
exhaustion, it was evident how the Spirit was at work.
The interior work along with the great consolation at
Montserrat, brought me inner peace. I became in tune
with my deepest desires and was graced with interior
freedom. I was reminded through this transformation,
that the Christian vocation is about love. I am grateful
for the grace of freedom that will enable me to love
more deeply and healthily, beginning with myself.21
The Shoes of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Photo: Kathryn Barush
A pilgrim praying at the black Madonna of
Montserrat. Photo: Hung Pham](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-161-320.jpg)
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Whilethisexperiencewasonethatemergedfromherownpersonalpilgrimage,struggles,andcontemplations,
it was the act of following Ignatius’s route that acted as a stimulus for this shift. She recalled, “As [Ignatius’]
conversion story unfolded before us, it drew me inward to the spiritual dynamics at play in my own
story.”22
Likewise, another student (a Jesuit scholastic) shared a moment of letting go of unhelpful burdens
keeping him from becoming a good priest and Christian. His description is framed within the autobiography
of Ignatius, even though the experience is entirely his own: “The moment in which Ignatius placed his armor
and sword before Our Lady of Montserrat…illustrates the power and beauty of conversion and turning one’s
life around.”23
The student goes on to describe a significant vision in which Mary helps facilitate a leaving
behind of burdens; together, they stamped out the unhelpful “negative messages that led ... to darkness and
isolation.”24
The theme of reflecting on letting go of negativity appeared in many of the students’ narratives
post-Camino. Another shared:
As the scene unfolded, I wasn’t before a statue of Mary. Instead, I was experiencing the
real presence of Mary alive and well in my prayer… I’ve found myself reflecting about what
Ignatius had left behind, and I began to similarly ask myself if there is anything that I need
to leave behind as I look ahead into the future.25
Again, the experience that Ignatius had and the imaginative putting-on of the “paradigmatic mask” of the
saint helped to facilitate a powerful, and very personal, moment that revealed the things that were blocking
the students in their lives and in their relationship with God.
There is a lightness that comes with letting go of our swords and carving out a new path. We learn that
we can walk and walk.
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will talk, we will talk together
We will talk about walking
Dare shall be carried
And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing:
“Meet your new road!”26
MANRESA, July 11, 2016
Professor Barush:
We were not on the road for long when the tooth-shaped mountain dwelling-place of the Madonna of
Montserrat, the quietude of the monastic chanting, and the sun-drenched passes began to seem like a dream.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-162-320.jpg)
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moments of spiritual revelation, one of the hallmarks of a walking pilgrimage. One student recalled a
moment of grace and reconciliation:
I remember [as we came close to arriving] at Manresa, [one of the pilgrims] struggled
with each step, her knees swollen and giving out. I walked beside her trying to encourage
her, but felt exhausted myself and wasn’t much help. [Our guide] Jose came beside her,
and without a word took her backpack onto himself, and supported her as she walked.
When I saw him do this, I was deeply moved. I chose that moment as my “icon” of Jose:
him walking with [the pilgrims’] bag, letting her rest her hands on his shoulders. I felt like
Jesus said to me in that moment, “you are seeing him as I see him. This is who he truly is.”
At the same time I knew in a deep and interior way that Jesus looks at me the same way,
“as I truly am,” not as I see myself and not as others see me. This moment was a moment
of deep forgiveness for me, an icon of Jose, an icon of forgiveness, and a window into the
compassion of God. If only I could see like that, with the eyes of Jesus all the time. How
wonderful life would be.28
Ignatius did not name the Jesuits “the Ignatians;” he called them “the Society of Jesus” to emphasize
the importance of the teachings, compassion, humanity, and divinity centered in Christ. The student’s
experience again transcends Ignatius’ to focus directly on Jesus, which allows him to re-examine his own
life. Like Ignatius, he asks to “see with the eyes of
Jesus.” It again marks an example of the moments
when Ignatius’ journey was not being copied by we
modern-day pilgrims; rather, we were continuing it.
This resonates with the Thomist notion, succinctly
paraphrased by Jacques Maritain, that “artistic
creation does not copy God’s creation, it continues
it.”29
There was a moment on the outskirts of Manresa
where we could see the vista of the city, hazy and
terra-cotta colored in a smog of dust and heat. Our
guide pointed out some of the Ignatian sites and we
were all politely interested but preoccupied by our
thirst and ready to rest and pray in the sacred cave
where Ignatius had battled his demons. A final push occurred when we realized we could not cross the
bridge into town; it was cordoned off with rubble and barbed wire. With no other entrance into the city,
we were urged by our guide to cross, one by one, holding up wire and crawling underneath, hoping that the
structure would remain intact and not send us plummeting into the river. Our slow, painful march through
town was conspicuous, as usual, and it was a relief to get to the pilgrim bureau where we would receive
our certificates of completion. The moment felt less than celebratory, however, with a few sick pilgrims
suffering from heatstroke. I felt a twinge of affinity at that moment not with Ignatius but with my patron
Pilgrims crossing a field. Photo: Kathryn Barush](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-164-320.jpg)
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traversed. As we walked, the ancient pathways transcended time and space as they mapped on to our own
experiences and stories. To conclude with the words of one of the student pilgrims, “that outward journey
was a symbol of what continues to take place in my soul.”33
We are collectively changed for the better, with
our symbolic swords left behind and words to share.
Notes
1 Ignatius of Loyola, Joseph A. Munitiz, Philip Endean, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select
Letters Including the Text of The Spiritual Exercises (London: Penguin, 1996), 18. This translation is used throughout
the essay unless noted otherwise. Hereafter, [Au].
2 [Au 14]
3 We are grateful to the Bannan Institute Course Creation Grant from Santa Clara University and the Grant
from the President’s Office of the same University. The financial support of these grants have made the Camino
Ignaciano Course possible. We also want to thank Bill O’Neill, SJ for his judicious comments on an earlier version of
this travelogue.
4 [Au 1]
5 Vita Iesu Christi e quatuor Evangeliis et scriptoribus orthodoxies concinnata and Leyenda aurea, composed in
Latin by a Italian Dominican friar Jacobo de Varazze (de Voragine), d. in 1298 as archbishop of Génova. There were
various Spanish translations of this work such as Flos sanctorum, a honor e alabanza de Neustro Señor Jesu Christo
(1480) and Legenda seu Flos sanctorum (Toledo 1511).
6 [Au 3, 5, 7]
7 [Au 8]
8 Ignatius of Loyola and David L. Fleming, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and A
Contemporary Reading (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978), 7.
9 [AU 9].
10 A Jesuit student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
11 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
12 There were a couple of previous “journeys” that I (Prof. Pham) did in Spain. One was part of the Camino
Ignaciano: from Manresa to Montserrat. The other was part of the World Youth Day in Spain where we walked eight
days from Salamanca to el Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Peña de Francia, as part of Magis Experience in the
summer of 2011.
13 R. Garcia-Villoslada, San Ignacio de Loyola: Nueva Biografía (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos,
1987), 185.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-167-320.jpg)
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14 Ibid.
15 Jay Hamburger and Peggy Gordon, “By My Side,” from Godspell (written by Stephen Schwartz), New York,
Arista Records.
16 Fr. Michael P. Duricy, Black Madonnas: Our Lady of Montserrat, March 26 2008. Accessed May 10, 2016. http://
campus.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/olmont.html
17 Boss, Sarah Jane, Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the Virgin Mary (London:
Bloomsbury, 2000), 5 and Fr. Michael P. Duricy, ibid.
18 V.W. and E.L.B. Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press,
1978), 11.
19 [AU 20].
20 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
21 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
22 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
23 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
24 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
25 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
26 Jay Hamburger and Peggy Gordon, ‘By My Side’, from Godspell (written by Stephen Schwartz), New York,
Arista Records.
27 [AU 23-25].
28 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
29 J. Maritain, “Art and Scholasticism,” in G.E. Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics: A Reader (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 327.
30 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
31 Ignatius of Loyola and David L. Fleming, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, 47.
32 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
33 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-168-320.jpg)
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review
Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 165-167. © Brandy Daniels 2016.
Published by Emory University. All rights reserved.
Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline
Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore
Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 334 pages. $34.00.
I
n Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline, Bonnie Miller-McLemore offers a collection
of her work in the fields of practical and pastoral theology that spans twenty years (1992-2010). With
attendant introductions that “situate each chapter, provide connective tissue and allow for reassessment
and rebuttal,” she attempts to move “the discussion of the nature of Christian theology just a little bit,”
writing to the academic community, “for the sake of our wider publics” (14, 8).
In offering this collection, Miller-McLemore seeks to challenge the ways academic theology, both
systematic and practical, has “underestimated the intelligence involved in practice and overlooked the
limitations of merely academic knowledge” (172). To do so, she draws upon scholars in practical and pastoral
theology who have “disrupted conventional theological boundaries” and prompted these guilds to attend
more closely to the realities of people’s lives (1). Miller-McLemore calls for a rhizomatic approach that moves
from hierarchical theological approaches to “a more organic, ecological reading.” Such a reading would
encourage “circular and mutually interdependent movement” while also calling for a “multiplicity of ways
of knowing” (3, 162). This project of “discovering a discipline” involves three elements for Miller-McLemore,
which are reflected in the text’s organization into three parts: “the living web as theological subject matter,
practical wisdom as a way of theological knowing, and gender as a critical category for understanding human
situations” (1).
In Part I, Miller-McLemore explores this “living web” that she defines as the subject matter of theology
in the first chapter. She then amends this basic metaphor in the second chapter, in light of its “widely varied
meanings,” to “the human document within the web” (46; 48, emphasis mine). This emphasis on the human
document within the web acknowledges that humans can only be understood within their broader context,
but does not “get lost in the forest for all the trees” (47). It is through this metaphor that Miller-McLemore
locates the importance of public theology and the “theological engagement of public issues of significant
practical and pastoral consequence, such as child welfare and economic justice” (75). Concomitantly,
it explains her reasoning in articulating pastoral theology alongside practical theology, as both share an
investment in practice and experience, and “the interlocking, continually evolving threads of which reality
is woven” demands “a multilayered analysis of human strife” (37, 45). She concludes the section by offering a
four-part definition of practical theology, explaining its distinctive enterprise as “a discipline among scholars
and an activity of faith among believers,” as well as “a method for studying theology in practice […] and a
curricular area of subdisciplines in the seminary” (101).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-169-320.jpg)
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Practical Matters Journal, Spring 2016, Issue 9, pp. 168-170. © L. Callid Keefe-Perry 2016.
Published by Emory University. All rights reserved.
Theology and the Arts: Engaging Faith
by Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith
New York: Routledge, 2013. 230 pages. $125.00
I
n Theology and the Arts, Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith have offered up a profoundly useful text which
“brings the emerging fields of practical theology and theology of the arts into dialogue beyond the bias
of modern systematic and constructive theology” (frontpage). One of the things that makes the text
lively is that though neither Illman nor Smith identify themselves disciplinarily as practical theologians,
they nevertheless find the work of practical theology to be profoundly helpful to contemporary discussions
of faith and religion. Thus, while the text engages with a vast array of literature from practical theology, the
engagement is that of outsiders looking in. From this vantage the authors are overwhelmingly excited about
what practical theology has to offer.
[W]e are not content to simply criticize the deficiencies in a theological tradition that was
centered in the hegemony of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Western, male views of the
world. We have offered as an alternative to this dominant theological approach of the 19th
and 20th centuries the emerging discipline of practical theology (163).
Put another way, while this book is about practical theology it is not expressly written as “Practical
Theology.” That is, the book does not clearly follow the “action-reflection-action” model that is so common
in self-identifying practical theologies. Indeed, rather than practical theology provided as the structural
frame, practical theology is offered as useful alongside other disciplines which are – at least methodologically
– placed at equivalence. For example, after a lengthy discussion on the utility of postmodern, feminist, and
liberationist thinkers for contemporary theological reflection, the authors add the following:
We also find the emerging literature of practical theology itself a valuable voice with which we engage
in dialogue. The members of the Association for Practical Theology have provided us with direction for
the development of our understanding of practical theology... As we read the contributions of practical
theologians like Miller-McLemore, Chopp, Mercer, and others, the striking similarity of the thought of
theologians of the arts like Robin Jensen, Deborah Haynes, Frank Burch Brown, and Richard Viladesau has
become not just apparent, but glaring (164).
That the interests of Illman and Smith converge on theology, art, and practical theology makes
for a fertile exploration of the topics at hand, which they do with four goals in view. First, to discuss
contemporary theological research on the arts, focusing on the role of gender, pluralism, and postmodern/
post-secular perspectives. Second, to discuss the emerging literature in practical theology and evaluate the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/practicalmattersissue9sacredspaces-230309052408-717ef590/85/Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces-pdf-172-320.jpg)
Practical_Matters_Issue_9_Sacred_Spaces.pdf
- 1. Issue 9 Sacred Spaces, Sacred Journeys 2016
- 2. ii edItorIal Board Elizabeth Bounds, Emory University Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Duke University Elaine Graham, University of Chester Anna Grimshaw, Emory University Nathan Jennings, Seminary of the Southwest Kathryn Lofton, Yale University Charles Marsh, University of Virginia Colleen McDannell, University of Utah Robert Orsi, Northwestern University Robert Prichard, Virginia Theological Seminary Christian Scharen, Auburn Theological Seminary Leigh Schmidt, Washington University in St. Louis Ted Smith, Candler School of Theology David H. Watt, Temple University Todd Whitmore, University of Notre Dame Lauren Winner, Duke University edItorIal staff Issue Editors: Layla A. Karst and Sara Williams Managing Editor: Matthew Lawrence Pierce Editor for Reviews: Kristyn Sessions Assistant Editors: Lisa Hoelle and David Cho Faculty Consultant: L. Edward Phillips Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, © 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved.
- 3. iii contents Itineraries Layla A. Karst 1 Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies Hillary Kaell Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine Thomas S. Bremer from the edItor featured matters 5 15 Materializing the Bible: Ethnographic Methods for the Consumption Process James S. Bielo The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Their “Three-fold Mission,” and Practical and Pastoral Theology Daniel H. Olsen 54 27 The Root of the Route: Phil’s Camino Project and the Catholic Tradition of Surrogate Pilgrimage Kathryn R. Barush Space-Sharing by Religious Groups Paul D. Numrich 70 81
- 4. iv Practical Matters Journal Table of Contents Christian Theology in Practice, by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore Brandy Daniels 165 matters under revIew Theology and the Arts, by Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith L. Callid Keefe-Perry 168 Just Spirituality, by Mae Elise Cannon Sarah MacDonald 171 Ritual, by Pamela J. Steward and Andrew Strathern J. Derrick Lemons 173 The Scandal of Having Something to Say, by Lance B. Pape Casey T. Sigmon 175 Local Worship, Global Church, by Mark R. Francis Kara N. Slade 177 “Being True to Ourselves...Within the Context of Islam”: Practical Considerations in Hijab Practice Among Muslim American Women Huma Mohibullah and Christi Kramer Creationism of Another Kind: Integral Corporeality The Body, and Place in the Catholic Tradition Cory Labrecque How to Learn from the Lily: Shifting Epistemologies Rebecca L. Copeland Arboreal Wisdom? Epistemology and Ecology in Judaic Sources Jonathan K. Crane analyzIng matters 102 118 127 135 From Swords to Shoes: Encountering Grace on the Camino Ignaciano Hung Pham, SJ, and Kathryn R. Barush teachIng matters 148
- 5. Practical Matters Journal, Spring 2016, Issue 9, pp. 1-4. © Layla A. Karst 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 1 editorial Itineraries Layla A. Karst Issue 9 Editor, Practical Matters Journal I n 1978, Victor and Edith Turner published their groundbreaking work Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. Grounded in Victor Turner’s theories of symbolic anthropology, this text offered one of the first comprehensive theories of Christian pilgrim practice. The Turners’ work launched the subfield of Pilgrimage Studies. Coining the phrase, “the center out there” to describe the sacred locale that ordered the pilgrim’s journey, the Turners opened the door to conversations among anthropologists and sociologists about the intersection of sacred spaces and sacred journeys. In the host of monographs and articles that have followed this work, scholars have both lauded and criticized the Turners’ theories and conclusions. But nearly forty years later, their work continues to shape and direct regular inquires into practices of place and pilgrimage around the world. What is less often observed, but equally remarkable, is the way this work of anthropology is embedded in the personal religious commitments and experiences of Victor and Edith Turner. Their now well-known fieldwork among the Ndembu people of West Africa sparked not only new anthropological theories but a sense of the sacred in the anthropologists themselves. Struggling to settle back into their western home, the Turners searched for a way to continue their fieldwork on lived religion and took to attending various local religious communities. Eventually, they fell in love with the symbolic world they encountered in a local Catholic church—both in the space and in the liturgy. Following their formal conversion to Catholicism in 1958, it was Edith Turner who suggested they take up the pilgrim’s way, visiting first the Basilica at Tepeyac in Mexico and then the Irish shrine at Knock. Their search for examples of popular and material expressions of religion in their western world coincided with their own ongoing religious conversion, making the Turners both observers and practitioners, students and pilgrims. Interspersed among their careful and thorough anthropological theory in Image and Pilgrimage, we find glimmers of theological interpretations of the experience:
- 6. Karst, Itineraries 2 Practical Matters Journal Inside the Christian religious frame, pilgrimage may be said to represent the quintessence of voluntary liminality. In this, again, [pilgrims] follow the paradigm of the via crucis, in which Jesus Christ voluntarily submitted his will to the will of God and chose martyrdom rather than mastery over man, death for the other, not death of the other.1 FortheTurners,pilgrimageasaliminoidphenomenonheldbothanthropologicalandtheologicalimplications. It established the relationship of this popular and material religious practice to more institutional forms of Christianity while at the same time suggesting a new theological interpretation of pilgrimage not primarily as penitential, but as an imitation of the voluntary nature of Christ. It is not only the seriousness with which the Turners’ treat pilgrim practices, but also their reverence, that has made this text a foundational work for both religious scholars and theologians. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture stands as an early example of the intersection between practical theology and scholarship on religious practices, inspiring work in both fields. The influence of this monograph can be felt even here on the pages of Practical Matters Issue 9: Sacred Places, Sacred Journeys. In this issue, our contributors continue to broaden and expand this conversation begun by the Turners by raising new questions about the way sacred journeys and sacred sites situate themselves within contemporary cultures. Sacred spaces and sacred journeys Hillary Kaell’s Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies speaks to the state of the field of Pilgrimage Studies. Highlighting both the inherent benefits and risks of a disciplinary pursuit that has been marked from the beginning by a deep intersection between scholars and practitioners, Kaell suggests that the real potential of Pilgrimage Studies lies in its interdisciplinary contributions to fields both within and beyond Religious Studies. Kaell’s predictions bear out across the pages of this issue as scholars introduce scholarship on sacred spaces and sacred journeys into a variety of discussions on tourism, leisure, and travel. Thomas Bremer, Daniel Olsen, and James Bielo all work to blur the boundaries between pilgrimage and tourism and between religion and economics. Bremer argues that distinctions between tourism and pilgrimage are often difficult to uphold in practice. By tracing the history of travel to Yellowstone National Park, he argues convincingly that that the meaningfulness or sacredness of a place is often constructed through both religion and commerce. Daniel Olsen resists dominant voices that tend to focus on the ways religion is repackaged or commodified for consumption and instead explores the way the Mormon Church has embraced tourism to its religious sites as part of their evangelical mission. By introducing readers to the “Christian leisure industry,” James Bielo also resists the narrative that pits commodification against religious purity. Bielo suggests that these bible-based attractions ought to be observed as hybrid places that integrate “religion and entertainment, piety and play, fun and faith, commerce and devotion, pleasure and education” and that such a shift in understanding requires a corresponding shift in methodology for those who would study such practices.
- 7. Karst, Itineraries 3 Practical Matters Journal What happens when the constraints of our modern condition disrupt more traditional practices of space and journey? Kathryn Barush and Paul Numrich explore the ongoing construction of sacred space. Barush, an art historian, introduces readers to Phil’s Camino and the tradition of surrogate pilgrimage as she explores the intersection between built environments and pilgrim practice on a small island off the coast of Washington state. Constructed after illness prevented Phil Volker from walking the Way of St. James in Spain, Phil’s practice of walking has produced a new sacred space on the basis of an old. Paul Numrich explores practices of interfaith space-sharing. Noticing varying degrees of conflict in these arrangements, Numrich introduces the work of political economist Elinor Ostrom to offer an explanation for the varying success of these “common spaces.” In recent years, these sacred routes and sacred places have been incorporated into educational curriculums. Perhaps the best well known in the U.S. is William and Mary’s Institute of Pilgrimage Studies, which facilitates study abroad opportunities for students in Santiago and along the Camino each year. Kathryn Barush and her colleague at Santa Clara, Fr. Hung Pham, SJ, present a beautiful photo essay about their use of pilgrimage as pedagogy for spiritual and ministerial formation in a graduate theological program. Incorporating a description of the lesser known Camino Ignaciano in northern Spain with student and faculty reflections of the journey, they suggest that pilgrimage allows students to do theology, rather than just read about it. Expanding conversations around religious practice Issue 9 also illumines a shift in Practical Matters’ own journey as a publication. In addition to continuing to foster conversation around a topic of particular relevance in religious practices and practical theology, Practical Matters remains committed to publishing excellent scholarship on a wide range of religious practices. Moving forward, the section Analyzing Matters will feature pieces that exceed the boundaries of our issue theme to touch on all matters of religious practice. Huma Mohibullah and Christi Kramer explore the diversity of meanings and ideals that influence the decision by American-Muslim women to don the hijab. The presence of the hijab in the American public has received increasing attention in media and political commentary around the country. Mohibullah and Kramer argue provocatively against any monolithic interpretation of this practice and suggest instead that the decision to wear the hijab is informed by both religious sensibilities and everyday practical considerations. Cory Labrecque, Rebecca Copeland, and Jonathan K. Crane respond to critiques that religious anthropocentrism lies at the roots of the modern ecological crisis. Labrecque mines the complex Catholic moral theological tradition to expose texts that would support this anthropocentric attitude as well as teachingsthatpointtoamore“integralcorporeality.” RebeccaCopelandreadsatraditionallyanthropocentric Christian text (Matthew 6) through the lens of an epistemology informed by theories of biomimicry. Jonathan K. Crane contrasts the use of trees in the Jewish textual tradition with the anthropocentrism
- 8. Karst, Itineraries 4 Practical Matters Journal of Socrates. All three propose a shift in theological conceptions of the human-nature relationship that situates the human body within the natural world rather than distinct from it. All three of these pieces were originally presented at a conference on religion and ecology titled “The Sacred Mundane,” held at Emory University last September. Conclusion Questions about religious space and religious journeys are lasting ones. The re-emergence of pilgrimage and shrines in the western world works nostalgically to retrieve practices of the past while reinterpreting and resituating them in our contemporary context. Today more than ever, sacred spaces and sacred routes exist in and amidst both the landscapes of consumer economies and religious pluralism. While some communities aim to distinguish their pilgrimage from commercial tourism, others embrace tourism as a religious practice in and of itself. Visitors to the Christian shrine of Montserrat discover they are not the only community that finds this place holy. Worshipping communities find common ground in shared religious spaces. The reader will not find every religion represented here and doubtless each will be able to name a topic, issue, or question that has not been included in this issue. No editor can publish a collective work without enthusiasm for what it contains or regret for what it does not include. But our hope here at Practical Matters is that these pieces may be used to spark conversations in the classroom and to inspire further work in the field. We hope you will find in these pages the excitement with which our authors and editors approach their own work. I conclude with words of thanks for the hard work of the staff of Practical Matters. My co-editor, Sara Williams, shepherded this issue in its infancy. Managing Editor Matthew Pierce has worked tirelessly to keep Practical Matters viable and relevant throughout the major transitions of the past year, which included both a redesign of our online platform and the decision to expand the journal’s content to include a wider range of essays on religious practices and practical theology in each issue. Kristyn Sessions served as Reviews Editor for this project, masterfully recruiting and coordinating six thoughtful book reviews. Our newest members of the Practical Matters staff, Lisa Hoelle and David Cho, worked tirelessly along with the rest of the staff to edit and produce each of the pieces you will find here. A final thanks is due to our faculty advisor, Ed Phillips, for his support and encouragement of this issue. Happy Trails! Notes 1 Victor and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 9-10.
- 9. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 5-14. © Hillary Kaell 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 5 feature Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies Hillary Kaell Concordia University Abstract This article discusses some recent theoretical and methodological trends in studies of pilgrimage, a field that has grown significantly as of late. It begins by exploring how scholars might study failure during pilgrimage, and the difficulties therein. It moves on to discuss the fruitful, but also fitful, coexistence of scholars and practitioners who contribute to studies of pilgrimage. It ends by tracing some avenues for further research that would move beyond the confines of a subfield, creating the potential for work on pilgrimage to shape important conversations in multiple disciplines and areas of expertise. I. I n 2013, I was invited to speak at a university conference affiliated with a theology department. The organizer was a thoughtful practitioner-scholar who is a pastor and adjunct faculty member, known for running a summer course in which students complete a portion of the Camino de Santiago, a 500- mile walk through Spain. The audience included many of his students and members of the public. They were mostly older, white, and (based on our subsequent conversations) Christian or “post-Christian” with a renewed sense of spirituality. As one student from his course later told me, walking the Camino was for her “an exercise in spiritual discernment.” In short, my audience took pilgrimage very seriously. They had made such journeys and believed in their power. Not knowing much about this audience ahead of time, however, I prepared a paper titled “Can Pilgrimage Fail?”1 It was the last piece of my five-year study of U.S. Christian trips to the Holy Land, during which time I worked with seven Catholic and Protestant groups. Drawing on this research, and particularly my pre- and post-trip interviews with more than 130 pilgrims, I argued that scholars of pilgrimage should spend
- 10. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 6 Practical Matters Journal more time thinking about failure. Our own failure to adequately do so seems rooted in two main issues. The first is the theoretical model inherited from Victor and Edith Turner’s classic Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture that contrasted pilgrimage’s transformative aspects with those of ritual initiation. Although Victor Turner argued that in Western Christianity the trip affected changes such as making one a “better person” rather than producing ritual transformation per se, the overriding assumption is nevertheless that pilgrimage does something ‘good’ in the lives of those who undertake it. Subsequent scholars have argued that it affirms salvation, reconfirms identity, provides a “ritualized break” from routine, and results in renewal or healing.2 Second, pilgrimage scholars face more pragmatic issues related to methodology and the sources upon which our studies often rely. We generally draw on ethnographic participation at the sites themselves or on prescriptive materials written by former pilgrims, religious leaders, and tourism bureaus. Both tend to tell us what pilgrimage ought to do, rather than what it does. At shrine sites or on the roads leading to them, we record pilgrims’ predictions about outcomes after their return, which they understandably assume (or hope) will end in success. Methodologically, it is very difficult to later trace participants who may come from widely disparate areas and coalesce for only a short period during the trip.3 As I, and other scholars, have found, even when former pilgrims can be reached they may refuse to engage in further discussion for various reasons, including a fear of attenuating the experience.4 On an evangelical trip I followed in 2009, for example, I became close with Loretta, a sixty-three year old African American Methodist from South Carolina who was the only person from her church on our bus. She went alone in order to gain the personal strength to decline some of the many responsibilities she felt her family and church friends imposed upon her. She was very well liked and became integral to our group as a diffuser of conflicts and a giver of gifts and advice. A few months after our return, I visited her at home for a number of days. On the night I arrived, she cried as she told me, “I tell everybody that I went and met twenty-five angels. Everybody on that bus! I’ll always remember them even if I don’t see them again…. It was nothing but angels.” Yet though Loretta felt a deep emotional attachment to the group, she found it relatively insignificant whether she actually saw any of us again and did not seek to maintain contact after our return. As I interpret her actions today, it seems that refusing continued contact may actually be an integral part of how former pilgrims extend the trip’s primary goals. For Loretta, we were “angels” because we witnessed her personal struggle and ability to overcome; she described this relationship as embodied most significantly when she was baptized alone in the Jordan, an emotional reconfirmation of her connection to Jesus that we watched and applauded from the river’s bank. And like angels’ visits, our time together relied on its fleetingness. We remained symbolically important precisely because for her we existed only in the Holy Land, unconnected to the everyday responsibilities that she sought to leave behind.5 Many other pilgrims do not mind continued contact with group members (including anthropologists) in the months and years after the trip. But assuming we have the means and time to visit them, we are still left with a rather large theoretical conundrum: how does one go about defining failure? Is it a kind of Geertzian meaning making, where failure is the inability to “make sense” of the journey? Is failure the gap between pre-trip goals and post-trip outcomes? Or is it something else entirely? In the conference paper I presented, I pointed out for the audience these various definitional, and to some extent practical, problems regarding
- 11. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 7 Practical Matters Journal the study of failure. I then turned to three examples culled from my fieldwork with a 2012 trip organized by a Christian and Missionary Alliance evangelical mega-church. In one case, a woman was praying in the Holy Land for her adult son to come to Jesus; she came home and nothing had changed. In the second case, another woman returned to find that she could not muster the words to witness to others about her experience, a serious problem since she had expected the trip would provide a way to encourage others in faith. And third, a woman came home to find herself plunged into an unprecedented “dark night of the soul” during which she lost the ability to feel God’s presence. It was the first time she had felt so alone since she was born again 35 years before. The first two women were typical of most Christian pilgrims in my study. For them, failure was in some sense impossible. Because they couched the trip within what they viewed as the progressive trajectory of their faith lives, they were able to compel meaning making into the future: good things would happen in “God’s time,” as U.S. evangelicals often phrase it. The woman with the adult son even materialized this hope by packing away the souvenir cross she bought him, waiting for the moment when she could present it to him as a born-again believer. While my analysis pertained to evangelical Christians in particular, the wider implications concern how scholars have often conceived of pilgrimage as a single ritual act. Granted, more sophisticated studies have long understood pilgrimage as a temporally extended, flexible, and “ritual-like” experience that contains more cohesive rituals within it.6 Nevertheless, we still neglect how pilgrimage—long before or after the journey itself—draws on or compels rituals at home that pilgrims assimilate into their memory of the experience, thereby coloring their conception of failure or success. For example, I found that former pilgrims who had been disappointed during the trip tended to frame it as successful within a few months. While this reversal may occur for a number of reasons, a key component is how they incorporated “home” rituals into what we might think of as an extensible pilgrimage experience. Post-trip actions became linked to the journey itself (and later were often narrated as such): they had finally prayed spontaneously during worship, for example, or had renewed their wedding vows. Thus a pilgrimage’s aftereffects linger into an indistinct future, a fact that is perhaps not surprising since participants are Christians, spouses, friends, or parents long before and after the journey itself. The third case I described for my audience was different. A sense of failure was acute for the woman who lost the ability to feel God’s presence. It was a very rare experience, one of the few times I heard anything of this sort during more than five years of speaking with pilgrims.7 Nevertheless, it was instructive because its very severity offered some basis for gauging at what point a pilgrim herself might deem the trip a failure. Importantly, she was unable to compel meaning into a future defined as ‘God’s time’ because she couldn’t feel God at all. II. Whisking us back to the conference in 2013, I finished my talk and waited for questions. There was just one: “Have you ever been on pilgrimage? If you had, you wouldn’t be so cynical.” For the audience, my talk on failure had, well, failed. There is surely a lesson here about knowing something of one’s audience ahead of
- 12. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 8 Practical Matters Journal time. However, my point also runs deeper than that. The burgeoning subfield of Pilgrimage Studies is deeply shaped by an engagement between practitioners and scholars; it informs which questions and assumptions are foregrounded or excluded. Discussing failure, for example, may be deeply problematic as a result. While this fruitful/fitful coexistence of scholars and practitioners is relevant to all branches of Religious Studies, it is especially important in Pilgrimage Studies since its resurgence in the last decade. At one level, this close association between practitioners and scholars is to be expected, especially in work on Christianity, my field of expertise. The study of pilgrimage was greatly shaped by (even born out of) the 1978 publication of Victor and Edith Turner’s aforementioned Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, a great anthropological work that dovetailed with the couple’s own conversion to Roman Catholicism. More recently, the growing interest in pilgrimage among white, middle-class North Americans and Europeans has been driving many (North American and European) scholars’ interest in the topic. The Camino de Santiago in Spain is a primary example of the rather spectacular resurgence of older pilgrimages. The Euro/American rise in pilgrimages has drawn scholars’ attention in part because it seems to address the (supposed) anomie of post-modernity. As a recent volume puts it, “the pilgrim…represents the human being in its closest relationship with nature, something which is difficult to achieve nowadays thanks to advances in technology…For this reason walking is increasingly valued, both in its purely mechanical form…and also in its form in which the walker has a goal, we might almost say a destiny, as is the case with pilgrimages.”8 Although this passage is framed as a general statement, the author clearly has in mind the Camino and other ‘renewed’ walking routes. Pilgrimage’s new place of cultural prominence has also meant that more scholars (caught up in the zeitgeist) have had important personal experiences as pilgrims—often on the Camino—that have led them to undertake its study. George Greenia, director of the Institute for Pilgrimage Studies at William and Mary College, is a good example. So is Ian S. McIntosh, an Indiana University-Purdue University expert on aboriginal rights and reconciliation, who has recently begun leading interfaith walks and co-organizing an international pilgrimage conference.9 The third such conference, “Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimages in the 21st Century,” meets in Prague in May 2016. The organizers pointedly welcome proposals from pilgrims and religious leaders and frame the main topics of discussion such that they reflect important emic assumptions related to transformation. The first topic—“Defining Pilgrimage”—begins, ‘Travel for transformation’ embraces the sacred journey as a potential turning point in one’s life. Witness the avalanche of books by pilgrims who have experienced the Camino, or those who have been influenced by the transformation of others….Questions arise as to how and when a journey becomes ‘sacred’ and how and when pilgrimage devolves into a mere tourist endeavour, and what constitutes an ‘authentic’ pilgrim… Reflecting McIntosh’s interests, the next topic posits that pilgrimage can “Reinforc[e] the Vision of the Ultimate Unity of Humanity,” citing Greenia’s “insight that ‘pilgrimages generate the least violent mass public gatherings [that] humankind has designed for itself’...”10 While the Sacred Journeys conference organizers
- 13. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 9 Practical Matters Journal may certainly be open to including a talk on failure, such language nevertheless illustrates a particular vision of Pilgrimage Studies as an interdisciplinary collaboration between practitioners and scholar-practitioners that assumes pilgrimages make something happen.11 The people I identify loosely as “scholar-practitioners” include people of faith and tourism professionals. Both groups share a belief in the effectiveness of such journeys for ends including the management and promotion of local economies, the spiritual uplift of co- religionists, or the creation of interfaith unity and reconciliation.12 It is in this coincidence of the practical and scholarly—where pilgrimage is instrumentalized and transformation is pitched as an ontological fact— that misjudgements or misrecognitions may arise, such as when the audience at a university conference challenges the legitimacy of a presentation on failure. Anthropological and sociological studies of pilgrimage take a less practitioner-oriented approach (though, as Pilgrimage Studies pioneer Jill Dubisch pointed out in a recent talk, perhaps anthropologists are seduced by these journeys’ emotional, dramatic, and transformative capacities, just like pilgrims themselves).13 Regardless, informed by the Turnerian approach and by emic understandings, scholars in this field have also viewed transformation as quasi-inherent to the experience. The journey’s transformative capacity has been one basis upon which scholars have deconstructed the category of “pilgrimage” since the early 1990s by widening it to include endeavors related to popular culture, educational trips, or “homeland” tours.14 III. The 1990s was a watershed moment for Pilgrimage Studies during which conversations coalesced around a series of texts and theoretical arguments. Its rise was directly related to Western scholars’ burgeoning interest in human mobility and, more particularly, anthropologists’ experiments with moving beyond the local, bounded field site model. While most scholars in the 1990s were not insiders to pilgrimage like some of those described above, they nevertheless framed its importance based on trends within their own societies (and disciplines). As the subfield has grown in the last decade, its coming of age is marked by increased infrastructure in the form of two new book series at Ashgate and Routledge, as well as the recently established Centre for Pilgrimage Studies at York University (England) and the Institute for Pilgrimage Studies at William & Mary College (United States). Both centers are headed by a scholar of the medieval period who now also champions the study of contemporary pilgrimage.15 There has been some recent criticism of the field’s growing “mainstream,” especially from sociologist John Eade who has been at the forefront of pushing studies of pilgrimage in new directions, notably in his co-authored classic Contesting the Sacred (1991). His current critique relates both to the central place of Anglophone scholarship and to the concomitant importance placed on anthropological paradigms. With Italian anthropologist Dionigi Albera, Eade has recently edited a new volume that highlights the importance of ethnological studies of folklore in studies from Central and Eastern Europe.16 While I am less bothered by anglophones or anthropology—indeed, from that perspective I am certainly part of the problem!—I agree with Eade and Albera that Pilgrimage Studies ought to pursue new directions. One way to do so is
- 14. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 10 Practical Matters Journal to connect our work on pilgrimage to larger questions in scholars’ respective disciplines and more broadly, in Religious Studies. Doing so helps push us beyond the synoptic vision of a “canon” and the gate-keeping institutions that concern Eade and Albera. To my mind, some of the liveliest current conversations are those that engage ideas about ritual creativity and the secular, such as Anna Fedele’s Looking for Mary Magdalene (2012). Recent work on secularism in Religious Studies can glean much from Pilgrimage Studies, which has debated questions about space, secularity, and the sacred since the early 1990s. Ian Reader and Tony Walter’s well-known 1993 volume on popular pilgrimages, taken together with David Chidester and Edward Linenthal’s 1991 book on sacred space, has informed numerous studies that use the pilgrimage idiom to push the boundaries of what we think of as religion.17 Pilgrimage lends itself well to such analyses since it is usually lay-centered and often takes pilgrims well beyond clearly demarcated or authorized religious zones (on the journey, if not the destination). Excellent case studies of the relationship between official and popular forms of piety have been highly developed by scholars of Islam in work on ziyara, the visits to local saints’ shrines that are under increasing attack from Islamic reformers.18 As Religious Studies scholar Thomas Bremer has recently noted, pilgrimage and tourism studies potentially reorient static ideas of religion even further by helpfully “setting aside lexical and intuitive (‘I know it when I see it’) definitions of religion that rely on essentialist assumptions; instead [they] highlight a more performative, constructivist view...”19 Scholars have long used pilgrimage as a jumping off point to explore practices teetering on the edge of the secular, including motorcycle trips, the Burning Man festival, or “esoteric” journeys to New Age sites like Mount Shasta.20 Other scholars push the idiom of pilgrimage, and thus “the sacred,” further to include visiting national parks or whitewater kayaking.21 An especially promising line of work has been Simon Coleman’s sophisticated and ongoing theorization of pilgrimage as a “lateral” ritual, where participants both affirm and yet distance themselves from official structures. Coleman argues that pilgrimage may therefore exemplify how people in Western societies interact with religion in ways that are increasingly episodic, short, but intense.22 Aesthetics, value-making, and performativity also connect with economics in work on pilgrimage. In my field of American religion, this intersection is a potentially fruitful addition to a recent wave of studies about market capitalism. In my own work, for example, I explore the business of pilgrimage. More particularly, I am interested not only in how tours are structured by companies and government bodies, but in the actual moments when money changes hands in the Holy Land, as well as the discursive use of the term “commercialized” as American pilgrims seek to draw distinctions between self and other.23 Another recent example, by social anthropologist Tea Virtanen, uses moral economy as a theoretical framework to discuss the hajj among Mbororo pastoralists in Cameroon. Cattle are a core constituent of their lives and thus of the hajj, which they make by virtue of selling their stock; indeed, Virtanen argues that Mbororo Islam inextricably incorporates cattle within it as a sign of divine blessing and a practical sacrifice on Allah’s behalf. Thus conceptualizations of pilgrimage are fundamentally linked to (moral) economic activity that is embedded within broader Mbororo understandings of the world.24 Studies of pilgrimage ought to move towards more sophisticated analyses of economy, as evident in Virtanen’s work. We must also recognize, to quote Bremer again, how “things deemed religious involve
- 15. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 11 Practical Matters Journal commodifications that are integral to the deeming process.”25 This idea is by no means foreign to Pilgrimage Studies, which has nurtured a robust discussion about the intersection between tourism and pilgrimage over the last decade.26 Yet we still too often reiterate projects that (explicitly or not) set up scales from sacred to secular to evaluate just how “religious” or “touristic” is any given experience. Early in my work on pilgrimage, I came to think of it as the “Susie Syndrome” based on sociologist William Swatos’ description of Clearwater, Florida, which was home in the late 1990s to a Marian apparition site and a beach. The result, writes Swatos, is a jarring, post-modern mix of sacred and secular. “Purely secular” tourists mingle with the religious and he imagines the former showing photos of the trip upon return: “Here’s Susie standing at the Mary Shrine in Clearwater. Now here’s Susie at the beach.”27 The implication is that Susie can be classed as a secular tourist (or at least something other than a pilgrim) if she values the beach as much as the shrine.28 Being mindful of emic notions of the authentic or spurious does not mean that we must reproduce them by referring to the economics of pilgrimage as, to quote another recent text, the unnatural “contamination” of “genuine” experience.29 To some degree, my concern about the tourism/pilgrimage divide brings us back to the question of failure, which likewise requires casting aside longstanding assumptions about what pilgrimage ought to do— transform, make a difference, take place at a shrine but not a beach. Scholars of pilgrimage have nuanced and destabilized the very categories of “pilgrimage” and “religion” upon which the subfield rests. They were doing so even before the genealogical turn or popular discussion of the secular within Religious Studies. In that sense, they are poised to produce potentially groundbreaking work that unearths how Western dichotomies (sacred/secular, religious/commercial) inflect studies of religion in the places or time periods where we work.30 Moving forward, just as pilgrims’ journeys take them beyond the bounded village field site, so must we ensure that our work travels beyond the subfield called Pilgrimage Studies. Straying from this path to explore wider fields, we create the potential for work on pilgrimage to shape important conversations in our respective disciplines and areas of expertise. Notes 1 Subsequently published in “Ritual Risk and Emergent Efficacy: Ethnographic Studies in Christian Ritual,” a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion forthcoming in October 2016. 2 Victor Turner, “Death and the Dead in the Pilgrimage Process,” Ed. Edith Turner. Blazing the Trail (Tucson: Arizona University Press, 1992) 37; Victor and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978) 34–35; Alan Morinis, ed. Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992), 27; Nelson Graburn, “Tourism: The Sacred Journey.” Ed. Valene Smith. Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 21-36 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), 22; Jill Dubisch and Mark Winkelman. “Introduction.” Pilgrimage and Healing. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005. 3 Simon Coleman, “Do you believe in pilgrimage? Communitas, Contestation and Beyond,” Anthropological
- 16. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 12 Practical Matters Journal Theory 2 (2002): 355-68. See page 358. There are some exceptions that did follow up with pilgrims after the trip, at least by trading some letters, including Anna Fedele, Looking for Mary Magdalene: Alternative Pilgrimage and Ritual Creativity at Catholic Shrines in France (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Nancy Frey, Pilgrim Stories: On and Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). Fewer still have also worked with pilgrims before departure. 4 Frey, Pilgrim Stories, 191. 5 I tell this story in more detail in Walking Where Jesus Walked:American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage (New York University Press 2014), 170-175. 6 Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions [1997] (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), x, 102, 248. 7 I should note that it is very difficult to gauge how often this situation occurs since former pilgrims who experience a sense of failure may opt out of post-trip interviews. When people opted out, it was usually through their silence and I never knew why. 8 Antón M. Pazos, Pilgrims and Pilgrimages as Peacemakers in Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2013), 1-2. 9 Kanwal Prakash Singh, “A Modern-Day Pilgrimage: The Interfaith Walk in Indianapolis,” Sikhchic.com, 30 October 2012. Accessed 12 November 2015. https://sikhchic.com/current_events/a_modernday_pilgrimage_the_ interfaith_walk_in_indianapolis 10 Ian McIntosh and Rob Fisher, “Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimages in the 21st Century, 3rd Global Meeting: Call for Participation 2016” Inter-Disciplinary.net, Accessed 12 November 2015. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ probing-the-boundaries/persons/sacred-journeys/call-for-presentations/ There is a stream of social scientific work on pilgrimage that also focuses on interfaith relations. See for example Glenn Bowman, ed. Sharing the sacra: the politicsand pragmatics of inter-communal relations around holy places (London: Berghahn Books, 2012). 11 In Europe and Israel, the two areas beyond North America with which I have some familiarity, more universities maintain departments of tourism studies. Scholars in this field often work closely with government or local stakeholders to address the challenges of ‘managing’ sacred sites. Their goals may include trying to learn how to encourage pilgrimage and make it more profitable (monetarily, ideologically, etc.). 12 Cf. Simon Coleman, “The Janus Face of Pilgrimage,” in Pazos, ed. Pilgrims and Pilgrimages as Peacemakers in Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2013). Publications about marketing and managing pilgrimage are too numerous to detail here and not my own area of expertise. Such studies are especially prevalent among researchers working in business management, often outside of Europe and North America. They are not generally in conversation with scholars grouped ‘Pilgrimage Studies.’ Typical recent examples include Farooq Haq and Ho Yin Wong, “Branding Islamic Spiritual Tourism: An Exploratory Study in Australia and Pakistan” European
- 17. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 13 Practical Matters Journal Journal of Business and Management 5:11 (2013) 154-162; Jabil Mapjabil et. al., “Islamic tourism: a conceptual review and its relevance in Malaysia,” Geografia. Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 11:1 (2015) 172-182. 13 Jill Dubisch, “The Seduction of the Anthropologist,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting (Denver, Colorado), 20 November 2015. 14 E.g. Jackie Feldman. Above the Death Pits, Beneath the Flag: Youth Voyages to Poland and the Performance of Israeli National Identity. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. 15 I am referring to George Greenia at William and Mary and Dee Dyas at York. 16 Dionigi Albera and John Eade, “International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Research” Eds. Albera and Eade. International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Studies. London: Routledge 2015) 1-22. 17 Ian Reader and Tony Walter, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (London: Macmillan Press, 1993); David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal, eds. American Sacred Space. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. 18 E.g. Ismail Fajrie Alatas, “Pilgrimage and Network Formation in Two Contemporary Ba ‘Alawi Hawl in Central Java,” Journal of Islamic Studies 25:3 (2014) pp. 298–324. 19 Thomas S. Bremer, “Touristic Angle of Vision: Tourist Studies as a Methodological Approach for the Study of Religions,” Religion Compass 8:12 (2014) 371-79. See page 374. 20 Rooted in nineteenth-century Transcendentalism and Romanticism, as well as the twentieth-century Beat movement, outdoor, nature-based journeys are integral to the New Age movement today. Besides Fedele, Looking for Mary Magdalene, see also Madeline Duntley, “Spiritual tourism and frontier esotericism at Mount Shasta, California,” International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 5: 2 (2014) 123-150; Lee Gilmore, Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), Raymond J. Michalowski and Jill Dubisch Run for the Wall: Remembering Vietnam on a Motorcycle Pilgrimage (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001) 21 Lynn Ross-Bryant, “Sacred Sites: Nature and Nation in the U.S. National Parks,” Religion and American Culture 15:1 (2005) 31-62; A Whitney Sanford, “Pinned on Karma Rock,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 75:4 (2007), 875-895. 22 Simon Coleman, “On Mirrors, Masks and Traps: Ambiguity, Risk and ‘Lateral Participation’ in Ritual” Journal of Ritual Studies 23:2 (2009): 43–52; Coleman, “Purity As Danger? Seduction, Sexuality and Slipperiness in Christian Pilgrimage,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting (Denver, Colorado), 20 November 2015. 23 Some of that material is summarized in Kaell, “Commerce, Commercialism, Commercialization: How Money Gets Spent and Talked About on Holy Land Tours,” Sacred Matters, January 2015. See also Kaell, Walking Where Jesus Walked.
- 18. Kaell, Notes on Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Studies 14 Practical Matters Journal religion and tourism as mutually exclusive phenomena. 27 William Swatos Jr. “Our Lady of Clearwater: Postmodern Traditionalism” in William Swatos and Luigi Tomasi, eds. From Medieval Pilgrimage to Religious Tourism (New York: Praeger 2002) 191. 28 A comparison could be drawn between my use of “Susie Syndrome” and Robert Bellah’s well-known “Sheila-ism.” Trenchant criticism of Bellah has come from feminist scholars who reject his understanding of Sheila as self-absorbed and argue that this is the result of a male-centered narrative where women, like Sheila, have had to find religious fulfillment in their own “little voices.” Although Swatos undoubtedly did not mean to make a comment about women’s religious behaviors, choosing a “Susie” instead of a “Steven” is nevertheless noteworthy. 29 Pazos, Pilgrims and Pilgrimages, 3 and note 5. 30 P. J. Johnston, “Dharma Bums: The Beat Generation and the Making of Countercultural Pilgrimage,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 33 (2013) 165–179. See page 176.
- 19. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 15-26. © Thomas Bremer 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 15 Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine Thomas S. Bremer Rhodes College Abstract Yellowstone National Park serves as a historical case study for considering the role of travel practices, sociocultural constructions of identity, discourses on authenticity, and consumerist orientations in the designation of particular places as sacred. The history of pilgrimages to America’s national parks offers an example of the touristic translation of spiritual value into economic value. Specifically, places in the modern world are constructed (both materially and conceptually) largely in accordance with the values and logic of consumer capitalism. Consequently, any discussion of particular locales that people find significant must account for the ways that they conceptualize and utilize places through a consumerist orientation. A s he moved from town to town in the rounds of his itinerant ministry, the Rev. Edwin J. Stanley, a Methodist circuit preacher riding the rough country of Montana Territory in the 1870s, listened intently to the tales of unrivaled natural wonders to be found along the Upper Yellowstone River. He eventually relented to his curiosity about this Yellowstone “Wonderland,” a place where he had been told, “In no country on the globe, within the same area, has Nature crowded so much of grandeur and majesty, with so much of novelty and variety.” Off he went in August of 1873, not even eighteen months since President Ulysses Grant had signed into law the act establishing Yellowstone as America’s (and the world’s) first national park, to experience for himself the enchantments of a place “unrivaled in wild and weird wonders.”1 One of Rev. Stanley’s early stops in the park was Tower Falls, where he discovered a secluded hideaway ideal for reverent contemplations. “Inspired by the surroundings,” he later recalled, I lingered long in that retired chamber alone, meditating on the wonderful works of Nature; and as I watched the water descending in jets and crystal showers, and listened to its hushed murmur, subdued to softness by the overhanging cliffs and towering pines, feature
- 20. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 16 Practical Matters Journal I could but admire the modestly beautiful little cataract hid away in this lonely yet lovely solitude, where it would not be observed by the curious hundreds passing near, and I returned to camp feeling myself a better man, and meditating upon the greatness, wisdom, and goodness of Nature’s God.2 Such spiritual revelry, though, paled when he reached the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. After an arduous climb down to the river’s edge deep in the chasm, Stanley and his companions felt the sublime power of the canyon’s magnificence: [W]e were awed into silence and reverence, feeling that we were in the very antechamber of the great God of Nature, and that he was talking to us and teaching us lessons of his greatness, his grandeur, and his glory, that human language must ever fail to express. A sense of the awful pervades the mind, and we almost felt that we were trespassing upon sacred ground. I felt like baring the head and bowing the knee to One who could pile up rocks in such stupendous majesty, and carve and paint them in such matchless splendor, “who cutteth out rivers among the rocks;” “who holdeth the waters in the hollow of his hand,” and spreadeth them out in such grandeur and beauty. “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”3 Rev. Stanley’s experience in Yellowstone, though, was not all spiritual elevation. His moments of awe- inspiring piety were punctuated by evidences of a frightening underworld bubbling up in the park’s thermal features. He recalled images from John Bunyan’s popular Protestant allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress as his party toured the boiling lakes of the Lower Geyser Basin: Could we but have heard the cries of the tormented, Bunyan’s picture of the pit in the side of the hill which the pilgrims were shown by the shepherds on their way to the Celestial City, where they “looked in and saw that it was very dark and smoky;” thought that they “heard a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry of some tormented, and that they smelt the fumes of brimstone,” would have been complete.4 Yet,suchfrighteningevocationsoftheinfernalregionsnotwithstanding,Stanleypredictedthepopularappeal among future spiritual seekers of the park’s geysers, hot springs, and bubbling mud pots. With rapturous enthusiasm he recounted his tour of the Upper Geyser Basin, “the centre of attraction in the National Park,” where, he surmised, “in future years, not far hence, either, the philosophers and tourists, and the lovers of the sublime and the wonderful in Nature, will gather from all countries and climes to make investigation, to behold and wonder, and even worship at Nature’s shrine.”5 Yellowstone would soon become, as this itinerant minister of God rightly predicted, a pilgrimage shrine of international repute. At “Nature’s shrine” in the precincts of Yellowstone National Park, Edwin Stanley encountered what he regarded as an authentic spiritual experience of divine reality. He was not alone in finding God in nature’s marvelous attractions. In fact, Stanley’s sojourn to Yellowstone typified a nineteenth-century Christian piety inclined toward a reverence for nature and encouraged by the commercial interests of a tourist economy. This confluence of piety and profiteering, of course, was nothing new in the annals of religious travel:
- 21. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 17 Practical Matters Journal entrepreneurial enterprises have populated pilgrimage routes and holy destinations as long as reverent humans have been engaged in devotional travels.6 But by the 1870s, this long history of religious travel had entered a modern, industrialized era that expanded the goals, motives, and destinations of devotional journeys beyond the bounds of conventional sectarian traditions. In places like Yellowstone National Park, modern people found aesthetic and spiritual value in a perceived connection with the natural world. The Aesthetic Value of an Authentic Place Place is closely related to identity, both at the individual and collective levels.7 In the contemporary world of neoliberal consumer capitalism, economic concerns mediate emplaced identities. Specifically, places in the modern world are constructed (both materially and conceptually) largely in accordance with the values and logic of consumer capitalism. Consequently, any discussion of particular locales that people find significant must account for the ways that these places are conceptualized and utilized through a consumerist orientation. This is as true for religious places as it is for other culturally significant locations. One way that many highly regarded religious places gain their meaningful significance is through devotional travel practices which make evident the connection between identity, the socioeconomic foundations of place, and religion. Attention to the relationship, both historically and in contemporary contexts, between travel practices alternately identified as “pilgrimage” and “tourism” brings into focus a synergy between religion, place, and commerce. Although many observers prefer to distinguish between pilgrimage and tourism, in actual practice such distinctions become difficult to uphold. In many ways, pilgrims and tourists are interchangeable social actors. As anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner famously quipped, “a tourist is half a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist.”8 On the one hand, contemporary travelers undertaking devotional journeys rely to a large extent on the conventions, practices, and infrastructural support of the tourist industry. Conversely, recreational travelers in many cases discover spiritual or religious dimensions to their tourist experiences, whether they seek such experiences intentionally or merely stumble upon them by accident. Often those engaged in recreational travel attribute aesthetic meaning to their tourist experiences through the categories and language of their respective religious orientations.9 Significant to this connection between religion and tourism is a discourse on authenticity. Specifically, the trope of authenticity lends aesthetic value that enhances both religious and economic worth. The discourse on authenticity in fact plays a crucial role in religion, both for religious adherents as well as for the scholars who study them. For the people who constitute religious communities, their claims of piety in many cases imply claims of authenticity. This is most apparent in apologetic and proselytizing contexts. Put simply, asserting one’s own religious orientation, practices, beliefs, and traditions as “true” and superior insinuates an authentic spirituality that contrasts with the false and inauthentic pretenses of others’ religious understandings and practices. In the rhetorical exchanges that circulate between diverse religious worlds, true religion is authentic religion.10 As for scholarly studies of religion, a good deal of academic efforts and resources are dedicated to developing authentic understandings of religion. Indeed, as religious studies
- 22. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 18 Practical Matters Journal scholar Russell McCutcheon reminds us, the discipline of religious studies to a large extent “exists by chasing after the authentic.”11 This pursuit of authenticity in religious studies gives scholars the authority to describe, explain, and expound upon the true meanings, purposes, and implications of the religions they study.12 Authentic religion also offers economic value for religious adherents and the scholars who study them as well as to modern society more generally. Historian Laurence Moore has argued that the secularization of modern society is less about the disappearance of religion and more about its commodification.13 The processes of religious commodification gain a great deal of their value in the claims, whether explicit or implied, of an authentic, true religion or spirituality underlying the religious commodity. This economic value of authenticity in things religious is especially apparent in the marketplaces of tourism. Religious objects, architecture, art, music, ritual events, even religious people themselves do not escape the processes of aestheticization and commodification of the tourist economy.14 This business of turning religion into commodified objects, events, and experiences comports well with tourists’ desires for authenticity, thus heightening the value of their touristic efforts. In short, authentic religious experiences or items offer spiritual value that translates to economic value. One clear example of the touristic translation of spiritual value into economic value can be seen in the history of America’s national parks. These sites of national significance display the characteristics of sacred space that, according to religious scholar Lynn Ross-Bryant, are places “where the many and conflicting stories of the culture are embodied and performed.”15 The specialness of the parks, especially the earliest ones, relies to a large extent on social and cultural constructs of “nature.” In particular, American national parks were conceived as preserved areas of wilderness consisting of regions separate from humans and their interventions, which, as Ross-Bryant observes, “seems to be the authentic form of nature.”16 This sociocultural conceptualization of wilderness generates an ethical mandate of preservation for the parks. Relying on the language and rhetoric of museums, the national parks put preserved nature on display as it was long ago, frozen in a time before human interference. Ross-Bryant concludes, “The rhetoric of the parks tells us that to enter into a park is to leave behind what humans have created and place ourselves in the natural pristine world.”17 Preserving these pristine worlds as refuges from modern society, though, requires development and management. It entails the building of accommodations for the comfort, safety, enjoyment, and pleasure of visitors. “Improvements” include lodging and camping grounds, eateries and gasoline stations, roads and trails, museums and souvenir shops, and all of the support infrastructure needed to manage places of intense tourist visitation. As Ross-Bryant observes wryly, “it should be obvious that this is not nature untouched by humans.”18 Nevertheless, the human touch recedes to near invisibility for most visitors intent on experiencing pristine nature: “the boundaried space,” in Ross-Bryant’s analysis, “came to be understood as sacred space and the parks emerged as national pilgrimage sites.”19 The earliest and perhaps the most famous of these wilderness pilgrimage destinations is Yellowstone National Park, established by Congress in 1872. Despite its reputation as a preserve of unmarred wilderness, Yellowstone National Park is a very carefully managed, developed, and heavily manipulated piece of real estate.20 The National Park Service manages Yellowstone, in the words of the legislation that created the park, “as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” To
- 23. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 19 Practical Matters Journal that end, responsibility for the park is granted to the Secretary of the Interior with a duty to “provide for the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said park, and their retention in their natural condition.”21 Thus, Yellowstone’s enabling legislation emphasizes both public enjoyment and perpetual preservation of park resources “in their natural condition,” burdening the Secretary with an impossible task of self-contradictory goals: retaining Yellowstone’s wonders in their natural condition, it seems, would preclude the presence of people who have come to experience a pleasuring-ground set aside for their benefit and enjoyment. Fulfilling this difficult challenge requires intense management of the park and its resources as well as policing the visitors who arrive by the millions each year. The Yellowstone Shrine People travel to Yellowstone with a variety of motives and interests, nearly all having to do with nature. Some come for the stunning vistas of mountain scenery, others for the curious spectacles of thermal features, while yet others are captivated by the allure of wild animals in their natural habitats or the adventure of pitting oneself against the challenges of a wild land.22 And similar to most pilgrimage destinations, the difficulty of the journey heightens the attractiveness of this authentic western place. Yellowstone is not conveniently located near major population centers, and getting there requires some planning and effort.23 But modern transportation makes the journey far easier than it was in the early days of the park. In fact, the history of development in the park centers around convenience, comfort, and safety of visitors, but an authentic aesthetic of rustic proportions remains an appealing attraction for many people who arrive in the Yellowstone wilds.24 Before the railroads offered service to the park, visitors arrived on horseback or on foot. Yet despite the difficulties and dangers involved in getting there, visitors were touring Yellowstone even before the establishment of the national park in 1872. A report from that year discussing relations with Indians in Montana notes, “Even on the Yellowstone, which is considered the most dangerous and exposed portion of the Territory, tourists and parties of pleasure, (in one case including ladies,) were safely traveling to and fro during last summer [1871], and examining with delight and astonishment, the geysers, hot springs, canyons, waterfalls and mud volcanoes of this most wonderful of all places on the earth.”25 Accommodating these visitors was in fact an early priority for the park. Ferdinand V. Hayden, head of the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories, included in the maps drawn during the official expeditions that he led to Yellowstone in 1871 and 1872 recommendations for “five localities where buildings could be erected for the accommodations of visitors. These localities could be leased to suitable persons for a term of years. They are in close proximity to the principal curiosities in the Park.”26 Visitor accommodations likewise were among the earliest concerns of the national park’s first superintendent, Nathaniel P. Langford, who noted the numerous requests he had received for permission to put up small hotels in the new park. He remained cautious, though, about rushing headlong into development projects, preferring instead to put off any plans until a thorough survey of the park could be conducted. In his initial response in May 1872, to the Secretary of the Interior acknowledging his appointment as park superintendent, Langford stated, “I do not think it best to grant many leases for
- 24. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 20 Practical Matters Journal hotels &c., nor these for a long time:— but at least one stopping place for tourists should be put up this year.” In seeking clarification of his authority as superintendent, he asked the Secretary in the same letter if his powers included authorization “to make all necessary regulations for the building of one public house, or more if needed, and generally, for the protection of the rights of visitors [specifically against exorbitant tolls on private roads], and the establishment of such rules as will conduce to their comfort and pleasure.”27 Without clear guidance from Washington and lacking funds to manage the park, development in Yellowstone was negligible in the early years. Getting to Yellowstone remained a daunting adventure through much of the nineteenth century. Philetus Norris, the park’s second superintendent, argues in his 1877 report for the need to develop better routes to Yellowstone: The permanent opening of this great natural route from the North and East, and the assured extension, of the Northern, Utah road, into, at least, the Snake river valley, from the South, will develop rivalry in excursion tickets, from all the important cities, of the Nation, inviting teeming throngs of tourists, to the bracing air, the healing, bathing pools, and matchless beauties of the ‘Wonder Land.’28 Even after the railroads laid tracks right up to the entrances of the park, the first in 1882 with the initial Northern Pacific Railroad terminus at Cinnabar, Montana (later moved a short way to Gardiner, Montana, adjacent to the north entrance of the park), a visit to Yellowstone remained a bit of an ordeal. As one visitor in the 1890s complained, his Yellowstone trip “would have been far more comfortable if there had been less dust, fewer mosquitoes, and better roads.”29 Another commentator, Carter Harrison, the former mayor of Chicago who toured Yellowstone in 1890, observed that the carriages transporting tourists throughout the park were not able to follow too closely to each other, “For at times the dust on some of the reads is very deep, causing passengers in some of the vehicles to be choked and rendered very uncomfortable.”30 Overcrowded hotels was another of his complaints: “At such times one is compelled to take a bed in a room with several others and may even be forced to crowd two in a bed.”31 Harrison’s summary assessment notes the unevenness of available accommodations in Yellowstone during his 1890 visit: The hotels at Mammoth Hot Springs and at Yellowstone canyon are large, each capable of housing two or three hundred guests. The beds are clean and soft, the table fair and the attendance quite good. At Norris, the hotel is poor and the managers are impolite. At the Lower and at the Upper Geyser Basin, the houses are unfinished, and the rooms not sufficient in number, but the people do their best to please. This endeavor should cover a multitude of sins.32 A good number of nineteenth-century visitors did not avail themselves of hotel offerings, preferring instead (either from aesthetic preference or financial necessity) to enjoy a more rustic experience. During his visit in 1890, Carter Harrison mentions that he saw many parties who “take tents and enjoy a regular roughing life.”33 For some people of means, though, “roughing it” included considerable help. Harrison’s account notes that some parties “have a number of attendants who generally go ahead to prepare the camps for the night, while the tourists loiter along the way to inspect the marvels or to botanize.”34 For at least a few
- 25. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 21 Practical Matters Journal folks, indulging in the authentic experience of nature required the services of hired help. Some of the pilgrims to Yellowstone in the nineteenth century came to be healed. Even before Ferdinand Hayden’s geological expedition in 1871, a health spa had taken root at Mammoth Hot Springs, where Hayden reported as many as fifty customers inhabiting the “very primitive” lodgings and enjoying the healing properties of the steaming mineral waters. Hayden himself was convinced that “there is no reason why this locality should not at some future period become a noted place of resort for invalids.”35 Rev. Edwin Stanley in 1873 likewise reported, There are several springs, the water of which is used by the scores of invalids already flocking here to be healed of their maladies. Here, also, are the small bath-houses erected by the proprietors, for the use of which a handsome sum is generally exacted. The medicinal properties of each fountain seem to be different, and the invalid can use that best adapted to his case…. Some remarkable cures have been effected here, mostly of diseases of the skin, and rheumatism. But I think that the invigorating mountain-air and the healthful influence of camp-life have much to do with many cures that are effected, as these are known to be wonderful remedies in themselves for many of the ills which flesh is heir to.36 As late as the final decade of the nineteenth century, expectations still circulated regarding Yellowstone’s potential as a restorative destination for ailing pilgrims. Carter Harrison predicted in 1891 that “sanitariums will be established to make the park a blessing to the afflicted of the country.” He noted not only the curative properties of the hot springs but also the health benefits of the mountain air, although he warns it may not be helpful to those suffering from consumption (i.e., tuberculosis). “The rarified atmosphere,” he wrote, “makes their breathing very laborious and painful.” Nevertheless, Harrison goes on to report, “The majority of those whom we have seen here for health are camping out and seem to be having a good time. They have their horses, and spend their time fishing and riding.”37 Healthful waters and rarefied air aside, the vast majority of people who came to Yellowstone in the early years of the national park were most interested in experiencing the glorious wonders of nature. The Rev. Stanley’s ruminations regarding Yellowstone’s “antechamber of the great God of Nature” were neither unique nor particularly unusual among spiritually inclined visitors. Such is the case in the descriptions of Harry J. Norton, who had visited Yellowstone in its first year as a national park, a full year before Rev. Stanley’s trip there. Norton’s account repeatedly struggles to express the sublime grandeur of the sights he viewed. He recalls entering the geyser basins: Look cautiously, tread carefully—for we are now in the enchanted land, surrounded on every side with mystery and marvel. One brief hour has sufficed to change our quiet, love- inspiring, soul-entrancing scenery into that of a land of awe and wonder. The natural king has faded from our vision, and the supernatural monarch has ascended the throne with glittering crown, and with magic wand is ever directing our footsteps through his mystic domain.38 He sums up the sublime beauty of the Giantess Geyser by remarking how “the air glistens with the falling
- 26. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 22 Practical Matters Journal water-beads as if a shower of diamonds was being poured from the golden gates of the Eternal City.”39 The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, though, escapes adequate description; Norton explains, To say that we can describe (literally) their grandeur and marvellous beauty, would be to assume to correctly portray the illuminated heavens, or carve out of poor, weak words the glories of the Heavenly City itself. The subject is beyond the conception of the most vivid imagination—language is inadequate to express the unapproachable picture presented.40 The description of the canyon in the guidebook portion of his book concludes, “the whole scene is clothed with a splendor that speaks of Divinity.”41 The divine splendor of Yellowstone for many visitors was sometimes eclipsed by less noble perceptions; ambivalence often crept into pilgrims’ experiences. One notable example is in the recollections of British literary figure Rudyard Kipling, who visited the park in 1889. Particularly bothersome were the other travelers he observed in the park. Kipling’s account expresses considerable disdain for American tourists and Americans more generally. For instance, after witnessing Fourth of July celebrations at Mammoth Hot Springs, the eminent writer remarked, “Today I am in the Yellowstone Park, and I wish I were dead.”42 The patriotic festivities he witnessed included the pontifications of an unnamed clergyman who assured the raucous gathering that “they were the greatest, freest, sublimest, most chivalrous, and richest people on the face of the earth, and they all said Amen.”43 Kipling also registered disappointment in some of the natural features of the park, as when his group toured the Norris Geyser Basin. He described the stark landscape there as “the uplands of Hell,” where it seemed to him “as though the tide of desolation had gone out, but would presently return, across innumerable acres of dazzling white geyser formation.”44 His attitude changed, though, when he arrived at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The vibrant colors and dramatic contrasts of canyon walls, roaring river, and graceful waterfalls inspired more ethereal imagery as he perched at sunset on a jutting ledge overhanging the canyon’s depths: “Now I know what it is to sit enthroned amid the clouds of sunset. Giddiness took away all sensation of touch or form; but the sense of blinding colour remained.”45 The aesthetic splendor of the canyon’s display erased, at least for a moment, the disappointment and disdain he had felt in previous days. Underlying visitors’ perceptions of their Yellowstone experience, whether disappointing or sublime, was an aesthetic of authenticity. The dominant appeal for nearly everyone who went there lay in the park’s promise of untrammeled nature. Many of Yellowstone’s early pilgrims reveled in an authentic experience of divine creation in the scenic vistas and unrivaled enchantments of the park’s natural features. Yellowstone was, for many who ventured there in the nineteenth century, a place of authentic sacred encounter. An Authentic Place The history of American national parks relies on a discourse of authenticity that invokes a binary distinction between nature and artifice. With the exception of the first national protected area—Hot Springs Reservation in Arkansas—the earliest parks were places of sublime scenery, locations where modern people could engage in authentic experiences of their God’s handiwork.46 Implicit in the designation of national parks in the nineteenth century was an insistence on their authenticity as untouched, undeveloped reserves
- 27. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 23 Practical Matters Journal not manipulated by the corrupting interventions of human efforts. This early view of America’s national parks as untainted natural reserves coincides with nineteenth- century conceptions of the American west. In fact, two distinct visions of the west loomed large in the nineteenth-century American imagination, as historian Mark Daniel Barringer notes. On the one hand was the Old West, a land of opportunity, a place of unrivaled resources awaiting the commercial ambitions of miners, timber operatives, ranchers and farmers, as well as the array of support services and industries capitalizing on the settlement and development of western lands. On the other hand was the New West, a place of redemption, a terrain of spiritual revitalization gained through a reverence for nature and authentic experiences of the western frontier.47 Yellowstone epitomized the latter view, but the park’s aesthetic value also coincided with the more opportunistic promises of the Old West. Public interest in the redemptive experiences of the national park generated economic opportunities for railroads, lodging enterprises, tour operators, and a host of other entrepreneurial undertakings. Consequently, pilgrimage to the authentically pristine environs of Yellowstone, like religious travel everywhere, offered redemptive experiences for the tourist-pilgrims who made the journey while filling the coffers of the opportunistic business proprietors along the route. This circumstance has not abated. As Edwin Stanley predicted, the philosophers and tourists, all lovers of the sublime and the wonderful in Nature, still gather to worship at Nature’s shrine. What Rev. Stanley did not say but only implied in his observations, those philosophers, tourists, and seekers of the sublime would pay handsomely for the redemptive value of the national park. Consequently, Yellowstone continues to generate aesthetic value that profits those who serve the pilgrims in their journeys to America’s natural Wonderland. Endnotes 1 Edwin James Stanley, Rambles in Wonderland: Or, up the Yellowstone, and among the Geysers and Other Curiosities of the National Park (New York: D. Appleton, 1878), 7. 2 Ibid., 65. 3 Ibid., 77-78. 4 Ibid., 95. 5 Ibid., 96. 6 Evidence of the close relation between pilgrimage and trade can be found throughout the ancient world. One prominent example is pre-Islamic pilgrimage in the Arabian peninsula; as Joy McCorriston notes, “ancient Arabian states attracted pilgrims for and with both religious and economic reasons. The intertwined socioeconomic activities and devotional aspects of pilgrimage can be traced throughout Arabian history and pre-history as a leitmotif for the constitution of Arabian society”—Joy McCorriston, Pilgrimage and Household in the Ancient near East (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 31. In ancient America, the example of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico also
- 28. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 24 Practical Matters Journal exemplifies the confluence of devotional travel and trade: “The great-house sites were scenes of pilgrimage fairs where visitors consumed goods and services under a ritual metaphor”—Nancy J. Akins, “Chaco Canyon Mortuary Practices: Archaeological Correlates of Complexity “ in Ancient Burial Practices in the American Southwest : Archaeology, Physical Anthropology, and Native American Perspectives, ed. Douglas R. Mitchell and Judy L. Brunson-Hadley (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 167. 7 For an overview of place and identity in geographical studies, see Marco Antonsich, “Meanings of Place and Aspects of the Self: An Interdisciplinary and Empirical Account,” GeoJournal 75, no. 1 (2010). In my own earlier work on place and space as analytical categories, I noted the commonplace idea (at least among cultural geographers and others interested in the social constructions of space) that “the making of place always involves the making of identities, and, conversely, the construction of identity always involves the construction of place.” See Thomas S. Bremer, Blessed with Tourists: The Borderlands of Religion and Tourism in San Antonio (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 4-5. 8 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 20. 9 Michael Stausberg notes that “religion in various forms is present on the itineraries of other forms of tourism [besides ‘religious/spiritual tourism’] including but not limited to cultural tourism, diaspora tourism, ecotourism, heritage, urban, and wellness tourism”— see Michael Stausberg, Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations, and Encounters (New York: Routledge, 2011), 28. Similarly, Alex Norman draws attention to the sometimes blurred distinction between tourist and spiritual seeker in his study of “spiritual tourism,” which he recognizes in circumstances involving “a tourist who undertakes a spiritual practice or seeks spiritual progression in the course of their travels, usually with the intention of gaining ‘spiritual benefit’”—see Alex Norman, Spiritual Tourism: Travel and Religious Practice in Western Society (New York: Continuum, 2011), 17. 10 A version of this argument appears in Thomas S. Bremer, “Consider the Tourist,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Material Religion, ed. Manuel A. Vásquez and Vasudha Narayanan (Wiley-Blackwell, (forthcoming, expected publication in 2016). 11 Russell T. McCutcheon, The Discipline of Religion: Structure, Meaning, Rhetoric (New York: Routledge, 2003), 186. 12 An expanded version of this point is made in Bremer, “Consider the Tourist.” 13 R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 5. 14 Bremer, Blessed with Tourists: 6. 15 Lynn Ross-Bryant, Pilgrimage to the National Parks: Religion and Nature in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2013), 4. 16 Ibid., 5.
- 29. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 25 Practical Matters Journal 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 5-6. 19 Ibid., 6. 20 Mark Daniel Barringer emphasizes the commercial interests in park management; he contends that “parks like Yellowstone were the sites of some of the most intensive commercial activity in the American west”—see Mark Daniel Barringer, Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 7. 21 A transcript of the 1872 Yellowstone Act can be viewed at http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_ books/anps/anps_1c.htm. 22 Two significant and overlapping appeals that drew nineteenth-century visitors to national parks, and are still relevantmotivationsformanyvisitorseventoday,were“promotionsandadvertisementsthatconstructednationalparks as places of natural curiosities and nationalist vistas of canyons and waterfalls—uniquely American ‘wonderlands’— but also . . . those that portrayed the parks as ideal representations of spiritually uplifting nature preserved, protected from the corrupting effects of development”—see Barringer, Selling Yellowstone: 35. 23 Salt Lake City, Utah, is just over 300 miles away, and the slightly larger city of Boise, Idaho is nearly 400 hundred miles from Yellowstone; Denver, Colorado, the twenty-first largest city in the United States, is more than 600 miles away. 24 For a history of development of Yellowstone accommodations, see ibid. 25 James Richard Boyce Sr., Facts About Montana Territory and the Way to Get There (Helena: Rocky Mountain Gazette, 1872), 8. 26 Hayden points out his recommended sites for development in a letter of February 9, 1874 to Hon. C. Delano [Secretary of the Interior]; a typescript copy of the letter is in the Horace Marden Albright Papers, 1918-1972 (Collection 2056), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles: Box 27. 27 A typescript copy of the May 20, 1872 letter from N. P. Langford to Hon. C. Delano, Secretary of the Interior, is in the Horace Marden Albright Papers, 1918-1972 (Collection 2056), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles: Box 27. 28 These conclusions from his 1877 Superintendent’s report appear in a manuscript copy of Philetus Norris, “The Great West. Introductory to a Journal of Rambles over Mountains and Plains,” available in the manuscript collection of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. 29 CharlesJ.Gillis,AnotherSummer:TheYellowstoneParkandAlaska (NewYork:Printedforprivatedistribution, 1893), 29. 30 Carter H. Harrison, A Summer’s Outing and the Old Man’s Story (Chicago: Dibble Publishing, 1891), 61.
- 30. Bremer, Worshiping at Nature’s Shrine 26 Practical Matters Journal 31 Ibid., 62. 32 Ibid., 80-81. 33 Ibid., 62. 34 Ibid., 63. 35 Quoted in Barringer, Selling Yellowstone: 17. 36 Stanley, Rambles in Wonderland: 57-58. 37 Harrison, Summer’s Outing: 70-71. 38 Harry J. Norton, Wonder-Land Illustrated; or, Horseback Rides through the Yellowstone National Park (Virginia City, Montana: Harry J. Norton, 1873), 11. 39 Ibid., 28. 40 Ibid., 38. 41 Ibid., 78. 42 Quoted in Ross-Bryant, Pilgrimage to the National Parks: 55. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 The Hot Springs Reservation, established by the U.S. Congress in 1832, predated Yellowstone National Park by 40 years Kim Heacox, An American Idea: The Making of the National Parks (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001), 229 (photo caption). Withdrawing Arkansas’s natural springs from private development created a precedent for later parks, but as Alfred Runte notes, reserving Hot Springs was “in recognition of its medicinal value, not with the intent of protecting scenery”—see Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, 2nd rev. ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 26. 47 This notion of two wests in the American imagination of the nineteenth century comes from Barringer, Selling Yellowstone: 21.
- 31. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 27-53. © Daniel Olsen 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 27 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Their “Three-Fold Mission,” and Practical and Pastoral Theology1 Daniel H. Olsen Brigham Young University Abstract In recent years scholars have expanded their investigation into the intersections between religion and tourism. While most of this research has focused on the ways in which religion can be commodified for touristic consumption, there has been but little written on the ways in which religions view tourism and/or embrace tourism to meet their spiritual and ecclesiastical goals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use tourism to its religious and historical sites to further their religious and institutional goals/missions as they revolve around its “three-fold mission”: proclaiming the gospel, perfecting the Saints, and redeeming the dead. Introduction I n the past two or three decades the intersections between religion and tourism have become a topic of study by tourism scholars and more recently religious studies scholars.2 Much of the existing literature has focused on the use of the tangible and intangible aspects of religion as a tourism resource, with scholars trying to understand the motivations of those who travel to religious sites in order to better understand the religious tourism market as well as how to overcome the negative impacts of tourism on these sites through management.3 Less studied are the ways in which religious leaders view tourism as a social phenomenon and how tourism can be utilized to further religious goals and missions.4 This is odd feature
- 32. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 28 Practical Matters Journal in part because religious prescriptions and proscriptions have long affected the types of activities in which people choose to engage in during their leisure time, and also affect why people travel, where they travel to, and the activities in which people engage as tourists.5 Religion has long affected how hospitable cultures are to strangers, what constitutes appropriate dress in religious spaces, the creation of gendered religious spatial practices, and the use of aesthetics to enhance religious experiences at sacred sites as well.6 However, very few religious faiths outside of the Roman Catholic Church have articulated a specific “theology of tourism” which “examine[s] the religious meaning, justification, or legitimation of tourism and relate[s] it to broader religious goals and aspirations.”7 This is also odd considering that most major world religions have some sort of doctrinal basis for pilgrimage travel. In some cases pilgrimage is a required element of religious worship, whether it is essential for a happier afterlife or for initiatory purposes.8 But even faiths that do not fully embrace the notion of pilgrimage in its traditional sense, such as Protestantism, usually have informal pilgrimage-like practices that take place among their adherents.9 As well, religious communities have also long used their religious sites and culture to educate non-believers of their religious values and as a way to gain new converts, such as the Shakers in the nineteenth century and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the present day.10 Also, with millions of people visiting religious sites and sites related to the history of different belief systems,11 religious leaders not only have had to come to terms with how to deal with the non-adherents that visit their religious and historical sites but also with how to engage in pastoral or outreach activities for those within their congregations who are “on the move” recreating themselves through recreational and tourism pursuits.12 The purpose of this paper is to investigate how leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use tourism as a medium to further the religious goals and mission of their faith. While leaders of LDS Church have not promulgated a specific “theology of tourism,” and, like Protestants, feel that “Neither shrines nor pilgrimages are a part of true worship as practiced by the true saints....[T]here is no thought that some special virtue will attach to worship by performing [pilgrimage to sacred sites],”13 they recognize, as do Church members, the existence of sacred spaces and have long held that certain places are more holy or sacred than others.14 As such, every year thousands of Church members travel to places associated with the history and practice of the Church, whether that travel involves attending Church-run pageants or pioneer re-enactment treks, taking tours related to Book of Mormon lands or to the Holy Land, viewing Christmas displays at Temple Square and Church headquarters in Salt Lake City, or participating in informal worship and ritual activities away from home, such as performing temple rituals at different temples throughout the world, being baptised in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania where Church founder Joseph Smith was first baptised, or having a prayer meeting in the Sacred Grove where Joseph Smith experienced his first theophany.15 [Insert Map 1 here] While I have written elsewhere on the travel motivations and patterns of Church members and how Church leaders use tourism to their historical sites and temples—which uses revolve around the key themes of hospitality, remembering and witnessing, proselytizing, and outreach16 —in this paper I wish to delve a little deeper to examine particular aspects of Latter-day Saint religious belief that might
- 33. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 29 Practical Matters Journal explain why the Church utilizes tourism as a tool to fulfill its most important religious mission—to save souls.17 To do so, I focus here on what is known as the “three-fold mission” of the Church—proclaiming the gospel, perfecting the Saints, and redeeming the dead—which I argue leads Church leaders to place great importance on preserving, maintaining, and interpreting their historical and religious sites in a particular manner, and why Church members are motivated to travel to these sacred sites.18 Tourism and the Saving of Souls As noted earlier, Church leaders have not outlined a systematic “theology of tourism” that highlights the way in which tourism is viewed within the context of core Latter-day Saint beliefs. This may be in part because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not directly in the business of tourism but rather the business of “saving souls” in accordance with its particular understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”19 The religious teachings that are developed and promulgated by Church leaders, according to Robert Millett, tend to have “a rather narrow focus, range, and direction,” in that these teachings focus specifically on the “central and saving doctrines” of the Church.20 To Latter-day Saints, the core of their faith is not “a confession to a creed but a personal witness that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ.”21 From a doctrinal perspective, the “core doctrine” of the Latter-day Saint faith is the “doctrine of Christ”; that it is only through the atonement of Jesus Christ that all humankind can be saved. As the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith, once taught, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose on the third day, and ascended unto heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”22 This “doctrine of Christ,” then, is at the heart of the Church’s work and God’s glory, which is to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,”23 and provides the foundation upon which all other Church teachings rest.24 As such, the focus of the Church is on bringing individuals unto Christ, which comes through acknowledging Christ as their Lord and Saviour, having faith on his name, being baptised by immersion for the remission of sins, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by persons in authority (i.e., LDS priesthood), and striving to remain faithful to the commandments of God until the end of their lives.25 As such, the core mission of the Church is to “save souls” and the Church leadership focuses its efforts in areas that help it to achieve this goal. Spencer W. Kimball, a former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, expanded on this core mission of saving souls and suggested that the Church has a “three-fold mission,” which he summarized as being “proclaiming the gospel,” “perfecting the Saints,” and “redeeming the dead.”26 While seemingly tangential to the “core doctrine” of the Church, I argue that tourism plays an important role in helping Church leaders accomplish its “three-fold mission” and to achieve broader religious goals and aspirations. However, before discussing the linkages between each mission and tourism it is important to note that tourism is generally seen by Church leaders as an outward facing activity, in that any engagement the Church has with tourism tends to be the responsibility of departments within the Church’s vast bureaucracy which focus on the Church’s relationship towards and to and with Church members (e.g., the Priesthood Department) and non-members (e.g., Public Affairs and the Missionary Department) rather
- 34. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 30 Practical Matters Journal than a direct ecclesiastical department dealing specifically with leisure, recreation, and tourism concerns. So for example, even though the Church’s Historical Department’s Historic Sites Committee oversees the Church’s historical sites, the Missionary Department is responsible for the interpretation of most Church’s historical sites, whereas activities that are member-centered, such as concerts at Temple Square or world- wide cultural celebrations, are run through the Priesthood Department.27 Proclaiming the Gospel As a part of making salvation readily available to all of humanity, Latter-day Saints believe that God has revealed through his prophets what is called the “Plan of Salvation.” This plan provides knowledge about many of the questions about life, including: “Where did we come from?” “What is the meaning of life?”— or more specifically, “What is the meaning of my life?”—and “What happens after we die?”28 John Welsh contends that understanding that humanity was not created by happenstance, but that there is a purpose to life as outlined through the Plan of Salvation, makes it easier for individuals to find meaning in their own lives.29 Latter-day Saints believe that all humans lived with God as spirit children prior to coming to this earth.30 During this pre-mortal existence God presented the Plan of Salvation which would allow his spirit children to progress to become more like God. This plan included sending God’s spirit children to earth where they would both receive a physical body and be placed in an environment in which, through the exercise of agency, they could demonstrate their willingness to keep God’s commandments. Through exercising agency in a righteous manner people could one day return to God’s presence and attain godhood for themselves.31 Since no one would remember their pre-mortal life, the Plan of Salvation would be made known to humanity through God’s prophets who would dispense knowledge of the plan to others. However, knowing that many people would choose to disobey God’s commandments and estrange themselves from him, this Plan of Salvation included having Jesus Christ serve as the redeemer of humankind, through whom people could repent and turn back to God.32 Latter-day Saints feel a responsibility to save souls by making this plan known to everyone who will listen.33 This responsibility comes from the belief that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints contains the “fullness” of the gospel,34 having both a clear knowledge of the Plan of Salvation through its founder Joseph Smith and his prophet successors and the priesthood authority to perform the ordinances or rituals necessary for salvation.35 Church members therefore take seriously the commission of Christ who instructed his followers anciently to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”36 so that people can have an opportunity to “come unto Christ” and receive the ordinances necessary for salvation. While missionary work is a responsibility of all members of the Church, there is an active proselytizing program in place where young men and young women, at the ages of 18 and 19 respectively, are encouraged to volunteer for full-time missions. These missions are between eighteen months and two years in length, and missionaries are assigned to proselytize in a specified geographic area called a “mission.” Currently there are just over 85,000 missionaries serving in 405 missions around the world.37
- 35. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 31 Practical Matters Journal While Church leaders have long focused on active proselytization as a means of spreading the messageoftheChurchtoothers,tourismhasbecomeanothervehiclethroughwhichChurchmessagescanbe disseminated. In particular, hospitality towards non-Mormon visitors has long played a key role in fulfilling the Church’s mission of proclaiming the gospel. In addition to hospitality being a religious responsibility in the Old and New Testaments,38 specific modern revelations to the Church relating to hospitality have been given. For example, in 1841 a revelation was given to the Church to build a boarding house or hotel where visitors to Nauvoo, Illinois who were interested in learning more about the Church could rest.39 According to Hyrum Smith and Janne Sjodhal, “this revelation proves that the Lord wanted the tourists of the world to visit and become acquainted with the Saints. [They] were not to be surrounded by a wall of isolation. They had nothing to hide from the world.”40 Hospitality as a way of spreading the gospel message was also practiced in Salt Lake City. The establishment of the Church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City and the building of the Salt Lake Temple in the city center was seen by Church leaders as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy where “in the last days…the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”41 Tourists were seen as one of the groups that would travel to the “tops of the mountains,” and as such the Latter-day Saints have a responsibility to be hospitable and courteous to visitors who, according to this scripture, will actively come to Salt Lake City to see the “house of the God of Jacob,” as well as a responsibility to prepare to receive those who seek to learn the “word of the Lord” through visiting the Lord’s house. Thus, when curious visitors came to Salt Lake City soon after the Church was established in Salt Lake City Church leaders not only actively greeted and attempted to educate tourists, most of whom came with strong views and prejudices against the Mormons, on the beliefs and culture of the Church and its members,42 but also helped build the Hotel Utah to house these visitors from the east.43 As such, Church leaders continue to use tourism to educate the general public about the Church. Throughout its history, the Latter-day Saint Church has weathered abuses from various media sources that perpetuated stereotypes and falsehoods by focusing on the unique Latter-day Saint beliefs that differed from other Christian groups, with the media often depicting Mormons as a group to be admired because of their moral and social convictions but not “truly belong[ing] in mainstream society” or mainstream Christianity.44 While public relations efforts have helped to improve the image of Mormonism over time,45 the fact that non-Mormons come to Salt Lake City and dozens of other Latter-day Saint heritage sites and interpretive centres throughout the United States provides both fertile ground and a captive audience for sharing its religious message and history to non-Mormon visitors.46 The expectation is that visitors who come to these religious heritage sites will leave with at least a more correct understanding of the tenets of the LDS Church, if not a desire to learn more about these beliefs by inviting Latter-day Saint missionaries to their homes.47 Presently the Church owns and operates over thirty-five religious heritage sites and nineteen interpretive centres, which stretch from Vermont to California.48 As mentioned earlier these sites and
- 36. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 32 Practical Matters Journal interpretive centres are staffed by the Missionary Department of the Church, which explains the missionary- focused agenda at many of these sites.49 At some historical sites the proselytizing is overt, in that service missionaries bear their “testimony” or “witness” to visitors as they take tours,50 while at Temple Square in Salt Lake City the proselytizing is more passive, in that people are educated about the history and beliefs of Mormonism and then invited to have Latter-day Saint missionaries visit them in their homes to learn more about the Church without overt witnessing taking place.51 The fact that the Missionary Department is responsible for the management and interpretation of these religious heritage centers demonstrates the importance of these sites as a part of fulfilling the mission of proclaiming the gospel.52 Perfecting the Saints According to Linda Charney, while people have different motivations for becoming members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they all share three common experiences when they join.53 First, people interested in the Church meet with the Church’s full-time missionaries and go through a series of lessons about the basic beliefs of the Church. Second, prospective members must demonstrate in a pre- baptism interview that they are making an informed decision to be baptised of their own free will. Third, every convert receives the ordinances of baptism and confirmation by authorised representatives of the Church. However, the conversion process “implies not merely mental acceptance of Jesus and his teaching[s] but also a motivating faith in him and his gospel—a faith which works a transformation, an actual change in one’s understanding of life’s meaning and in his [sic] allegiance to God—in interest, in thought, and in conduct.”54 The transformation part of the conversion process occurs through the gaining of a “testimony,” which is “the sure knowledge, received by revelation from the Holy Ghost, of the divinity of the great latter- day work.”55 Prospective converts are invited to pray to receive a spiritual witness through the Holy Ghost of the truthfulness of the teachings of the Church,56 which witness, according to Bruce McConkie, revolves around three great truths:57 • That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world; • That Joseph Smith is the Prophet of God through whom the gospel was restored in this dispensation; and • That The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.”58 Receiving a spiritual witness of these truths through the Holy Ghost, then, is “the dominant element in the Latter-day Saint understanding of conversion.”59 Conversion in the Latter-day Saint Church, therefore, is more of an experiential process rather than a rational one. Conversion to the Church is not precipitous,60 however, as spiritual transformation through conversion is an ongoing process which continues throughout converts’ lives as they learn more about the doctrines of the Church and conform their lives to the teachings of Christ. As a part of the baptismal process individuals covenant to serve God and keep his commandments—in other words, to strive for holiness.61 Davies defines holiness as “the value attributed to a focal source of identity that furnishes the moral meaning of life for members of a social group in a process that transcends ordinary levels of experience.”62
- 37. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 33 Practical Matters Journal While Latter-day Saints believe that they are saved through the grace of Christ’s atonement, Latter-day Saint understandings of soteriology (i.e., the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ) suggest that the atonement “becomes operative in the life of an individual only on conditions of personal righteousness.”63 While “Latter-day Saints readily acknowledge that though [their] efforts to be righteous are necessary, they will never be sufficient to save [them],”64 the importance of works leads Church members to strive to emulate the behaviour and develop the characteristics of Christ.65 Latter-day Saints, therefore, feel strongly that their belief in Jesus Christ should translate into their daily practice.66 Davies argues that this preoccupation with holiness through works serves as a foundation through which Latter-day Saint identity is created and maintained. In particular, efforts at holiness create a Latter-day Saint lifestyle and an identity that is related directly to aspects of embodiment, such as the emphasis on modest dress, the activities they choose to engage in, the language they use, and the way in which they treat others.67 As such, Church members believe in being “honest, virtuous, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men [sic].”68 In taking on these virtues and behaving in a Christ-like manner, Church members believe that they strengthen their testimonies of the gospel as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith and increase their desire to be holy. Recreation is one of the ways in which Church members attempt to strengthen their faith. Church leaders have long encouraged Church members to participate in wholesome recreational activities as a way to relax from one’s labours.69 McConkie notes that recreation plays a vital role in the gospel of salvation, as wholesome and proper recreation can be physically and spiritually edifying after one’s duties have been fulfilled.70 An important recreational activity that many Church members participate in is travelling with family members to religious heritage sites where important historical Church events took place.71 However, travel to religious heritage sites by Latter-day Saint adherents, as noted earlier, does not constitute a “pilgrimage” in the traditional sense. Rather, travel by Church members tends to fit Lloyd Hudman and Richard Jackson’s idea of “tourism pilgrimage,” which “describe[s] tourism that combines travel for recreation or pleasure with religious beliefs, whether or not church doctrines promote pilgrimage.”72 Many Church members, then, combine other recreational and tourism activities with visiting Church heritage sites. As well, as noted earlier, some Church members also visit locations in Central America related to The Book of Mormon and sites related to the life of Christ in the Holy Land.73 Increasing interest by Church members to travel to Church heritage sites stems in part from the perspectives Latter-day Saints have on the role of history in the restoration of the Church.74 The maintenance of these religious heritage sites by the Latter-day Saint Church, Steven Olsen argues, would occur even if no one came to visit them,75 as they serve as reminders of God’s hand in guiding the Church to its present state. Indeed, the historical events of the Church is seen in and of itself as evidence of “the living God-who-acts- in-history.”76 Therefore, Latter-day Saints believe in a form of “salvation history”;77 that divine intervention has played an important role in the restoration and establishment of the Church. As Douglas Tobler and George Ellsworth note: The foundations of the Church are grounded in a series of historic events, without which the Restoration would be incomprehensible and impotent. Joseph Smith recorded many visions and he received the gold plates from the angel Moroni, from which he translated
- 38. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 34 Practical Matters Journal the Book of Mormon. There followed many revelations to Joseph Smith and to the prophets who have succeeded him, revealing doctrines and applying eternal principles to existing historical and individual situations. That living prophets receive revelation from God, who is vitally interested in human needs in changing conditions, underscores the LDS view of God’s continuing place in history.78 As such, part of the Latter-day Saint conversion process includes a belief in the reality of certain key authentic historic events within the restoration of the Church. As Douglas Davies observes, “there are many Mormons for whom the primal story of the Restoration does constitute the truth: a basic epistemology that furnishes a template for history and for the stories of family life.”79 In essence, the early events of the restoration of the Church play a critical role in the constitution of Latter-day Saint theology, with Latter-day Saint historians bearing the burden of producing “theological history,” which in other religious faiths is a task left to full-time theologians.80 While Church authorities have not explicitly stated that Church members should visit the religious heritage sites the Church maintains, many Latter-day Saints desire to visit the places where many key historicalrestorationeventstookplaceto“engagewiththematerialremnantsandremindersofthe[religious] history through embodied memories of their engagement with the objects, buildings and narratives of their theology.”81 Since the process of conversion and gaining a testimony is experiential in nature, coming about through intangible qualitative, spiritual, or emotional experiences, “visiting Mormon historical sites, museums [including art exhibits] and key buildings [have become] one way in which Mormons are able to participate actively in their theology and cosmology.”82 Some of these visits to Church history sites are multi- generational in nature, for the Church’s strong emphasis on the importance of family relationships leads many Latter-day Saints to travel with immediate or extended family groups to Church religious heritage sites. Family trips, as Charles Lee suggests, “help develop a sense of attachment to a destination and support the notion that childhood travel with family members positively influences an individual’s attachment to a destination”83 and also “assure[s] the passage of a given content of beliefs from one generation to another” through grounding faith in sites of historical and religious significance.84 These visits to Church history sites are facilitated informally by Church leaders in a number of ways. For example, the Church’s main website has a number of links that highlight the historic importance of a variety of Church historic sites, pageants, and visitors’ centers, and interactive maps allow users to highlight certain key areas of the United States and specific monuments or sites.85 As well, newer versions of Latter- day Saint scriptures contain a series of maps that show the location of key heritage sites, in part acting as tourist maps for those who wish to visit these sites as well as sanctifying these sites as sacred spaces.86 The Church also sanctions a number of pageants, special celebrations related to important foundational events of the Church—such as Pioneer Day which celebrates the entrance of Brigham Young and the Saints into the Salt Lake Valley—and Church-sponsored pageants such as the Hill Cumorah pageant in New York, held at the site where Joseph Smith obtained gold plates from which he translated The Book of Mormon, which draws thousands of Latter-day Saints to these locations.87 Thus tourism serves a pastoral function for Church leaders, using their religious heritage sites to recover and maintain Latter-day Saint identity.
- 39. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 35 Practical Matters Journal Redeeming the Dead Latter-day Saint views of salvation go beyond accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ, being baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost through the proper priesthood authority, and enduring to the end. To Latter-day Saints, there is no monolithic state called heaven,88 for “if God rewarded every one according to the deeds done in the body the term ‘Heaven’ as intended for the Saints’ eternal home, must include more kingdoms than one.”89 Therefore, in Latter-day Saint thought there are various levels of salvation or heaven.90 The rationale for this thinking stems in part from both Christ’s reference to his father’s kingdom having “many mansions”91 and the writings of the apostle Paul about three bodies, these being compared to the sun, the moon, and the stars in terms of glory or brilliance.92 Latter-day Saints believe that revelations given to Joseph Smith provide additional information about these three glories, or “kingdoms” as they are referred to by Latter-day Saints, to which everyone will be assigned depending on their levels of acceptance of Christ’s gospel and reception of the saving ordinances while on earth.93 The highest degree of glory is the celestial glory or celestial kingdom, which will be the eternal home for those who have accepted Christ’s gospel, been baptized, received the Holy Ghost, and endured in righteousness while on earth.94 To achieve the highest level of this kingdom men and women must both receive the “endowment” (discussed below) and be “sealed” together in marriage for eternity.95 Within this kingdom there are different “privileges and powers.”96 For example, Latter-day Saints believe that in attaining this highest glory—sometimes referred to as “exaltation”—they can become Gods and have an “increase” or have spirit children of their own in the eternities.97 The second glory, the “terrestrial” glory,98 is a place for those who either received the testimony of Jesus but were not sufficiently obedient to God’s commandments,99 or those who “died without the law” but who lived honourable lives while on earth.100 The “telestial kingdom” is reserved for those who rejected Christ’s gospel and did not live honourable lives.101 While Latter-day Saint missionary efforts focus on sharing the Plan of Salvation to people in the present, the questions arises as to what happens to people who do not get an opportunity to hear the Plan of Salvation during their time on earth and do not receive the saving ordinances? One of the distinctive doctrines of the Church is that when men and women die, their spirits go to a spirit world, “a time between death and the resurrection when men and women can continue their progression and further learn principles of perfection before they are brought to the final judgment.”102 In essence, this spirit world is an extension of mortal life.103 Joseph Smith taught that those in the spirit world “converse together the same as we do on the earth,”104 and McConkie adds that “life and work and activity all continue in the spirit world. Men [sic] have the same talents and intelligence there which they had in this life. They possess the same attitudes, inclinations, and feelings there which they had in this life.”105 Church doctrine holds that in the spirit world “every man, woman, and child who has ever lived or whoever will live on this earth will have full opportunity, if not in this life then in the next, to embrace or reject the gospel in its purity and fullness.”106 This is made possible, according to Latter-day Saint belief, from a visit Jesus Christ made to this spirit world which occurred during the time between his death and
- 40. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 36 Practical Matters Journal resurrection. During this visit, he inaugurated the preaching of the gospel to those who had not had the opportunity to hear it while living.107 He organised the faithful spirits who had already accepted Christ’s gospel in mortal life to preach the gospel to those who had not had a chance to receive it. From that time until the present, Christ’s gospel has been …preached to those who [have] died in their sins, without a knowledge of the truth, or in transgression, having rejected the prophets. These [are] taught faith in God, repentance from sin, vicarious baptism for the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, And all other principles of the gospel that [are] necessary for them to know in order to qualify themselves that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.108 This doctrine of salvation for the dead, according to Joseph Smith, demonstrates the great justice and divine compassion of God: “One dies and is buried having never heard the gospel of reconciliation; to the other the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one become the partaker of glory and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition?…Such an idea is worse than atheism.”109 WhilethegospelofJesusChristmightbepreachedtospiritsinthespiritworld,atthesametimethese spirits need to have the saving ordinances of the priesthood performed on their behalf, as these ordinance must be performed on those living on earth. Most of the sacred ordinances pertaining to the salvation of both the living and the dead are performed in Latter-day Saint temples.110 Temples are deemed the most sacred spaces in the Church,111 and only Church members who meet standards of personal worthiness and religious living are allowed to enter.112 Temples differ from regular meeting houses in that they are reserved for initiatory-type activities that focus on making sacred covenants, whereas meeting houses or chapels are reserved for weekly Church and Sabbath-day worship activities. While meeting houses are the most dominant physical symbol of an established Mormon presence in an area,113 the building of a temple changes the status of a city or area in the eyes of Latter-day Saint members and establishes an ideological and physical center of the surrounding Mormon community.114 Currently there are 173 temples in operation, under construction, or whose construction has been announced.115 Within each temple there are rooms for different kinds of ordinances. A large baptismal font on the backs of twelve oxen is used to perform baptisms for the dead.116 This practice stems from a Latter-day Saint reading of 1 Corinthians 15:29, where the apostle Paul, in arguing for a future resurrection, wrote “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?”117 Church members, acting as agents or proxy, are baptised for people who have died. Another ordinance is the “endowment”, which is a “ritual drama” where Church members are instructed “in theory, in principle, and in doctrine”118 pertaining to the Plan of Salvation, which, John Widtsoe argues, “makes temple worship one of the most effective methods of refreshing the memory concerning the entire structure
- 41. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 37 Practical Matters Journal of the gospel.”119 The endowment also includes Church members entering into a number of covenants, which include the “covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the [human] race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive…Jesus Christ.”120 An additional ordinance performed in LDS temples is the sealing ordinance, where husbands and wives and their children are sealed to each other in eternal family units.121 Referred to as eternal or celestial marriage, this ordinance is seen as the culminating ordinance of the LDS priesthood and allows families to remain together for the eternities and not just “until death do you part”. Even though these ordinances are done on behalf of those who are deceased, those for whom the ordinances have been performed have the agency in the spirit world to either accept or reject those ordinances.122 Once Church members perform the endowment and the marriage sealing for themselves, they return to temples often to perform these ordinances for the dead. In many ways the doctrine of salvation of the dead kindles a motivation in Latter-day Saints to search out their ancestral family so they can perform these saving ordinances on their behalf.123 This motivation is sometimes referred to as the “spirit of Elijah” by Church members, in reference to the prophecy in the Old Testament where in the last days the prophet Elijah “will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers.”124 To Latter-day Saints, doing genealogy is a commandment. As Dallen Oaks points out, “[Latter-day Saints] are not hobbyists in genealogy work. We do family history work in order to provide the ordinances of salvation for the living and the dead”.125 As such, thousands of Church members travel to Salt Lake City to do in-depth genealogical research at the Church’s Family History Library or one of the Church’s over 4700 Family History Centers located in over 134 countries around the world.126 At the Family History Library or at one of these Family History Centers members, as well as anyone from the general public, can visit and do genealogical research. The Family History Library in Salt Lake City in particular is a large draw for genealogy tourists who wish to take advantage of the largest genealogical library in the world with over 2.5 million rolls of microfilm and about 300,000 volumes related to family history.127 Over 1,900 people a day visit the Church’s Family History Library—many of them tourists—making the the second most visited attraction in Salt Lake City after Temple Square.128 In some ways, this emphasis on finding deceased ancestors and performing the saving ordinances for them in temples expands concerns for salvation from a personal level to a group level. Through the sealing power of the priesthood, past, present, and future loved ones can be bonded together for time and eternity. As such, Church members are encouraged by Church leaders to do genealogy work on their deceased ancestors and also to travel to temples often to both receive the saving ordinances necessary for exaltation and perform those same ordinances for those who have died.129 In many ways this makes travel to temples a semi-obligatory ritual for Latter-day Saint adherents.130 As a part of this travel to temples is for genealogical purposes, some Church members desire to “collect” temples or to visit as many temples as possible in their travels, even though rituals do not vary from temple to temple. Some tour agencies, especially those based in Utah, Arizona, and other areas where many Latter-day Saints reside, organize temple tours in conjunction with regular tourist activities. For example, some tour operators combine visits to Church temples in Central and South America with visits to Book of Mormon lands, or mix European temple visits with cultural events,
- 42. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 38 Practical Matters Journal such as the famous Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany.131 Other tour companies provide circuits of various temples in the United States that are in close geographic proximity to each other.132 In recent years, the Church has built temples located in proximity to major Latter-day Saint religious heritage sites, such as Palmyra, Nauvoo and Winter Quarters, where pioneers spent the winter on their trek to Utah, so Church members can combine their travels to these sites with temple worship.133 In many ways, building temples by religious heritage sites bridges the gap between the past (religious history), the present (gaining of testimonies through sacred places), and the future (salvation of the dead). Conclusion The marking, maintenance, and management of religious sites is influenced by the views and belief structures of the faith that controls these sites, particularly as it relates to core theological goals and how religious leaders view tourism. As such, the management of sacred sites becomes an expression of the theology of that particular religious group through producing a certain type of space that expresses its religious beliefs, purposes, and goals. Not only is this manifest in the aesthetics of religious sites, but also in the way these sites are used to fill religious goals. For example, the mission of the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Colorado is to “provide a unique and peaceful environment for visitors to experience God’s loving presence through quiet meditation and prayer,”134 and the St. Jude’s Shrine in New Orleans is staffed by missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate who focus on a special outreach commitment to the poor.135 In these two cases, these sites are run by special holy orders that focus on different aspects of welcome, education, outreach, and social justice. This is the case of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where Church leaders utilize tourism as a way to fulfill its “three-fold mission” of the Church—proclaiming the gospel, perfecting the Saints, and redeeming the dead.136 While leaders of the Church do not hold official positions on tourism, the way in which Church leaders use tourism for the purposes of proselytizing and pastoral care are in essence an expression of the theology or religious views of tourism that Church leaders hold. Church leaders therefore implicitly acknowledge the importance of tourism as a social phenomenon as it relates to both publicity for the Church and as an identity-building exercise for Church members. As well, while there is not a specific holy order per se that runs the Church’s historical sites, Church leaders have assigned the Missionary Department to oversee the interpretation of these their historical sites. This is done in part because the responsibilities of proselytizing missionaries are to preach the gospel, and in their interactions with tourists at Church history sites missionaries attempt to create an interpretational atmosphere where tourists have special or spiritual experiences. If believing tourists have a spiritual experience then the faith of believing tourists is strengthened, and if non-believing tourists have a spiritual experience they may, as noted earlier, at minimum have positive feelings towards the Church, or they may wish to investigate the teachings of the Church through further discussions with missionaries when they return home.137 While the theological background of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been discussed as backdrop to how the Church uses tourism to fulfill its “three-fold” mission and subsequently encourage informal pilgrimage among its members, discussions about theologies of tourism is lacking.138
- 43. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 39 Practical Matters Journal While Protestants, for example, do not practice pilgrimage in the same way as Roman Catholics do, Protestants also engage in quasi-pilgrimage activities,139 and yet outside of brief discussions of Protestant religious ideologies in relation to tourism in the Holy Land,140 little has been written on a Protestant theology of tourism. The same can be said about other religious groups, where discussions on the theological views of tourism are really theological treatises on pilgrimage.141 Not only would further investigation of these theologies of tourism help researchers understand the motivations for the creation of pilgrimage sites and for travel, but also the role religion has in how tourism “works” at different destinations with regards to the attractiveness of a destination to tourists, the behavior of segments of a community towards visitors, the staffing of tourist establishments, and the interpretation of various sites,142 as well as a better understanding of how religious prescriptions and proscriptions can influence where people travel, why they travel, and how they act while traveling.143 Notes 1 While I discuss the theological background for why leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use tourism to fulfill some of their religious goals, I alone am responsible for the content of this article. I do not purport to speak for the LDS Church, and all views shared herein and any mistakes made are my own. I also wish to thank Sam Otterstrom, Greg Wilkinson, and the two anonymous reviewers for their extensive comments on this paper. 2 There are numerous books and articles that have been written on this subject. For an overview of this multi-disciplinary subfield of tourism studies see Boris Vukonić, Tourism and Religion (Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd., 1998); Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman, Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004); David L. Gladston, From Pilgrimage to Package Tour: Travel and Tourism in the Third World (London and New York: Routledge, 2005); Philip Scranton and Janet F. Davidson, The Business of Tourism: Place, Faith, and History (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2006); Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen, Tourism, Religion and Spirituality (London and New York: Routledge, 2006); Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State (Landham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010); Daniel H. Olsen “A Scalar Comparison of Motivations and Expectations of Experience within the Religious Tourism Market” International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage 1, no. 1 (2013): 41-61; Kobi Cohen-Hattab and Noam Shoval, Tourism, Religion and Pilgrimage in Jerusalem (London and New York: Routledge); Noga Collins- Kreiner and Geoff Wall, “Tourism and religion: Spiritual Journeys and Their Consequences,” in The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics, ed. Stanley D. Brunn (Berlin: Springer, 2015), 689- 707; Razaj Raj and Kevin Griffin, Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Management: An International Perspective, 2nd ed. (Oxforshire, UK: CABI, 2015); Daniel H. Olsen, “Religion, tourism,” in Encyclopedia of Tourism, 2nd ed., ed. Jafar Jafari and Xiao Honggen (Berlin: Springer, 2016), DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_1-1. For an examination of religion and tourism from a religious studies perspective see Thomas S. Bremer, Blessed with Tourists: The Borderlands of Religion and Tourism in San Antonio (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Michael Stausberg, Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters (London and
- 44. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 40 Practical Matters Journal New York: Routeldge, 2011); Michael Stausberg, “Religion and Spirituality in Tourism,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Tourism, ed. Alan Lew, C. Michael Hall and Alvin Williams (Chichester: Wiley, 2014), 349-360. For a religious studies take on the relationship between spirituality and tourism see Alex Norman, Spiritual Tourism: Travel and Religious Practice in Western Society (London and New York: Continuum, 2011). 3 Olsen, “Religion, tourism.” For a broad overview of how tourism scholars have attempted to segment the religious tourism market see Olsen, “Scalar Comparison,” 42-44. For a more specific example of segmenting the Christian religious tourism market see Amos Ron, “Towards a Typological Model of Contemporary Christian Travel” Journal of Heritage Tourism 4, no 4 (2009): 287-297; Young-Sook Lee, Nina Katrine Prebebsen, and Joseph Chen, “Christian Spirituality and Tourist Motivations,” Tourism Analysis 20, no. 6 (2015): 631-643. For a discussion of the management of religious tourism resources see Myra Shackley, Managing Sacred Sites: Service Provision and Visitor Experience (London: Continuum, 2001); Myra Shackley, “Management Challenges for Religion-Based Attractions,” in Managing Visitor Attractions: New Directions, ed. Alan Fyall, Brian Garrod, and Anna Leask (Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003), 159-170; S. C. Woodward, “Faith and Tourism: Planning Tourism in Relation to Places of Worship,” Tourism and Hospitality Planning & Development 1, no 2 (2004): 173-186; Myra Shackley, “Costs and Benefits: The Impact of Cathedral Tourism in England,” Journal of Heritage Tourism 1, no. 2 (2006): 133- 141; Daniel H. Olsen, “Management Issues for Religious Heritage Attractions,” in Tourism, Religion and Spirituality, ed. Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 104-118; Raj and Griffin, Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Management. 4 For a broader discussion on religious views of tourism see Vukonić, Tourism and Religion, 95-115; Daniel H. Olsen, “Towards a Religious View of Tourism: Negotiating Faith Perspectives on Tourism,” Journal of Tourism, Culture and Communication 11, no. 1 (2011): 17-30. 5 Olsen, “Towards a Religious View of Tourism.” 6 Olsen, “Towards a Religious View of Tourism.” See also Eric Cohen, “Tourism and Religion:AComparative Perspective,” Pacific Tourism Review 2, no. 1 (1998): 1-10; Peter J. Sorensen, “The Lost Commandment: The Sacred Rites of Hospitality,” Brigham Young University Studies 44, no 1 (2005): 5-32. 7 Ibid, 4. 8 Alan Morinis, “Introduction: The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage,” in Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. Alan Morinis (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), 1-28. 9 Thomas A. Tweed, “John Wesley Slept Here: American Shrines and American Methodists,” Numen 47, no. 1 (2000): 41-68. 10 June Sprigg, “Out of This World: The Shakers as a Nineteenth-Century Tourist Attraction,” American Heritage 31, no. 3 (1980): 65-68. Daniel H. Olsen, “‘The Strangers within Our Gates’: Managing Visitors at Temple Square,” Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion 6 no. 2 (2009): 121-139; Daniel H. Olsen, “Teaching Truth in ‘Third Space’: The Use of Religious History as a Pedagogical Instrument at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah,” Tourism Recreation Research 37, no. 3 (2012): 227-238; Daniel H. Olsen, “Negotiating Religious Identity at Sacred
- 45. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 41 Practical Matters Journal Sites: A Management Perspective,” Journal of Heritage Tourism 7, no. 4 (2012): 359-366; Daniel H. Olsen, “Touring Sacred History: The Latter-day Saints and their Historical Sites,” in Mormons and American Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon, ed. J. Michael Hunter (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers, 2013), 225-242. 11 An estimated 300-600 million people a year visit religious site. See Antoni Jackowski Religious Tourism— Problems with Terminology,” in Peregrinus Cracoviensis, ed. Antoni Jackowski (Cracow, Poland: Publishing Unit, Institute of Geography, Jagiellonian University, 2000), 63-74.; Daniel H. Olsen and Dallen J. Timothy, “Tourism 2000: Selling the Millennium,” Tourism Management 20, no. 4 (1999), 389–392; Paul Russell, “Religious Travel in the New Millennium,” Travel & Tourism Analyst 5 (1999), 39–68; Jenny McKelvie, “Religious Tourism,” Travel & Tourism Analyst 4 (2005), 1–47; Tourism Review, “Religion is Back in (Travel) Business),” http://www.tourism- review.com/religion-is-back-in-travel-business-news1028 (accessed December 1, 2015); Dallen J. Timothy, Cultural and Heritage Tourism: An Introduction (Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications, 2011), 387. 12 George B. Hertzog III, “ANational Parks Ministry:AModel for Ministry in the Context of Leisure-Tourism” (PhD diss., School of Theology at Claremont, 1984), 4; see also David H. Fields, “Hospitality,” in New Dictionary of Ethics & Pastoral Theology, ed. David J. Atkinson and David H. Fields, Arthur F. Holmes and Oliver O’Donovan (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 459-460; Tidball, D. J. 1995. “Practical and Pastoral Theology,” in in New Dictionary of Ethics & Pastoral Theology, ed. David J. Atkinson and David H. Fields, Arthur F. Holmes and Oliver O’Donovan (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 42-48; Boris Vukonić, “Pastoral Care,” in Encyclopedia of Tourism, 1st Ed, ed. Jafar Jafari (New York: Routledge, 2000), 429. 13 Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1966), 574. See also Tweed, “John Wesley Slept Here.” 14 Richard H. Jackson and Roger L. Henrie, “Perception of Sacred Space,” Journal of Cultural Geography 3, no. 2 (1983): 94-107.; Steven L. Olsen, The Mormon Ideology of Place: Cosmic Symbolism of the City of Zion, 1830- 1846 (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for LDS History, 2002); Martha S. Bradley, “Creating the Sacred Space of Zion,” Journal of Mormon History 31, no. 1 (2005): 1-30. 15 Lloyd E. Hudman and Richard H. Jackson, “Mormon Pilgrimage and Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 19, no. 1 (1992): 107-121; Yael Guter, “Pilgrims ‘Communitas’ in the Holy Land: The Case of Mormon Pilgrimage,” in A Holy People, ed. Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2006), 337-348; Daniel H. Olsen, “Tourism and Informal Pilgrimage among the Latter-day Saints,” in Tourism, Religion and Spirituality, ed. Dallen J. Timothy and Daniel H. Olsen (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 262-265; Michael H. Madsen, “The Sanctification of Mormonism’s Historical Geography,” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 2 (2008): 228-255; see also Daniel H. Olsen, Taylor Halverson, and Tyler J. Griffin, “Touring Scriptural Geography? The Case of Book of Mormon Tourism,” Tourism Geographies, under review. 16 See Olsen, “Tourism and Informal Pilgrimage”; Olsen, “The Strangers within Our Gates”; Olsen, “Teaching Truth in ‘Third Space’”; Olsen, “Touring Sacred History.”
- 46. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 42 Practical Matters Journal 17 While the term “soul” is usually used to describe the spiritual nature of a person, it has a very precise definition in Latter-day Saint terminology. The “soul” refers to both the body and the spirit of a person unified together (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15-16). See Richard N. Williams, “Soul,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York:: Macmillian, 1992), 1392. As a side note, The Doctrine and Covenants is a collection of important revelations given to the Church. According to the title page of The Doctrine and Covenants, this book contains “revelations given to Joseph Smith, the Prophet, with some additions by his successors in the Presidency of the Church.” 18 Spencer W. Kimball, “A Report of My Stewardship,” Ensign 11, no. 5 (1981): 5-7. The phrase “three-fold mission” describes the Church’s all-encompassing mission and its activities as it relates to saving souls. However, in 2009 Church leaders added fourth mission—“to care for the poor and needy”— in part because the Church has long had an extensive welfare and humanitarian aid program. The reason why this fourth mission is not discussed in this paper is because this mission has very little connection with the way in which the Church uses tourism to further its other three missions. An exception to this is a recent event that took place in Kirtland, Ohio, where in March 2016 Church missionaries in Kirtland, Ohio, where the Church operates historical sites, held a “Fest of the Poor” that commemorated an event held in the 1830s thrown by Joseph Smith and church leaders for the poor in their community. See Andrew Cass, “Mormon Missionaries Partake in Three-day ‘Feast of the Poor’,” The News Herald, http://www. news-herald.com/general-news/20160309/mormon-missionaries-partake-in-three-day-feast-of-the-poor. However, this event was probably with the missionaries trying to articulate the fourth principle of the four-fold mission rather than a specific emphasis by Church leaders to incorporate tourism into the fourth mission of the Church. 19 Steven L. Olsen, “A History of Restoring Historic Kirtland,” Journal of Mormon History, 30, no. 1 (2004): 120. The emphasis is the author’s. 20 Robert L. Millett, “What Is Our Doctrine?” The Religious Educator 4, no. 3 (2003): 19. 21 Louis C. Midgley, “Theology,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1475. 22 Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1976), 121. 23 Moses 1:39, The Pearl of Great Price. The Pearl of Great Price is “a selection of choice materials touching many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These items were produced by Joseph Smith Jr. and were published in the Church periodicals of his day” (Title page, The Pearl of Great Price). This book is divided into five sections, and includes sections from the Book of Moses (from Smith’s re- translation of the Bible), the Book of Abraham (taken from Egyptian papyri Smith purchased and translated), Joseph Smith—Matthew (again from Smith’s re-translation of the Bible), Joseph Smith—History (excepts from Smith’s journal about the founding of the Church), and the Articles of Faith, a list of the Church’s core beliefs as dictated by Joseph Smith. 24 M. Gerald Bradford and Larry E. Dahl, “Meaning, Source, and History of Doctrine,” in Encyclopedia of
- 47. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 43 Practical Matters Journal Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 393-397. 25 Ibid, 394. See also Robert L. Millett and Noel B. Reynolds, Latter-day Christianity: 10 Basic Issues (Provo, UT: Foundation forAncient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998). The “priesthood” in the LDS Church is “the eternal power and authority of God” which is given to “worthy male members of the Church so they can act in His name for the salvation of His children. Priesthood holders can be authorized to preach the gospel, administer the ordinances of salvation, and govern the kingdom of God on the earth.” See Intellectual Reserve, Inc. True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference. Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 124. 26 Kimball, “A Report of My Stewardship.” 27 For more detail on the organizational structure of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it relates to tourism see Michael H. Madsen, “Mormon Meccas: The Spiritual Transformation of Mormon Historical Sites from Points of Interest to Sacred Space” (PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2003); Daniel H. Olsen, “Contesting Identity, Space and Sacred Site Management at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah” (PhD diss, University of Waterloo, 2008). 28 Gerald N. Lund, “Plan of Salvation, Plan of Redemption,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1088-1091; Daniel C. Petersen and Huston Smith, “Purpose of Earth Life: Comparative Perspective,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1180-1183; Daniel H. Olsen and Jeanne Kay Guelke, “‘Nourishing the Soul’”: Geography and Matters of Meaning,” In WorldMinds: Geographical Perspectives on 100 Problems, ed. Donald G. Janelle, Barney Warf, and Kathy Hansen (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Associates, 2004), 595-599. See also Martin Clark, “Developments in Human Geography: Niches for a Christian Contribution,” Area 23 (1991): 339-344. Intellectual Reserve, Inc., True to the Faith, 115-117. 29 W. John Welsh, “The Purpose of Life” http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/purpose_life.htm (accessed November 20, 2015). 30 See Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 1:4; Hebrews 12:9. 31 Lund, “Plan of Salvation”; Douglas F. Tobler and S. George Ellsworth, “History, Significance to Latter-day Saints,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 595-598. 32 Lund, “Plan of Salvation.” 33 Millet and Reynolds, Latter-day Christianity, 49. 34 Ibid. 35 In the LDS Church an ordinance is defined as “a sacred, formal act performed by the authority of the priesthood. Some ordinances are essential to our exaltation. These ordinances are called saving ordinances. They include baptism, confirmation, ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood (for men), the temple endowment, and the marriage sealing. With each of these ordinances, we enter into solemn covenants with the Lord….Other ordinances,
- 48. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 44 Practical Matters Journal such as naming and blessing children, consecrating oil, and administering to the sick and afflicted, are also performed by priesthood authority. While they are not essential to our salvation, they are important for our comfort, guidance, and encouragement.” See Intellectual Reserve, Inc. True to the Faith, 109. See also Immo Luschin, “Ordinances,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1032-1033; Immo Luschin, “Administration or Ordinances,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1033-1034. 36 Matthew 28:19-20. 37 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Church Provides Additional Missionary Statistics,” Mormon Newsroom, http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-provides-additional-missionary-statistics (accessed November 23, 2015); Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Mormon Conversions Lag Behind Huge Missionary Growth,” Salt Lake Tribune, http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/57862203-78/missionaries-church-converts- lds.html.csp (Accessed: November 25, 2015). For more information on the missionary work of the LDS Church see Rield L. Nelson, “Mormon Missionary Work,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, ed. Terryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 182-195. 38 For some examples see Genesis 18-19; Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34; Romans 12:13; Titus 1:8; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 1:9. See also Fields, “Hospitality”; Sorensen, “The Lost Commandment.” 39 Doctrine and Covenants 123:22-23. See also Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 2002), 235-236. 40 Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl, Doctrine and Covenants Commentary (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1978), 772-773. While construction on what was known as the “Nauvoo House” was begin by Church leaders to house visitors to Nauvoo, the House was never completed because of the exodus of the Latter-day Saints from Nauvoo to modern-day Salt Lake City. See Leonard, Nauvoo, 588. 41 Isaiah 2:2-3. 42 See Richard H. Jackson, “Great Salt Lake and Great Salt Lake City: American Curiosities,” Utah Historical Quarterly. 56, no. 2 (1988): 128-147; Eric A. Eliason, “Curious Gentiles and Representational Authority in the City of the Saints. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 11, no 2(2001): 155-190; J. Philip Gruen, “The Urban Wonders: City Tourism in the Late-19th-Century American West,” Journal of the West 41, no. 2 (2002): 10-19; Olsen, Tourism and Informal Pilgrimage”; Olsen, “‘The Strangers within Our Gates.” 43 Leonard J. Arrington and Heidi S. Swinton, The Hotel: Salt Lake’s Classy Lady (Salt Lake City, UT: Publisher’s Press, 1986); Eliason, “Curious Gentiles”; Gruen, “The Urban Wonders”; Olsen, “The Strangers within Our Gates.” 44 Chiung Hwang Chen and Ethan Yorgason, “‘Those Amazing Mormons’: The Media’s Construction of Latter-Day Saints as a Model Minority,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 32, no. 2 (1999): 107-128. See also Chiung Hwang Chen, “‘Molympics’? Journalistic Discourse of Mormons in Relation to the 2002 Winter Olympic
- 49. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 45 Practical Matters Journal Games,” Journal of Media and Religion 2, no. 1(2003): 29-47. 45 Michael H. Madsen, “Mormon Meccas: The Spiritual Transformation of Mormon Historical Sites From Points of Interest to Sacred Space” (PhD Dissertation, Syracuse University, 2003). See also J. B. Haws, The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 46 Thomas S. Bremer, Tourism and Religion at Temple Square and Mission San Juan Capistrano. Journal of American Folklore. 113, no. 450 (2001): 422-435; Daniel H. Olsen and Dallen J. Timothy, “Contested Religious Heritage: Differing Views of Mormon Heritage,” Tourism Recreation Research 27, no. 2 (2002): 7-15. 47 Olsen, “Touring Sacred History”; Olsen, “Teaching Truth in ‘Third Space’”; Olsen, “Negotiating Religious Identity at Sacred Sites.” 48 See Olsen, “Touring Sacred History,” 228-229 for a partial list and historical background on some of these sites. For more information on Church historical sites see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Church History,” https://history.lds.org/section/historic-sites?lang=eng (accessed November 26, 2015); The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Church History Maps,” https://www.lds.org/scriptures/history-maps (accessed November 26, 2015); The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Historic Sites,” Mormon Newsroom, http:// www.mormonnewsroom.org/historic-sites (accessed November 26, 2015). 49 Madsen, “Mormon Meccas.” 50 Olsen and Timothy, “Contested Religious Heritage”; Madsen, “Mormon Meccas,” 51 Olsen, “The Strangers within Our Gates.” 52 Ibid. 53 Linda A. Charney “Joining the Church,” In Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 758-759. 54 Marion G. Romney, “Conversion,” Improvement Era. 66 (1963): 1065-1067; quoted in Kay H. Smith, “Conversion,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 231. 55 McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 787. 56 Smith, “Conversion.” 57 McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 787. 58 Doctrine and Covenants 1:30. 59 Smith, “Conversion,” 321. 60 Ibid. 61 See Mosiah 18:10, The Book of Mormon.
- 50. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 46 Practical Matters Journal 62 Douglas J. Davies, “The Sociology of Holiness: The Power of Being Good,” Holiness: Past and Present, ed. Stephen C. Barton (London and New York: T&T Clark Publishers, 2003), 50. 63 McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 408. 64 Millett and Reynolds, Latter-day Christianity, 37. 65 While Latter-day Saints do believe in salvation by grace, they also believe that salvation comes from a combination of works and grace, referring to James’ statement that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20) and to a scripture in The Book of Mormon that states that “it is by grace we are saved after all we can do” (2 Nephi 24:23). Bruce C. Hafen, “Grace,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 560- 563; See Intellectual Reserve, Inc, True to the Faith, 77-78. 66 Ibid, 45. 67 Davies, “The Sociology of Holiness,” 66. 68 Articles of Faith 1:13, The Pearl of Great Price. 69 Richard I. Kimball, Mormon Recreation, Sports in Zion: 1890-1940 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003). 70 McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 622. 71 Olsen and Timothy, “Contested Religious Heritage.” 72 Hudman and Jackson, “Mormon Pilgrimage and Tourism,” 109. 73 Ibid; Hudman and Jackson, “Mormon Pilgrimage and Tourism”; Daniel H. Olsen and Dallen J. Timothy, “Contested Religious Heritage”; “Olsen, Halverson and Griffin, “Touring Scriptural Geography.” Olsen, “Touring Sacred History.” 74 The term “restoration” refers to the LDS belief that after the death of Jesus Christ and his apostles that Christ’s primitive Church entered into a prolonged period of apostasy, which apostasy ended when Jesus Christ restored his church through Joseph Smith. See R. Wayne Shute, “Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1220-1221; Intellectual Reserve, Inc., True To The Faith, 135-139. 75 Steven L. Olsen, “Remembering and Witnessing at Church Historic Sites,” Paper Presented at the Symposium on “Remembering”, Brigham Young University, October 6, 2000. 76 Douglas F. Tobler and S. George Ellsworth, “History, Significance to Latter-day Saints,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 596. 77 Douglas J. Davies, The Mormon Culture of Salvation (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate., 2000), 13. 78 Tobler and Ellsworth, “History, Significance of.”
- 51. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 47 Practical Matters Journal 79 Davies, The Mormon Culture of Salvation, 12-13 80 Ibid, 13. 81 Ibid. 82 Heidi Mitchell, “‘Being There’: British Mormons and the History Trail,” Anthropology Today, 17, no. 2 (2001): 9. 83 Charles Changuk Lee, “Predicting Tourist Attachment to Destinations,” Annals of Tourism Research 28, no. 1 (2001): 231. 84 Danièle Hervieu-Léger, “Religion as Memory,” in The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests, ed. Jan G. Platvoet and Arie Leendert Molendijk. Eds. (Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 1999), 89-90 85 See the web links in endnote 44. 86 Madsen, “Mormon Meccas.” 87 Steven L. Olsen, “Centennial Observances,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 260-262; see also Davis. Bitton, ed., The Ritualization of Mormon History and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 88 Larry E. Dahl, “Degrees of Glory,” In Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 367. 89 Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 10-11. 90 H. David Burton, “Baptism for the Dead: LDS Practice,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism. ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 95-97; Dahl, “Degrees of Glory.” 91 John 14:2. 92 1 Corinthians 15:40-41. 93 See Doctrine and Covenants 76, 88, 131, 132, 137, 138. See also Dahl, “Degrees of Glory.” 94 Doctrine and Covenants 76:62. 95 Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1982), 150-151; Victor L. Ludlow, Principles and Practices of the Restored Gospel. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1992; 348-349. 96 Dahl, “Degrees of Glory,” 368. 97 Ibid. 98 1 Corinthians 15:40.
- 52. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 48 Practical Matters Journal 99 Doctrine and Covenants 76:71-80. 100 Doctrine and Covenants 45:54. 101 Doctrine and Covenants 76:103. 102 Lund, “Plan of Salvation,” 1090-1091 103 Walter D. Bowen, “Spirit World,” In Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1408-1409. 104 Smith, Teachings, 353. 105 McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 762. 106 Elma W. Fugal, “Salvation of the Dead,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1257. 107 1 Peter 3:19-20; Doctrine and Covenants 138:11-17. (see Bowen 1992; Lund 1992). 108 Doctrine and Covenants 138:32-34. 109 Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 10-11, 192. 110 Burton, “Baptism for the Dead.” 111 James A. Talmage, The House of the Lord (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1968); Jackson and Henrie, “Perception of Sacred Space.” 112 Robert A. Tucker, “Temple Recommend,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1446. 113 Dallen J. Timothy, “Mormons in Ontario: Early History, Growth and Landscape,” Ontario Geography 38 (1992): 21-31. See also Caitlin Finlayson and Victor Mesev, “Emotional Encounters in Sacred Spaces: The Case of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” The Professional Geographer 66, no. 3 (2014): 436-442. 114 (Hudman and Jackson 1992; Timothy 1992; Parry 1994). 115 LDS ChurchTemples, “Temple Statistics,” http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/statistics/ (accessed November 27, 2015). 116 See 1 Kings 7:25. 117 LDS theology relating to the afterlife and baptisms for the dead developed over the course of a number of years and was formally integrated into LDS religious doctrinal thought closer to the time of Joseph Smith’s death. For more information on the development of this doctrine see Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (Oxford University Press, 2014).
- 53. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 49 Practical Matters Journal 118 Doctrine and Covenants 97:14. 119 John A. Widtsoe, Temple Worship (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1986), 5. 120 Talmage, The House of the Lord, 84. 121 Paul V. Hyer, “Sealing: Temple Sealing,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 1289. 122 Burton, “Baptism for the Dead,” 96. 123 Mary Findlayson, “Elijah, Spirit of,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillian, 1992), 452; Samuel M. Otterstrom, “Genealogy as Religious Ritual: The Doctrine and Practice of Family History in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” in Geography and Genealogy: Locating Personal Pasts, ed. Dallen. J. Timothy and Jeanne Kay Guelke (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008), 137-151. 124 Malachi 4:5-6. 125 Dallen H. Oaks, “Family History: ‘In Wisdom and Order,’” Ensign 19 (1989): 6. 126 Family Search, “Introduction to LDS Family History Centers,” https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/ Introduction_to_LDS_Family_History_Centers (accessed November 28, 2015). See also Otterstrom, “Genealogy as Religious Ritual.” For more information on the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and its importance for tourism see Visit Salt Lake, “Genealogy, Family History Library,” http://www.visitsaltlake.com/things-to-do/genealogy/ family-history-library/ (accessed November 28, 2015); Marketplace, “‘Genies’Head to Salt Lake City to Grow Family Tree,” http://www.marketplace.org/2013/07/17/life/genies-head-salt-lake-city-grow-family-tree (accessed November 28, 2015); Rachel Brutsch, “LDS Family History Library is a Destination for Genealogy Tourists, BBC Reports,” http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865553560/LDS-Family-History-Library-is-a-destination-for-genealogy- tourists-BBC-reports.html?pg=all (accessed November 28, 2015). For more information on the connection between genealogy and tourism see Dallen. J. Timothy, “Tourism and the Personal Heritage Experience,” Annals of Tourism Research 24, no 3 (1997): 751-754; Gary McCain and Nina M. Ray, “Legacy Tourism: The Search for Personal Meaning in Heritage Travel,” Tourism Management 24, no. 6 (2003): 713-717; Dallen J. Timothy, “Genealogical Mobility: Tourism and the Search for a Personal Past,” in Geography and Genealogy: Locating Personal Pasts, ed. Dallen. J. Timothy and Jeanne Kay Guelke (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008), 115-136; Bharath M. Josiam and Richard Fraizer, “Who Am I? Where Did I Come From? Where Do I Go To Find Out? Genealogy, the Internet, and Tourism,” Tourismos: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism 3, no. 2 (2008): 35-56 Nina M. Ray and Gary McCain, “Guiding Tourists to their Ancestral Homes,” International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research. 3, no. 4 (2009): 296-305. 127 R. S. Wright, “Family History Library,” Encyclopedia of Latter-Day Saint History, ed. A. K. Garr, D. Q. Cannon, and R. O. Cowan (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 359- 360; Family Search, “About FamilySearch,” https://familysearch.org/about (accessed November 28, 2015).
- 54. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 50 Practical Matters Journal 128 Olsen, “The Strangers within Our Gates.” 129 Otterstrom, “Genealogy as Religious Ritual.” 130 Olsen, “Tourism and Informal Pilgrimage.” 131 Hudman and Jackson, “Mormon Pilgrimage and Tourism”; Olsen, “Tourism and Informal Pilgrimage.” 132 Ibid. 133 While temple worship is a solemn and reverent event, there is no Church teaching or tradition that requires travel to the temple to be austere or single-purposed. As such, Church members are free to combine religious and recreational activities in the same journey. Also, as noted by one of this paper’s anonymous reviewers, there is a Church Family History Center at the Church’s historical site in Nauvoo, Illinois, where LDS tourists can look up the plots of land in Nauvoo that were once owned by their ancestors. As such, for many LDS tourists/pilgrims who come to Nauvoo they think of the history of the Church at this site not just in terms of narrative but in terms of individual plots of land owned by their ancestors. The LDS Family History Center in Nauvoo is a great example of how LDS historic sites are structured to fulfill certain Church objectives (in this case connecting LDS tourists to their dead ancestors in a very direct and personal manner) and thus harnessing the cultural practice of tourism to reinforce a particular ideological program and praxis. 134 Mother Cabrini Shrine, “About Us,” http://www.mothercabrinishrine.org/about-us (accessed November 29, 2015). 135 Saint Jude Shrine, “Nationwide Center of St. Jude Devotions,” http://www.stjudeshrine.org/sj/nationwide- center-of-st-jude-devotions/ (accessed November 29, 2015). 136 Kimball, “A Report of My Stewardship.” 137 Olsen, “Teaching Truth”; Olsen, “Negotiating Religious Identity.” 138 Olsen, “Towards a Religious View of Tourism”; Olsen, “Religion, tourism.” In the 1960s there were changes in the Church’s bureaucratic organization that streamlined and coordinated the work of various Church departments, and simplified and standardized Church curriculum and religious practices for a growing international Church membership. This restricting process, called “Correlation,” has created a formal and very efficient and effective bureaucratic program that underlies the ways in which tourism is used to meet its spiritual goals and to maintain solidary and order across its congregations internationally. See Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 157-176; Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an America Faith. New York: Random House, 2012), 184-215; Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City, UT: The University of Utah Press, 2005), 139-158. As such, there may not be a need for a stated formal theology of tourism per se by Church leaders as their view of tourism, as noted in this paper, implicitly flows from its organization and general orientation in a very unstated and naturalized way; tourism therefore is already an important and necessary medium through which the Church accomplishes its goals.
- 55. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 51 Practical Matters Journal 139 Glenn Bowman, “Christian Ideology and the Image of a Holy Land: The Place of Jerusalem Pilgrimage in the Various Christianities,” in Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage, ed. John Eade and Michael Sallnow (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 98-121; Tweed, “John Wesley Slept Here”; Noga Collins Kreiner, Nurit Kilot, Yoel Mansfield and Keren Sagi, Christian Tourism to the Holy Land: Pilgrimage During Security Crisis (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006); Vida Bajc, “Creating Ritual through Narrative, Place and Performance in Evangelical Protestant Pilgrimage in the Holy Land,” Mobilities 2, no. 3 (2007): 395-412; Jackie Feldman, “Constructing a Shared Bible Land: Jewish Israeli Guiding Performances for Protestant Pilgrims,” American Ethnologist 34, no. 2 (2007): 351-374; Yaniv Belhassen and Jonathan Ebel, “Tourism, Faith and Politics in the Holy Land:An IdeologicalAnalysis of Evangelical Pilgrimage,” Current Issues in Tourism 12, no. 4 (2009): 359-378;Amos S. Ron and Jackie Feldman, “From Spots to Themed Sites—The Evolution of the Protestant Holy Land,” Journal of Heritage Tourism 4, no. 3 (2009): 201-216; Killary Kaell, Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage (New York and London: New York University Press, 2014). 140 Belhassen and Ebel, “Tourism, Faith and Politics.” 141 Uli Cloesen, “Religious Tourism—Braj, Center of Vaishnava Pilgrimage,” Acta Turistica 17, no. 1 (2005): 3-28; Rana P. B. Singh, “Pilgrimage-Tourism: Perspectives and Vision,” in Hindu Tradition of Pilgrimage: Sacred Space and System, ed. Rana P. B. Singh and Robert H. Stoddard (New Delhi: Dev Publishers and Distributors, 2013), 305-332. See Olsen, “Towards a Religious View of Tourism.” 142 Cohen, “Tourism and Religion”; Eritha Huntley and Carol Barnes-Reid, “The Feasibility of Sabbath- Keeping in the Caribbean Hospitality Industry,” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 15, no 3 (2003): 172–175. 143 John R. Kelly, Leisure (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1982), 52; Cohen, “Tourism and Religion”; Anna S. Mattila, Yorghos Apostolopoulos, Sevil Sönmez, Lucy Yu and Vinod Sasidharan, “The Impact of Gender and Religion on College Students’ Spring Break,” Journal of Travel Research 40 (2001): 193–200.
- 56. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 52 Practical Matters Journal
- 57. Olsen , Latter -Day Saints and their “Three -Fold Mission” 53 Practical Matters Journal
- 58. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 54-69. © James S. Bielo 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 54 Materializing the Bible: Ethnographic Methods for the Consumption Process James S. Bielo Miami University Abstract Throughout the world there are over 200 sites that materialize the Bible, that is, sites that transform the written words of biblical scripture into physical, experiential attractions. These sites are definitively hybrid, integrating religion and entertainment, piety and play, fun and faith, commerce and devotion, pleasure and education. Religious studies scholars and anthropologists have published insightful works about selected sites, but no genre-wide analytical appraisal exists. In this article, I focus on how religiously committed visitors approach and experience these sites. Framed in a comparative register with research in religious tourism and pilgrimage studies, I propose analytical and methodological frameworks for the ethnographic study of Bible-based attractions. Introduction A global “multibillion-dollar Christian leisure industry [is] today integral to how Americans practice their faith.”1 This industry, and the forms of pilgrimage and religious tourism it fosters, is threaded together with the structures of late capitalism, modern technology, and other cultural imprints (e.g., entertainment). Scholars of lived religion are tasked with understanding how the destinations that comprise this industry fit into the religious lives of consumers. Might Christian leisure destinations occupy a distinctive role vis-a-vis other sites of religious practice and theological formation? Do these destinations open devotional potentials that are limited, muted, denied, or cut short in the course of day-to-day, week- to-week, routinized religious lives? In this article, I explore how religiously committed visitors approach and experience a particular species of the Christian leisure industry: Bible-based attractions. My aim in this article is to propose feature
- 59. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 55 Practical Matters Journal analytical and methodological frameworks that can be used in both the ethnographic study of Bible-based attractions and Christian leisure destinations more broadly. The frameworks identified and examined here will be a generative resource for future scholars seeking to understand how such attractions and destinations are incorporated into the religious lives of visitors. By focusing on the interaction between Bible-based attractions and religiously committed visitors, this article engages the study of consumption or “reception.” This approach informs our comparative understanding of lived religion, religious popular culture, and religious travel, and allows us to ask questions about the kind of practices enabled and delimited by different consumption sites.2 How do visitors experience Bible-based attractions and how do they incorporate this experience into their schemas of faith? How do these experiences reflect back onto contemporary cultural contours? Consuming these attractions is always grounded in projects of identity formation and we are well served to understand visiting them as a religious practice that works alongside other practices that fill everyday Christian lives (e.g., prayer, reading, Bible study, worship, social engagement). While there are numerous insightful studies of different attractions – such as Kentucky’s Creation Museum, Orlando’s Holy Land Experience, Hong Kong Noah’s Ark, and Nazareth Village – there is little rigorous fieldwork on the process of consumption.3 Instead, studies of Bible-based attractions are primarily conducted as scholars performing a critical analysis of the place. At most there is some informational interviewing with key personnel (e.g., an attraction’s founder) or anecdotal reporting about random encounters with visitors. Why does this ethnographic absence persist? There are pragmatic reasons, such as the difficulty of visiting sites repeatedly. There are also lingering ideologies that such attractions are merely “Christian kitsch,” a category replete with class prejudice and biases against popular religious expressions.4 Perhaps most important, there is an absence of a clear and compelling statement about why these sites matter as a particular species of Christian leisure. This article is designed to help fill this latter void. It does so by engaging the ethnography of pilgrimage and religious tourism, which provides a rich analogue for developing analytical and methodological frameworks. The decision to focus exclusively on religiously committed visitors deserves two caveats. First, this leavesquestionsabouthownon-committedvisitorsconsumeBible-basedattractionsunaddressed,bracketing two poles of experience. Many of these attractions fashion themselves as opportunities for evangelism and conversion. At present, we have no data on what role the attractions might play in experiences or narratives of conversion. Additionally, there is the practice of visiting Bible-based attractions to perform critique. For example, atheist groups will visit creation museums to confront an ideological Other and take pleasure in mocking the site and the worldview it presents.5 How does an atheist experience a creation museum and how do they incorporate that experience into their schemas of skepticism? Conversion and mockery are both useful analytical directions, but they are bracketed in this article. The second caveat is a clarification. Focusing on a singular vantage point should not be mistaken as focusing on a singular experiential stance. Religiously committed visitors are not bound to utterly sincere religious devotion; sincere religious devotion can be expressed in numerous ways; and commitment can be grounded in differing religious traditions and identities. We must leave room for multiple and potentially conflicting itineraries, and creative acts of consumption, from irony to invention, play, and experimentation.6
- 60. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 56 Practical Matters Journal This need to understand variations in consumption helped propelled the landmark shift in pilgrimage studies from communitas to contestation.7 Materializing the Bible There are at least 218 Bible-based attractions globally, which can be divided into five sub-genres.8 Re-Creations feature replications of biblical scenes, stories, and characters. Creation Museums adopt the form of a natural history museum to advocate young earth creationism and denounce evolutionary science. Bible History Museums house and display biblical manuscripts, archaeological artifacts and replicas, and other material items to promote the textual ideology that “God’s Word” has been divinely preserved over time.9 Biblical Gardens are sites where visitors walk through cultivated areas of natural flora with only trees, plants, flowers, and shrubs named in scripture. And, Art Collections feature representations of biblical scenes, stories, and characters in etched, painted, sculpted, drawn, and other media formats. Themajorityofattractions(N=136)arelocatedinthecontinentalUnitedStates.Theremaining82are distributed across 28 nations.10 Some sites emerge from ecumenical desires and organizations, but many can be traced to particular religious traditions. The two most prominent are Roman Catholic and fundamentalist Protestant. Irrespective of location or affiliation, all the sites share two organizing imperatives. They seek, as many self-proclaim, to ‘make the Bible come alive’ by transforming written scriptural words into a material, experiential environment. And, they seek to integrate religious faith with pleasure and religious education. My interest in materializing the Bible was sparked in October 2011 when I began ethnographic fieldwork with the creative team in charge of conceptualizing and designing a biblical theme park.11 Williamstown, Kentucky (pop. ~3,000) is preparing for the July 2016 opening of Ark Encounter: an 800- acre, $150 million attraction whose creators claim will attract at least 1.4 million ticket-buying visitors in its opening year.12 The centerpiece of Ark Encounter is a re-creation of Noah’s ark, built to creationist specification from the text of Genesis 6-9: 51 feet tall, 85 feet wide, 510 feet long. Onboard, visitors will walk through three decks filled with 132 exhibit bays and 100,000 square feet of themed exhibit space that uses multi-modal entertainment registers to teach creationist history, theology, and challenge evolutionary science. The ethnographic backbone of this project was the team’s daily creative labor. It addressed the work of a small team working from small desks: usually tedious, frequently under deadline, ever conscious of budgetary constraints, and constantly seeking the next imaginative breakthrough. In fall 2014 my ethnographic energies shifted to exploring how committed creationists will experience Ark Encounter. This fieldwork phase has three stages: (1) conducting semi-structured interviews with creationists who will visit Ark Encounter soon after it opens with their congregation; (2) visiting Ark Encounter with this group of interviewees; and (3) conducting a second round of interviews with visitors following our trip to the park. This article emerges from my effort to understand the process of consumption among creationists visitors to Ark Encounter. But, my ambition here exceeds the Ark and creationism. The frameworks proposed are directly applicable to the study of consumption at all Bible-based attractions as well as more broadly to other Christian leisure destinations.
- 61. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 57 Practical Matters Journal The Process of Consumption I approach “consumption” as a process, not an act, with three stages: Preparation (to make a visit to the site); Experiential Engagement (at the site); and, Reflection (after the site visit is complete).13 To explore each of these stages, I integrate comparative examples that range from historically revered and officially sanctioned religious destinations to replicas of those destinations, museums, theme parks, and shrines. Working comparatively raises its own questions, such as how closely the consumption process at one kind of site (e.g., Holy Land destinations in Israel-Palestine) coheres with other sites (e.g., Holy Land replicas). There are significant differences to consider. For example, how does a site’s relationship to the past structure the consumption process? A site that claims historical originality and a recently built replica of that original are likely to enable different potentials for religious practice and sacred attachment. The comparisons below do not elide such differences, but the focus does remain on how broader scholarship on Christian tourism and pilgrimage opens analytical and methodological possibilities for studying Bible-based attractions. Preparation The consumption process begins as visitors prepare to visit a Bible-based attraction. This is true whether the site requires a short drive or lengthy air travel. This pre-visit stage may include physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional preparation; defined and amorphous expectations; and forms of trip planning. Visitors ask themselves: What am I excited for? What am I curious about? Am I hesitant or anxious about anything? What will I do first? In her superb ethnography of American Christian Holy Land pilgrimage, Hillary Kaell provides a rigorous account of making preparations.14 She demonstrates how the preparation stage is integral to the pilgrimage experience, a time when travelers begin incorporating the experience into their religious life. We can conceptualize this stage in two parts: the structural conditions that inform preparation, and the agentive actions that visitors self-consciously engage in. Relevant structural factors vary widely. Kaell devotes an entire chapter to the Holy Land narratives and ideologies American Christians are socialized into. As they arrive at the Tel Aviv airport and meet their tour guide, these pilgrims bring with them a lifetime of images and ideas about landscape, people, culture, and the biblical past. Accumulated ideologies also figure heavily with re-creations of Noah’s ark. The Genesis story and the ark as a material construction have been a source of fascination for centuries. Artistic renderings of Noah’s ark are found as early as the fourth century on the walls of St. Peter’s tomb.15 Historian Janet Brown observes a “long artistic tradition, in paintings and sculpture” of the ark in the West.16 In the 17th century Athanasius Kircher produced the earliest realist-oriented portrait of the ark, estimating the number of stalls, animals, and “the logistics of stabling, feeding, and cleaning the animals were worked out in exhaustive detail.”17 Many contemporary ark portraits resemble a 1985 artistic representation that resulted from a 1970s archaeological expedition on Mt. Ararat, one of many evangelical-led expeditions to discover the ark’s physical remains.18 More cartoonish versions abound as well (think: long giraffe necks protruding from a small boat). The countless iterations of “bathtub arks” are a target of critique for creationists.19 They
- 62. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 58 Practical Matters Journal consider any non-realist ark representation to be far from innocent, complicit in secular-derived schemes to undermine scriptural authority by dismissing its historicity. The structural generation of expectations also includes the circulating forms of publicity attached to an attraction. Publicity is a key dynamic in contemporary religious life. In his critique of the category “public religion,” anthropologist Matthew Engelke argues that “when we talk about ‘public religion’ today we are often actually talking about ‘religious publicity.’”20 By this he means a process of producing and circulating religious content and frames of reference in the public sphere. Further, religious publicity highlights that the status of religion being public should not be taken for granted. “Public” should be understood as a status that is actively pursued, achieved, and promoted by socially positioned religious actors, possessed by particular strategic aims. Bible-based attractions regularly generate self-publicity. Ark Encounter, in a marketing effort to secure and keep consumer interest prior to the site’s opening, certainly does. They rent billboards throughout the United States and maintain an interactive website with a weblog. Blogging began in December 2010 when Ark Encounter was announced to the public and, as of March 2016, there are 244 posts that address numerous topics. A few patterns are discernible despite the wide topical range: (1) Posts take a stance of correcting public misperceptions about Ark Encounter. In doing so they foster creationist commitments about secular conspiracies and a secular culture war against Christianity.21 “Taxpayers ‘On the Hook’?” – a January 2011 post – led with this: “A recent editorial in the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette came out against the Ark Encounter, but its reasoning was all wrong! The editorial, which has been reprinted in at least two other newspapers, misleads people to believe that Kentucky taxpayers are ‘on the hook’ for 25 percent of the total cost of the project.” (2) Posts explain details of creation science. “Forgotten Fauna,” a series of nine posts published between April 2014 and February 2015, introduces readers to the creationist theological-biological category of “animal kinds.” This series discusses examples of animal species that are now extinct, but for which there is fossil evidence and therefore would have been on the ark. (3) Posts offer the public “sneak peeks” that go “behind the scenes” of the architectural and artistic production processes. Snippet views act as teasers, pieces of an extended preview trailer. Photographic and video footage tracking the development of the ark itself at the construction site began in August 2014 with the official groundbreaking. Meanwhile, back in the studio, posts provide glimpses of the creative team’s work. “Depicting the Ark’s Passengers,” a series of 12 posts published between May 2012 and September 2014, reveal the concept art for Noah and his family. (4) Posts ask the public to “imagine” the world of Noah and to entertain other ways of being immersed in the creationist version of biblical history. In this example from September 2015, the immersive entreaty is accompanied by an expression of fundamentalist typological hermeneutics22 : Taking a trip through the Ark design studio warehouse reveals just how much things are beginning to pile up. Many of the exhibits, cages, and cargo boxes await the day when we can start shipping things down to the Ark site to be assembled inside the Ark. Imagine Noah’s faith. Not only did he build the Ark according to God’s specific dimensions, but
- 63. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 59 Practical Matters Journal can you fathom the logistics involved in gathering enough food and supplies for his family and all of the animals. Imagine all of the space all of these items would take up as the Ark was being prepared. Did he need to build storehouses just for these items? Did animals arrive early to give Noah’s family time to study their habits so that they would know what kinds of food and how much of it to bring? How much space would they require? Noah’s responsibilities involved so much more than building the Ark itself. (emphasis mine) When Ark Encounter opens, it will have been a project-in-the-making for nearly six years. Six years of publicity is part of the structural accumulation that informs visitor preparations to visit the Ark. Understanding the contours of such discursive and ideological accumulation enables us to better contextualize how visitors experience attractions. The preparatory stage of consumption also includes agentive actions that visitors self-consciously perform in order to ready themselves for the visit. Kaell observes an important tension among American Holy Land pilgrims. On one hand, the organized prepackaged tours that most pilgrims join typically request formal preparation (e.g., Bible reading). However, few pilgrims complete these tasks. On the other hand, they engage in substantial informal preparation. “While prospective pilgrims generally do little to prepare in a formal sense - few complete the assigned readings, for example - they lay the groundwork for interpretations that take shape more fully upon return each time they describe the upcoming trip to others.”23 Talking with family, friends, fellow congregants, and strangers becomes a ritual of preparation where visitors activate ideological frames of reference. Kaell also observes how pilgrims incorporate new or extended physical regimens into their preparation.24 Many were older adults and expected pilgrimage to involve significant walking in terrains of varying difficulty. Here, the human body – with its potential frailties and capacities – becomes a preparatory training ground in the consumption process. The question of how visitors prepare for experiential engagement at an attraction is largely uncharted territory. Consider one possible scenario of preparation. How do visitors prepare for visits to Holy Land replica sites? There are at least 19 replica attractions around the world. Most are in the continental United States (N=11), but they can be found in locales as wide ranging as the Caribbean, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe. They vary widely in style and defining register. The Holy Land Experience (Orlando, FL) and Tierra Santa (Buenos Aires, Argentina) market themselves as theme parks. The Franciscan Order of Catholic Monastics, the Vatican-ordered caretakers of the Holy Land, have a long history of creating replica sites from Valsesia, Italy (1490s) to Washington, DC (1890s). And, a 17th century replica of a 16th century map of Jerusalem in Poland (Kalwaria Zebrzydowska Park) is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Are Holy Land preparatory and pilgrimage repertoires used to prepare for these replicas? Do visitors incorporate actual Holy Land materials (images, stories, films, archaeology, etc.) into their preparing? If visitors have made pilgrimage to the Holy Land, are these materials used for replica preparation? In short, is there a preparatory mimesis to complement the material mimetic features of the sites themselves? Thinking Fieldwork Methods
- 64. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 60 Practical Matters Journal 1. Pre-Visit Interviews: A round of recorded, semi-structured interviews prior to the site visit is an instrumental way to talk with visitors about their expectations. Depending on the context, these interviews may be conducted one-on-one, with married couples, families, or in small focus groups. Also, depending on context, these interviews might use open-ended questions that invite visitors to articulate their anticipations and curiosities, or elicitation devices to aid reflection (e.g., material objects, photographs, video footage, publicity materials). These interviews can help unearth unexpected hesitancies. For example, in September 2015 I conducted an Ark Encounter pre-visit interview with a married couple in their early 30s. These interviews are divided into three portions: a spiritual life history, personal history with creationism, and response to video publicity materials. After we finished their personal histories with creationism, the husband stopped me to voice a concern that committed believers will support the park even if the quality is mediocre: “A lot of Christians eat bad cake just because it has Jesus sprinkles. Do you know what I mean?” 2. Tracking Publicity: Because publicity is part of the structural accumulation that informs consumption, it is important to track the materials that are produced. This includes a range of physical and virtual forms: advertisements (on billboards, in magazines or newspapers, as webpage pop-ups); webpages; weblogs; social media (Facebook and Twitter posts); regularly circulated newsletters; flyers and information cards. Additionally, it is instructive to collect publicity produced about the attraction from both supportive and suspicious sources. This might include local and national newspapers; mass circulated magazines for popular and niche audiences; and social media reporting by individuals and institutions. A useful strategy, which nearly eliminates the tedium of hunting and pecking for new reports, is signing up for Google news alerts. 3. Pre-Visit Mapping: Before accompanying visitors, the ethnographer should thoroughly map the site on their own or with a research team. This includes detailed field notes, collecting site materials (e.g., guide map), photography, and spatial schematics. The field notes should be a multi-sensory account, attending not just to what is there but how you experience the place. One advantage of doing pre-visit mapping is to prepare for being there as a participant observer with visitors. For example, my first visit to Kentucky’s Creation Museum was exhausting due to the significant amount of text to read throughout the space paired with observing each exhibit’s intricate detail. For many attractions, it is essentially impossible to document the site for the first time and concentrate on being there with visitors.
- 65. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 61 Practical Matters Journal Experiential Engagement The focal point of the consumption process is visitors’ experiential engagement at the site. Similar to preparation, we can divide this stage into the contextual frames for engagement and the agentive forms of engagement. This analytical division should not be mistaken for any discrete division in practice. Contextual frames and agentive forms are always joined in a dialectical relation. To illustrate, I highlight three potential contextual frames. First, we can consider the site’s location and spatial organization. Anthropologist Simon Coleman has emphasizedthisframeinhisresearchattheEnglishsiteofWalsingham,asmallvillagethathostsCatholicand Anglican Marian shrines.25 The shrines commemorate an apparition experienced by a Saxon noblewoman in 1060, in which Mary requested that a replica of “the Holy House” (the house where Mary and Joseph raised Jesus in Nazareth) be built. The original replica and shrine were razed in 1538 during Henry VIII’s Dissolution. A replica of the replica, claiming to be on the apparition’s original location, was built in 1931. Today, it is England’s “foremost site of Christian pilgrimage.”26 Coleman observes how the site’s physical and spatial properties help structure the experiential engagement. The rural setting invokes the “image of the medieval” and a distinct set apart-ness from the “urban eyes” of most visitors. The rural signifies “a place very different from the everyday (appropriate to the liminal space and time of pilgrimage) [and] the ability to reach into a past world that can speak to the present.”27 The site’s divisions between Catholic and Anglican shrines are also significant. There are various opportunities to engage physically with the site, from lighting candles to collecting holy water from the site’s well (an artifact claimed to date to the time of the apparition). The jumble of ritual forms brought together at the site creates a “liturgical incoherence [where] different groups of pilgrims from different locations can be engaged in separate liturgies simultaneously.”28 Then, there are the site’s erasures. A 1961 archaeological finding most likely identified the original replica’s actual location, but it is largely ignored and noted only by a small plaque. In turn, visitors spend far more time at the 1931 replica. A second frame for experiential engagement is the social context in which visitors go to a site. Do they go as individuals? With family? With friends? As part of a congregational group? A pre-packaged tour? I once met a Seattle pastor who visited Kentucky’s Creation Museum as part of a denominational pastors’ retreat. He walked the exhibit not with his wife and children, but with his ministerial colleagues - perhaps trading notes for sermons and Bible study curricula? The relevance of social context has been visible in the Ark Encounter pre-visit interviews. Jesus sprinkles were not the only anxiety. The married couple hopes the Ark will be built with kids in mind. They have four children, all under the age of 12. They spoke at length about what features make a site enjoyable for children and adults together, and what features create hurdles to enjoyment. Their sentiment was clear: if the kids aren’t happy, no one is happy. Guiding materials and performances are a third contextual frame. Visitors often experience Bible- based attractions with the aid of pre-made guidebooks, maps, directions, pamphlets, flyers and/or a trained guide.29 By no means determinative, guiding does significantly structure the experience. Paper or electronic guide materials direct visitors in many ways: suggesting ideal routes through the attraction, raising particular theological questions (and not others), highlighting particular scriptural passages (and not others), and
- 66. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 62 Practical Matters Journal narrating particular site histories (and not others). Regarding the role of trained guides in structuring consumption, anthropologist Jackie Feldman’s ethnography of evangelical Holy Land pilgrims is exemplary.30 Feldman’s work centers on his two decades worth of experience leading evangelical pilgrimages in Israel- Palestine. He demonstrates how guides use carefully crafted itineraries, repertories of local knowledge, and well-rehearsed performances to frame touring experiences. This can encompass forms of exclusion. For example, Feldman illustrates how guiding performances reproduce the Protestant focus on biblical land at the expense of contemporary conflicts involving Palestinians and local Islamic history.31 Various contextual frames structure visitors’ experience at Bible-based attractions, from location and spatial organization to social context and guiding materials. Still, experiential engagement is a fully agentive process. An argument that runs throughout Coleman’s writing about Walsingham is that pilgrims marshal various forms of creative performance. They “become bricoleurs, selecting fragments of rituals, symbols, even spaces as building blocks for their personal pilgrimages,” and engage in ironic play regarding “official” and “traditional” religious discourses.32 “Devotional labor” is a useful concept for exploring creative performances. I adopt this term from Elaine Pena’s ethnography of Mexican and Mexican American pilgrimage rites and routes surrounding the Virgin of Guadalupe.33 Pena observes how individuals perform ritual work as part of the pilgrimage experience: walking, singing, praying, dancing, shrine maintenance, making crafts, preparing and eating food, and other practices that are often artificially separated as either ritual or mundane. What forms of devotional labor characterize Bible-based attractions? Is there prayer and if so, where is it concentrated? What does the absence of prayer at a site signify? Is there Bible reading and where does it concentrate? What of its absence? What about other forms of visitor practice, actions that may not immediately index religious ritual? Where do visitors take photographs of each other and themselves as selfies? How do visitors respond to interactive prompts built into attractions (e.g., smelling flowers and herbs in biblical gardens, engaging ‘hands-on’ learning exercises at creation museums)? Uses of materiality are an important form of devotional labor. This plays a pivotal role in Kaell’s analysis of Holy Land pilgrimage.34 For example, pilgrims collect objects from the land (e.g., stones, sand, wood) as gifts and souvenirs. Landscape materials carry the power of direct indexicality because of their natural links to biblical land. Pilgrims also purchase gifts and souvenirs, investing commodity consumption with sacred potential. This raises an intriguing possibility: Bible-based attraction gift shops as a key ethnographic site. What items do visitors buy? How much do they cost? Who do visitors purchase gifts for? What items do attractions keep in stock? Where were the items made and who made them? ForanotheruseofmaterialityasdevotionallaborconsideranexamplefromtheHolyLandExperience (HLE).35 HLE is a fifteen-acre “living, biblical museum” in Orlando, Florida that teaches Christian themes in a themed environment eleven miles northeast of the Walt Disney World Resort. There, people pin their prayers to a cross. At the “Testimony Cross Garden,” visitors write out prayers on small slips of paper and attach them to a nearby wooden cross. This ritual form involves several constitutive material acts. There is the writing itself. Like keeping a daily prayer journal or submitting a prayer card to a popular ministry, spiritual power is harnessed by putting pen to paper and externalizing human interiors.36 This extends the associations between writing technology and faith emphasized by other Christian performances, such as when one sings
- 67. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 63 Practical Matters Journal the opening lines of a southern Gospel music standard: “When God dips His pen of love in my heart and writes my soul a message He wants me to know.” Then, there is the folding. Each prayer is bent; some loose and uneven, some tight and perfectly aligned. Folding eases a tension between the public quality of the cross and the secrecy of each paper’s contents (‘this is just between me and God’). Once folded, there are the bodily acts of kneeling and stretching to attach the paper. The power here works via iconicity: the park map that each visitor receives when entering HLE prompts you to “nail your burdens (prayer requests) to the cross.” The materiality of this ritual transforms a prayer into a thing: a small piece of writing. What happens when prayers become things? A sign standing a short walk from the Testimony Cross Garden suggests an answer. The sign reads: “Have your personal prayer requests placed between the ancient stones at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Monthly transportation to Israel provided free of charge.” When these prayers become small pieces of writing they become something that can travel easily. Small pieces of writing can be gathered, packed together, and transported. The destination of these traveling prayers is not incidental. Jerusalem’s Western Wall is a pivotal site for Protestant pilgrims to the Holy Land. Christian claims to the Wall, such as inserting written prayers into its fissures, participate symbolically in the ongoing contest over biblical land, as the Wall also receives the devotional labor of Jewish and Muslim pray-ers. Transforming prayer into a thing is a matter of efficacy. The power of your request or report is intensified when you write it out on a small square of colored paper; its intensification furthers when pinned to the cross; and intensified again when it travels to a crevice in Jerusalem. As prayers become things they forge a link between two places: a “living, biblical museum” in Florida and the Holy Land sites that inspire Orlando’s materialized re-creations. Visitors’ creative performances also include the discursive-ideological scripts used to make sense of experiential engagements. Kaell observes how American Holy Land pilgrims (both Protestant and Catholic) draw on distinctly American scripts as they confront Israel-Palestine’s dizzying social, political, and religious pluralism. For example, they map American settler ideologies about westward expansion onto Palestinian displacements.37 Coleman argues that Walsingham pilgrims (Catholic, Anglican, and secular) engage the site through a distinctly nationalist script. Alongside its mystical heritage, pilgrims invest Walsingham with the importance of being an English historical landmark. In turn, “the boundaries between tourism and pilgrimage have become attenuated if not impossible to detect.”38 An unexpected consumption script was suggested to me during an interview with a designer on the Ark Encounter creative team. I had asked him what artistic influences he uses to re-create scenes from the biblical past. After naming a few examples, he reflected on a necessary tactic he must engage as he seeks reference material: “The secular world owns probably 99% of all the material out there, so you have to like reinterpret most of it.” As an artist, he lives in a one percent world, a world where almost everything he encounters demands cautious and critical use. He must read between the lines, scanning for clues of evolutionary contamination. It is quite likely that creationist visitors activate a similar script when consuming creationist attractions: they enjoy the sanctity of not having to reinterpret, exploring exhibits and sites freely without the burden of scanning for information they consider ideologically dangerous. How far does this extend across other Bible-based attractions? Do non-creationist visitors who feel equally embattled, albeit for different reasons, activate similar scripts at non-creationist attractions?
- 68. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 64 Practical Matters Journal Thinking Fieldwork Methods 1. Shadowing Visitors: This is a key technique when doing participant observation of experiential engagement. The goal is to accompany visitors throughout an attraction, beginning from the point of departure (a home, a church) and continuing for the entire visit (a day, a weekend, a week). Shadowing includes periodic interviewing (during lunch, in a quiet zone after experiencing a portion of the site) and close observation of devotional labor performances. The primary danger to monitor and minimize is distracting visitors. One strategy for limiting this is to shadow small groups instead of individuals. 2. Sensory Walks: The consumption process is deeply material and embodied, which means it is a thoroughly sensory experience. A methodological model for eliciting the sensory experiences of visitors is found among urban ethnographers who map sense- scapes. They walk city streets with consultants, dialed solely into a particular sense. For example, Kelvin Low used “smellscape walkabouts with informants so as to examine the sociocultural meanings associated with olfaction in ethnic enclaves.”39 3. GPS Tracking: The qualitative data gained from shadowing and sensory walks can be complemented by quantitative tools that record how visitors spatially explore attractions. Geographers use this method with Global Positioning Systems technology that records the movements of tourists throughout a designated area.40 This addresses such questions as the consumptive routes that visitors create throughout an attraction, and where visitors focus their consumptive time within an attraction. 4. Border zones: Many Bible-based attractions are located adjacent to off site locations where visitors gather before and after visits. How do visitors use these border zones? This was a valuable strategy in Coleman’s Walsingham fieldwork. He discovered that in village pubs and cafes surrounding the official grounds visitors engaged in serious debates about the “authenticity of different parts of the site.” Such debates were absent from the devotional labor performed on the grounds.41 Reflection In the final stage of the consumption process visitors reflect on their experiential engagement at the attraction and consider the forward-looking implications of having been there. Were expectations met? Were there surprises? Disappointments? Are they compelled to some kind of practice because of their experience at the attraction? Did the attraction impact any of their cultural commitments? Ethnographically, we should expect the reflection process to be quite open-ended and deeply contextual, that is tied very closely to the nature of the attraction, visitors’ motivations for going, and the
- 69. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 65 Practical Matters Journal social contextual frame of the experience. Consider just two examples that may be instructive for future research. Since beginning fieldwork on Ark Encounter in 2011 I have spoken with many friends and colleagues about the project. Many of these conversations include a discussion of the Creation Museum, since both are affiliated with the same ministry. Those who have not visited the Museum are overwhelmingly curious about it. Those who have are eager to share their story. One conversation stands out in particular because of a potential disappointment it raises. Glenn, a house church pastor in his early 40s, is a friend of mine and was a key consultant in a previous ethnographic project.42 Neither Glenn nor his wife Cathy are young earth creationists, but they both were for many years. Her parents are still creationists, and on a family visit in 2008 they wanted Glenn and Cathy to take them to the Museum. When Glenn told me about their experience he focused on one memory, perhaps because he was struck by the same disappointment. Cathy’s father was very excited for the Museum, but after spending a day there he was upset by the commercial saturation. Glenn remembered his father-in-law’s discontent in more vernacular terms, something closer to ‘every time you turn around they’re trying to sell you something.’ He responded negatively to what he considered an extreme and distasteful experience of commodification. In what ways might commercial elements enhance or disturb a visitor’s experiential engagement? When an attraction has an entry cost, do visitors have different expectations? Do they find the experience worth the price of admission? What forms of commodification are engaged as productive for the experience, which are acceptable, and which are corrosive? When is ‘the gift shop’ normalized and when is it troubled by visitors? A second example returns to Kaell’s research among Holy Land pilgrims. In a series of reflection interviews with pilgrims she discovered a range of responses to the experience of visiting biblical lands. Kaell concludes her book by describing pilgrims who incorporated changes into their life because of their time in Israel-Palestine. For example, several individuals had started participating in forms of pro-Palestinian activism after witnessing what they considered the persecution of Palestinian Christians.43 How pervasive such prompts to new practice and imagination? What are the predictive variables for such prompting in the experience of Bible-based attractions? Thinking Fieldwork Methods 1. Post-Visit Interviewing: Recorded, semi-structured interviews are an instrumental way to collect narrated stories about visitors’ experiential engagement at attractions. Visitors explain their reactions, such as why they were averse to commercial saturation or why they chose to engage new forms of religious practice. These interviews can produce surprising results. For example, Kaell discovered that in their narratives Holy Land pilgrims nearly erase their fellow travelers from the pilgrimage experience in favor of the land itself.44 Two important questions to consider with these interviews are when to conduct them and whether to do them one-on-one or in groups. Do you want an immediate reflection or a reflection that has marinated in the visitor’s memory? Do you want individual reflections or the collaborative reflections of small groups who visited an attraction together?
- 70. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 66 Practical Matters Journal 2. Elicitation Devices: Post-visit interviewing can be enhanced by the use of material items and representations from the Bible-based attraction that will ignite memory and storytelling (e.g., natural objects collected from the land, commodity items purchased as souvenirs or gifts, guiding materials, and photographs or videos taken at the attraction). In her reflection interviews, Kaell used albums of photographs taken and assembled by pilgrims. With this elicitation device she discovered that the erasure of fellow pilgrims in favor of biblical landscapes was not just a discursive pattern but also evident in what photographs pilgrims chose to take, keep, and display. Coda In this article I have explored a range of analytical issues and questions that ethnographers can use to understand the process of consuming Bible-based attractions. And, I have proposed specific data collection methods for each of three consumption stages. Ultimately, any analysis of Bible-based attractions informs general study of Christian leisure and travel. The study of consumption at these destinations also engages broader trends in the interdisciplinary study of religious practices and theological formation. Bible-based attractions reflect the well established turn toward lived religion that began in the 1980s. 45 This turn sought to recognize the significance of popular, unauthorized, and contested spaces in the making of religious identity and community. By following believers far outside the confines of officially sanctioned religious spaces and activities, lived religion argued against any discrete division of sacred- profane. The imprint of this turn continues to be felt as religion scholars explore the varied expressions of religious tourism and pilgrimage. For example, Thomas Bremer highlights the mutual exchanges that occur between commodity value, aesthetic value, and religious value.46 Many of the same dynamics at work in these intersecting journeys are also evident in travel to Bible-based attractions, which itself can be discussed in terms of tourism or pilgrimage. The analytical lure of Bible-based attractions owes to their refractive quality as they simultaneously redirect our attention to tourism, pilgrimage, lived religion, and material mediation.47 It is a definitively hybrid species, integrating religion and entertainment, piety and play, fun and faith, commerce and devotion, pleasure and education. The resulting complexity makes Bible-based attractions utterly fascinating, but can also make them difficult to apprehend methodologically. With this article, I hope to have made them more apprehensible, but certainly no less fascinating. Endnotes 1 Kaell, Hillary. 2014. Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage. New York: NYU Press, 3. 2 Coleman, Simon and John Elsner. 2004. Tradition as Play: Pilgrimage to “England’s Nazareth.” History and Anthropology 15(3): 273-88.
- 71. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 67 Practical Matters Journal 3 For example: Beal, Timothy K. 2005. Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith. Boston: Beacon; Branham, Joan. 2008. The Temple That Won’t Quit: constructing sacred space in Orlando’s Holy Land theme park. Harvard Divinity Bulletin 36(3): 18-31; Butler, Ella. 2010. God is in the Data: Epistemologies of knowledge at the Creation Museum. Ethnos 75(3): 229-251; Fletcher, John. 2013. Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press; Goh 2014; Long, Burke O. 2003. Imagining the Holy Land: Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Lynch, John. 2013. “Prepare to Believe”: the Creation Museum as embodied conversion narrative. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 16(1): 1-28; Lukens-Bull, Ronald and Mark Fafard. 2007. Next Year in Orlando: (Re)creating Israel in Christian Zionism. Journal of Religion and Society 9:1-20; Ron, Amos S. and Jackie Feldman. 2009. From Spots to Themed Sites – the evolution of the Protestant Holy Land. Journal of Heritage Tourism 4(3): 201-216; Rowan, Yorke. 2004. Repacking the Pilgrimage: Visiting the Holy Land in Orlando. In Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past, edited by Yorke Rowan and Uzi Baram, 249-266. Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press; Stevenson, Jill. 2013. Sensational Devotion: Evangelical Performance in 21st Century America. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press; Wharton, Annabel Jane. 2006. Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. For exceptions to the lack of research on consumption, see Simon Coleman’s work on the Marian site of Walsingham is a distinct exception and a book published just before I completed final revisions of this manuscript. Patterson, Sara M. 2016. Middle of Nowhere: Religion, Art, and Pop Culture at Salvation Mountain. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 4 McDannell, Colleen. 1995. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven: Yale University Press; Morgan, David. 1999. Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley: University of California Press. 5 For a creationist account of such visits, see: https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2009/08/08/the-day- 285-atheists-agnostics-visited-the-creation-museum/; For a skeptic account: http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/03/07/ a-visit-to-the-creation-museum/ 6 Coleman and Elsner 2004: 280-82 7 Eade, John and Michael Sallnow (eds.). 1991. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage. London: Routledge. 8 For an online curation of these attractions, see www.materializingthebible.com. The N of 218 is current as of this article’s 2016 publication, however new attractions are added to the site when located. 9 Bielo, James S. 2009. Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study. New York: NYU Press. 10 Israel, England, Philippines, China, Taiwan, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Argentina, Ireland, Brazil, Scotland, Mexico, Australia, Bahamas, India, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Bosnia, New Zealand, Portugal, Denmark, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Kenya, and Latvia. 11 Bielo, James S. 2015. Literally Creative: Intertextual Gaps and Artistic Agency. In Scripturalizing the Human: the written as the political, edited by Vincent L. Wimbush, 20-34. New York: Routledge.
- 72. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 68 Practical Matters Journal 12 https://answersingenesis.org/ministry-news/ark-encounter/ark-encounter-estimated-to- attract/?utm_source=cmnews&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=20150605&mc_ cid=5c9505908a&mc_eid=cbe2631d83 (accessed: October 30, 2015) 13 For a demonstration of this processual model, see: Kaell 2014. 14 Ibid. 15 Cohn, Norman. 1996. Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press. 16 Brown, Janet. 2003. Noah’s Flood, the Ark, and the Shaping of Early Modern Natural History. In When Science and Christianity Meet, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, 111-138. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 111-112. 17 Ibid:116 18 Eskridge, Larry. 1999. A Sign for an Unbelieving Age: Evangelicals and the Search for Noah’s Ark. In Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, edited by David N. Livingstone, D.G. Hart, and Mark A. Noll, 244- 263. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 19 For example: https://arkencounter.com/blog/2016/02/09/what-fairy-tale-ark-and-why-it-dangerous/ 20 Engelke, Matthew. 2013. God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England. Berkeley: University of California Press. xv. 21 For the circulation of conspiracy discourse in the creationist movement, see: Butler 2010 22 For typological hermeneutics among fundamentalist Protestants, see: Harding, Susan F. 2000. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 23 Kaell 2014: 74-75 24 Ibid: 61; cf. Pena, Elaine A. 2011. Performing Piety: Making Sacred Space with the Virgin of Guadalupe. Berkeley: University of California Press. 25 Coleman, Simon. 2000. Meaning of Movement: Home and Place at Walsingham. Culture and Religion 1(2): 153-169; Coleman, Simon. 2004. Pilgrimage to “England’s Nazareth”: Landscapes of Myth and Memory at Walsingham. In Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, edited by Ellen Badone and Sharon Roseman, 52-67. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press; Coleman, Simon. 2005. Putting it all together again: healing and incarnation in Walsingham. In Pilgrimage and Healing, edited by Jill Dubisch and Michael Winkelman, 91-110. Tucson: University of Arizona Press; Coleman, Simon and John Elsner. 1998. Performing Pilgrimage: Walsingham and the Ritual Construction of Irony. In Ritual, Performance, Media, edited by F. Hughes-Freeland, 46-65. London: Routledge; Coleman and Elsner 2004 26 Coleman 2004: 53
- 73. Bielo, Materializing the Bible 69 Practical Matters Journal 27 Ibid: 60 28 Coleman and Elsner 2004: 279 29 Cf. Stausberg, Michael. 2011. Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations, and Encounters. New York: Routledge, 193-218. 30 Feldman, Jackie. 2007. Constructing a Shared Bible Land: Jewish Israeli guiding performances for Protestant pilgrims. American Ethnologist 34(2): 351-374. 31 Ibid: 362. 32 Coleman and Elsner 2004: 281 33 Pena 2011 34 Kaell 2014 35 This account is based on the author’s visit to the site in March 2014. An earlier version of this section was published on Anderson Blanton’s curated digital scholarship project, The Materiality of Prayer, in May 2014. 36 Blanton, Anderson. 2015. Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South. Chapel Hill: UNC Press. 37 Kaell 2014: 126, 142 38 Coleman 2004: 61; cf. 57, 62 39 Low, Kelvin E.Y. 2015. The Sensuous City: Sensory Methodologies in Urban Ethnographic Research. Ethnography 16(3): 295-312; 301. 40 Shoval, Noam and Isaacson, Michal. 2007. Tracking Tourists in the Digital Age. Annals of Tourism Research 34(1): 141-159. 41 Coleman 2004: 61 42 Bielo, James S. 2011. Emerging Evangelicals: faith, modernity, and the desire for authenticity. New York: NYU Press. 43 Kaell 2014: 206 44 Ibid: 174, 186 45 For an overview of the lived religion turn, see: Hall, David (ed). 1997. Lived Religion in America: toward a history of practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 46 Bremer, Thomas. 2014. A Touristic Angle of Vision: Tourist Studies as a Methodological Approach for the Study of Religions. Religion Compass 8/12: 371-379 47 Engelke, Matthew. 2010. Religion and the Media Turn: A Review Essay. American Ethnologist 37(2): 371-79.
- 74. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 70-80. © Kathryn R. Barush 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 70 The Root of the Route: Phil’s Camino Project and the Catholic Tradition of Surrogate Pilgrimage Kathryn Barush Graduate Theological Union and Jesuit School of Theology Abstract On a rainy day on an island in the Pacific Northwest, Phil Volker walked along the well-known, and well-trodden half-mile path in his own 10-acre backyard. The damp earth sprung beneath his boots as he chatted amiably to his companions. Although he had been walking for miles and miles along the circuit, today was a special day, as he had made it to Burgos. Or, at least, the distance to Burgos – a town along the ancient pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (known as the Camino - or Way - of St. James). After a cancer diagnosis had thwarted his dreams of traveling to Spain, Phil had mapped all 500 miles of the pilgrimage onto his own backyard, and today was just one stop along his circuitous journey. Phil’s Camino project is explored here within the Catholic tradition of surrogate pilgrimages in the forms of labyrinths, the Via Crucis, and other media, usually undertaken by those who could not travel for a variety of reasons, including economic hardship or, like Phil, ill health. The sacred trail that he mapped on to his own property will be considered as a work of art in the form of a built environment which retains a trace of the original Camino de Santiago, and, like the Camino de Santiago, continues to function as a place of healing and renewal for Phil and for the pilgrims who have joined him as he continues to traverse the Way. O n a hand-drawn map of his 10-acre property on Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest, Phil Volker has labeled, in gently sloping capital letters, the north and south pastures, the garden and the corn patch, the woodlot and Raven Creek.1 Yellow arrows point the way along a path bordered feature
- 75. Barush, The Root of the Route 71 Practical Matters Journal by towering fir trees and smaller hardwoods; at one point, five irregular stones bridge the creek and a rock pile marks the start and finish. It is a path he has walked many times, and with many companions. On the right side, the same lettering explains: Blessed by Father Marc, we opened the Camino on Dec. 21st 2013. Between then + May 12th 2014 I walked 909 laps to equal 500 miles or the length of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I walked alone and with others in all kinds of weather. Time was available to pray, think, laugh, cry, discuss + wonder.2 After a cancer diagnosis thwarted Phil’s dreams of walking the ancient Camino de Santiago to Compostela in Spain, he did the next best thing; that is, he mapped the entire route onto his own backyard.3 Phil’s Camino project will be explored here within the Catholic tradition of surrogate pilgrimages in the forms of labyrinths, the Via Crucis, and other media, usually undertaken by those who could not travel for a variety of reasons, including economic hardship or, like Phil, ill health.4 The sacred trail that he mapped on to his own property will be considered as a work of art; in this case, it is a built environment which retains a trace of the original Camino de Santiago, and, like the Camino de Santiago, continues to function as a place of healing and renewal for Phil and for the pilgrims who have joined him as he continues to traverse the Way. It is crucial to include a diversity of visual media alongside textual discourse as scholars from a number of fields (including my own area of art history and religious studies along with theology, anthropology, and sociology) proceed towards a more developed framework for considering art and religion, as well as a critical lexicon for discussing the efficacy of objects. Phil’s Camino will be examined here as a case study through which to develop the notion of the transfer of ‘spirit’ from sacred site to representation, while acknowledging the historical roots of surrogate pilgrimages within Catholic devotional practices and popular piety which the project engenders. When Phil reached his backyard Burgos, an important town along the French Camino route, he sat at a picnic table laden with tapas and wine, mirroring the pilgrim meals along the Camino across the sea. Although seemingly far away, it is the salty sea which links Vashon Island off of Seattle, which Phil calls home, to the Galician Coast where the remains of Saint James the Greater, son of Zebedee, were said to have washed up in biblical times. He had ceased his work as a successful fisherman to follow Jesus. According to an ancient legend, Saint James traveled to Spain to preach the Gospel. Upon completing a period of ministry and mission there, he returned to Judea and was put to death at King Herod’s orders. After his martyrdom, two of his own disciples transported his body to shore where they found a miraculous boat which conveyed his remains back to Spain. By the 12th century, Santiago de Compostela was a flourishing center of pilgrimage, only surpassed in popularity and importance by Rome and Jerusalem. Many made the arduous physical and spiritual pilgrimage, including Saint Francis (the anniversary of his sacred journey was recently celebrated there) There are links between Phil’s walking vocation and Saint James’s discernment to follow Jesus. After a cancer diagnosis in 2011 (now at stage IV), Phil’s ability to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain was temporarily put on hold. However, he remained undeterred. In a recent interview, Phil revealed that he is a “do-it-yourself kind of guy”, giving the example of bookshelves; where many would go to a box store,
- 76. Barush, The Root of the Route 72 Practical Matters Journal he would prefer to whack them together with some 2x4s that he had on hand.5 This is characteristic of the determination and faith that has fueled his life, which began on the shortest day of the year during a cold Buffalo winter in 1947. Phil ran cross-country and track in high school, served in the Marine Corps for three years, and after studying fine arts at SUNY Buffalo, moved to Washington State. He spent another year studying fine arts at the University of Washington and eventually worked as a carpenter, founding the company Phil Volker Custom Woodwork. He is married with two children, and had developed a deep fondness for Europe after a trip to Barcelona, Rome, Malta, and Athens in 2003. Given his love of art and carpentry, it is appropriate that he took the name of Saint Joseph the Worker when he was received into the Roman Catholic Church two years ago, in 2013. After blazing a half-mile trail in his backyard, he calculated that 909 laps would get him from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, and so he strapped on his boots and started walking. The tradition of building scaled-down versions of popular pilgrimage sites in domestic and also urban locales is not a new phenomenon in Catholic culture. The spaces, usually replicas of a site where a holy apparition appeared or where relics are housed, are usually believed to retain a trace of the original and persist as places of healing, spiritual renewal, joy, and hope. Phil’s Camino fits into this tradition with its mapping of an efficacious and historical locale onto a relatively mundane place, such as one with familial or community significance rather than ties to an apparition or relic – in this case, Phil’s own backyard. Miniature Lourdes grottoes, for instance, have been built in cities and college campuses across the U.S. Notable examples include the version on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, a gift from the Rev. Thomas Carroll at the end of the nineteenth century;6 the chapel at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, a major pilgrimage site in and of itself, with the opportunity for several mini-pilgrimages within its doors; and the Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother in Portland, Oregon. In June of 1874, Fr. Nelson Baker was one of the first American pilgrims to visit Lourdes and he created a replica shrine at the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory in Lackawanna, New York. His remains are now interred in the reconstructed grotto, which he had commissioned as an ex-voto, or object of thanksgiving, dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Fr. Baker believed that it was her intercession which brought him many gifts, including “his vocation to the priesthood, his recovery from a serious illness, his opportunity to be part of the first American pilgrimage [to Lourdes].”7 Around Easter of 2015, the Director of Programs at the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory graciously allowed me to leave a number of voluntary surveys near the replica Lourdes grotto and site of Father Baker’s tomb, addressing a number of questions to ‘pilgrim’ visitors specifically. The survey invited them to share how they felt at the grotto and at the Basilica more generally. Pilgrims responded with enthusiasm. Joseph from Cheektowaga, NY wrote, “I feel prayerful, awestruck, and overwhelmed, plus much more. This church takes your breath away, plus so much more.”8 Another anonymous pilgrim commented that she felt a great sense of authenticity at the grotto, which seemed to spiritually transport her to France.9 Phil’s Camino, however, is set apart from these replicas in the sense that it is not the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela that was reconstructed, but rather the pilgrimage route itself. In this way, his Camino project can find roots within an even deeper historical trajectory, stretching back to the European Middle Ages.
- 77. Barush, The Root of the Route 73 Practical Matters Journal Then, as now, literal journeys were themselves understood as metaphorical in the sense that they were microcosmic, geographic versions of the universal pilgrimage of the soul.10 Recent scholarship in the field of medieval studies has established the importance of manuscripts, maps, and labyrinths as sites of surrogate pilgrimages for those who could not travel for a variety of reasons, such as tenure to the land, lack of resources, and economic hardship.11 Kathryne Beebe has discussed Felix Fabri’s commission (by cloistered nuns) to recall, in written form, his actual pilgrimages to the Holy Land so that they, too, could make the journey by proxy as a devotional and contemplative exercise.12 From a broader perspective of pilgrimages and world religions, Simon Coleman and Jas Elsner have discussed not only the metaphorical resonances of geographical pilgrimages but also the function of objects and texts as memorials for the pilgrim and as a link to the sacred goal for those who would undertake a future journey.13 In some cases, as in a medieval illuminated manuscript in the collection of Francis Douce at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (MS Douce 51), a tin pilgrimage badge – a souvenir of the journey - would be carefully sewn on to a vellum page of a Book of Hours. Such an object, which retained the memory of both site and journey, would enhance the devotional experience for the viewer engaging with the book.14 Through touch and sight, she would have recourse to the pilgrimage site itself through the cognitive faculties of memory and imagination. The focus on the present day and its inherent links to the distant past through the project of mapping an ancient European pilgrimage route onto a backyard in North America complements and expound upon the notion of place-based pilgrimage as a spatial manifestation of “temporal past and future manifested in the spatial, [symbolic of] eschatological hope as well as paradigmatic memory”, as Wendy Pullan, for example, has posited in her study of pilgrimage in the early Christian era.15 This is reflected in several ways through Phil’s intentional but also instinctive ritual practices. Since the foundations of the Vashon Island Camino were laid, pilgrims have chosen rocks and stones from the trail onto which they attach prayer intentions. At the end of the journey, these stones are deposited in a pile and Phil and others continue to pray for these stones imbued with hope for the future and memories of the past. Phil has also constructed “stations” along the way, in the form of simple birdfeeders that give some space for pause in ambulation and restful reflection. These are rooted in his practice of praying the Rosary when he walks (usually, this is done when there are no visitors, although on occasion he will pray with a companion). The cyclical journey of his backyard circuit reflects the equally cyclical words of the Glory Be which concludes the rosary – “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end”: All along both here and in Spain, I prayed the rosary. Matter of fact I learned that walking while doing the rosary was my preferred way and that occurred even before building my trail. All along the rosary has been a large part of the project. For instance the trail is .88 of a kilometer long and I can say one round of the prayer in one lap of the trail. It was a perfect fit. Then at some point I placed bird feeders at approximately the place where I should have completed my Our Fathers, six of them. So, my rosary is integrated with my Camino. If I say it somewhere else I walk my trail in my mind and keep track of things that way, the two are one.16
- 78. Barush, The Root of the Route 74 Practical Matters Journal The birdfeeders mark out the completion of a series of the Lord’s Prayer, where the devotee is reminded of “thy Kingdom come” and the pilgrimage metaphor of negotiating the earthly city as heaven is awaited “in joyful hope.” There are several traditional devotional practices in particular that Phil’s project engenders, with the closest analog being walking a labyrinth (with its circuitous nature) or participating in the Stations of the Cross (a surrogate Holy Land pilgrimage) - especially outdoors. The fruitfully expanding field of the visual and material culture of religion has brought forth new and powerful ways in which viewers can engage with devotional objects.17 I offer here a specifically Roman Catholic lens through which to examine an anagogic and prayerful practice that is facilitated through a visual and material aid; in this case, it is a built environment.18 Phil’s project, which emerged out of a deep Catholic devotion and a desire to not copy, but to continue the experience of the Camino as an extension of Spain in the Pacific Northwest, offers a productive lens through which to flesh out some of these ideas.19 In Phil’s words, “we have to cobble together our separate Camino in our separate locality, same reality. This is very tricky in the sense of how one sets into motion a new life in the same old place.”20 Rather than setting up a strict dichotomy between contemplative (mental) and place-based pilgrimage, the interlinking senses of the term must be acknowledged. Religious architecture and landscapes functioned throughout the long history of Christian art as temporal reminders of a promised land to come as mediated through artistic practice. In another context, Christopher Wood referred to this as a “medial shift,” which incurs when there is a “transfer of meaning from original building to replicated building to painted building.”21 The critical lexicon for discussing this “transfer of meaning” is still being developed, but Phil’s project is an example of this process in action. His Camino retains an imbued and sacred trace of the spirit of the pilgrimage route in Spain and hence becomes a living channel that connects the constant procession of pilgrims to the believed site of the relics of Saint James to his backyard in Washington State. It takes 909 laps around 10 acres to get to Santiago de Compostela on Phil’s Camino. A labyrinth circuit, with its continuative laps towards and away from a center embodies TS Eliot’s words in Little Gidding from Four Quartets, where he muses that “an end is where we start from.”22 It is also, like Phil’s Camino, an example of a pilgrimage which is mapped from one locale onto another, attracting believers who then contribute a sense of place and community. One historic example is the original, Gothic-era labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France, itself along one of the historic Camino de Santiago routes, marked out today by the usual blue sign with golden scallop, an attribute of Saint James the pilgrim. In his study of the labyrinth pavement at Chartres, Daniel K. Connolly aptly notes the many modern-day tourists and pilgrims who seek out that particular circuit walk for its authenticity and connection to the past. Many were probably made aware of the Chartres labyrinth through the many other copies across the United States which have proliferated, in part, due to “the awareness of the benefits of measured, ambulant meditations.”23 Connolly gently posits the irony between the search for authenticity of the modern-day pilgrim and the perhaps little-known fact that “the labyrinth pavement there was itself a kind of copy, the motivation for which lay in the nostalgic longing for the High Middle Ages for the most authentic pilgrimage site for the Latin West – the holy city of Jerusalem.”24 However, the pavement is worn smooth and shiny from many hands and knees and feet, and the sense of communitas is present. Here I borrow from Victor and Edith Turner, who
- 79. Barush, The Root of the Route 75 Practical Matters Journal coined the term in part to encapsulate the idea of anti-structure, or the removal from the quotidian realm in order to describe spontaneous encounters with others and the possibility of renewal and transformation that occurs on the sacred journey (in fact, Phil describes his project as “a sanctuary from normal life”).25 In addition to thinking about the community of those in the liminal space of pilgrimage or the labyrinth, I mean to emphasize here the fact that a built environment facilitates a tangible connection between persons across time, those who have come before and all those who will come again. This is, in essence, not unlike the invitation to join one’s voice with the choir of saints and angels during a Roman Catholic Eucharistic celebration.26 The Chartres labyrinth, as well as Phil’s Camino, reflects the journey to Santiago and, by proxy, engenders the inherent link to the City of God, or imagined homeland, towards which all Christians proceed as “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). Like the labyrinth tradition, the Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, is another way for Catholics (and, increasingly, for members of many other denominations) to reflect on the events of the passion using a visual aid in the form of tableaux, or even simple crosses, installed within the space of a church or outdoors. The practice of transposing the sites of Jerusalem with markers of some kind originated as early as the 5th century, by Saint Petronius, Bishop of Bologna (who erected chapels representing important pilgrimage sites in Jerusalem at his home monastery).27 The more familiar “Stations of the Cross” with illustrated tableaux that we have today likely began to take form (outside the holy land) around the fifteenth century with notable examples in Cordova and Fribourg.28 This is relevant here in the sense that it is an example of a canonical29 vicarious pilgrimage practice where sites and scenes of one site are transferred to another via a “medial shift” (pace Wood). Pilgrimage is an ongoing condition of those of resurrection faith, where Christians traverse an earthly city in hope of reaching, eventually, eternal life in the living city of God. Phil’s Camino works through the levels from overarching Christian metaphor, firmly rooted in scripture, to a Jerusalem pilgrimage, to a pilgrimage to a site associated with a companion and direct disciple of Jesus, to a continuation of that sacred journey in a patch of land on Vashon Island.30 Having had arrived (vicariously) at “Santiago de Compostela” after six months of walking in his backyard, a much hoped and prayed-for event occurred. Phil’s doctors gave him enough time off from his regular chemo treatments to actually travel to France and Spain and walk the Camino that he had long dreamed of (there was a lucky triangulation of funding, the availability of a good friend to walk with, and the news of some miraculously good scans). Many of the pilgrims who now journey to Vashon Island to walk with Phil have also completed the 500-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which further links the two routes. Although the Vashon path winds through a forest and over a riverbed feels “very Camino,” as one pilgrim put it, it is not a replica but a continuation of an experience that creates, in essence, a sense of what Pullan described as “paradigmatic memory,” linking it to not just Spain but to the Christian condition of hopeful walking, and waiting. ItiseasytoimaginePhil,asheprocessesalongthebeatenpathonhisislandtrail,asawelcomecompanion along some route in Spain with his pilgrim-attire of bandana, boots, and fleece-pullover. He says, I don’t know if any of them think about walking the 909 laps that it takes to walk ‘across’ Spain but we have good imaginations. We can easily enjoy each other’s company and work on our inner Caminos as we walk. And it doesn’t take much for me to flash back to any old
- 80. Barush, The Root of the Route 76 Practical Matters Journal place along the Camino Frances and probably that is true for anyone who has experienced it. 31 The celebratory food and drink at Phil’s table is inspired by the tapas along the Camino de Santiago, so it is easy to really feel a sense of communitas and connection to the root of the route. Besides, Phil’s feet had processed all the way down into the crypt of the cathedral of Santiago where the relics of Saint James are kept in a silver reliquary. He prayed and left a petition, and then trod all over the earth back home, bringing with them a bit of the sacred dust perhaps. Phil’s boots could not doctrinally be considered third-class relics, of course (classified as something which has touched the corporeal remains of a saint). There is, however, a Catholic popular devotional practice that involves lovingly pressing a prayer card or ribbon to the reliquaries protecting the remains of the saint, or even (as Bede tells us) gathering the dust that accrued on the sacred container. 32 In a way, his pilgrim feet have brought a sense of sacredness to the Island Camino, a further transfer of “spirit” from original site to Raven Ranch on Vashon Island. Phil has welcomed visitors to his backyard circuit where the sense of communitas is just as present as it is while praying with the Stations of the Cross with a group during Lent or walking the ancient labyrinth at Chatres. In one of our early correspondences, I received a photograph of an assemblage of three significant objects that Phil had found while working in his corn patch: a heart-shaped rock, a compass, and a key-hole. He called it “a message” and “the centerpiece of our whole effort here; you have to find your way to opening your heart.”33 On any Camino, it is imperative to let go and be willing to open one’s heart to the possibilities that can occur; Pope Francis has taught that, “[w]alking in community, with friends, with those who love us, that helps us. It helps us to arrive precisely at that goal, that ‘there where’ we’re supposed to arrive.” 34 People seeking just this have already begun to travel to Vashon Island to walk in community with Phil: Everyone who has walked with me is in the logbooks. I bet there is somewhere between a hundred and two hundred easy over the last two years. They come for all sorts of reasons. Some have driven from as far as Portland and a group just flew in from Salt Lake. It is a pilgrimage for them to come here.35 Phil began with two laps every day that he was not at the hospital for appointments and eventually worked up to twelve; now he has regular hours for walking posted on a whiteboard by the stone pile so that friends and visitors can join him. When he walks with companions, he recounts that conversations range from very intimate to casual, but emphasizes that “the whole idea is to be present. If people are there, I am present to them.”36 Artwork and the built environment can be thought of as a temporal reminder of an imagined Holy Land where the logos is made visible and can (in the best examples) create a liminal point of contact between the earthly, visible world of forms and that of the unseen. This idea has roots in the teachings of Augustine and is embedded within the tradition of Christian Neoplatonism.37 Phil would visualize the early Renaissance devotional paintings by the Dominican artist Fra Angelico and an image of the Assumption by Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (mid-fourteenth century) as he walked. It was a powerful way to bring to life the joyful, sorrowful, glorious, and luminous mysteries of the rosary. This is, in a sense, an imaginative parallel to the wayside crosses, Baroque polychromed shrines, and chapel paintings along the Camino de Santiago. The
- 81. Barush, The Root of the Route 77 Practical Matters Journal rhythm of his feet on the trail with the damp Northwest island earth yielding below, the art in his head, and the prayers in his heart were woven together, as he explained, “making everything stronger.”38 Walking a pilgrimage route, with the churches and roadside chapels along the way, the arduous physical challenge of it all, and the spiritual stretching that occurs, can be an important catalyst for finding grace. There are certainly material reminders of memories, prayers, special intentions, and votive objects of thanksgiving which have been deposited along Phil’s Camino (for example, the Cruz de Ferro where pilgrims can deposit rocks and a post on which shells, holy cards, feathers, saint medals, a crucifix, and other objects are attached). However, there are no figurative paintings or tableaux along the route, other than those carried in the imagination (Phil calls these icons of the heart). The created art object here, which generates a liminal channel to a tangible closeness with God, is the Camino itself; the circuitous path and metaphor for the Christian condition that leads from an island in the Pacific Northwest to heaven. Endnotes 1 I am grateful to Phil Volker and my colleagues at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley - Gina Hens- Piazza, John Endres, SJ, and Deborah Ross for their judicious comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Many thanks are also due to Annie O’Neil who first brought Phil’s Camino to my attention while she was producing and directing a documentary film about the project; for more information, see: http://philscamino.com. 2 See illustration: Phil Volker, Map of Camino on Vashon Island, WA, April 22, 2015. 3 Birnbaum, Kevin, “The Way of a Pilgrim,” Northwest Catholic Journal (Feb. 27, 2015). 4 See, for example, D.K. Connolly, Imagined Pilgrimages in Gothic Art: Maps, Manuscripts, and Labyrinths (University of Chicago, Ph.D. thesis,1998), p. 1 and K.M. Rudy, “A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage: Paris, Bibliotheque de L’Arsenal Ms. 212,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 63 Bd., H. 4 (2000), pp. 494-515. The notion of building a New Jerusalem in one’s own country is now an important aspect of many Christian denominational beliefs and is biblically rooted in the book of Revelations. Because Phil’s project emerged, in part, due to his own Catholic devotion and interest in the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, it will be examined here through the popular Catholic devotions which have embraced the concept of surrogate pilgrimage based on the spiritual journeys to the Holy Land and their more domestic substitutes. 5 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, March 15, 2015. 6 Layla Karst gave an illuminating presentation on the Notre Dame Lourdes grotto at the October 2015 meeting of the Consortium for Pilgrimage Studies at the College of William and Mary entitled “Memory, Narrative, and Landscape: Replicating Lourdes in America.” For the grotto-building tradition, see also Dorothy V. Corson. 2006. A Cave of Candles: The Story Behind Notre Dame’s Grotto, the Spirit, History, Legends, and Lore of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s, Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing House. 7 Floyd Anderson. 2002. The Father Nelson Henry Baker Story: Apostle of Charity, Our Lady of Victory Homes of Charity, p. 4.
- 82. Barush, The Root of the Route 78 Practical Matters Journal 8 From surveys filled out by pilgrims visiting Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica between March 10 and April 10, 2015. 9 From surveys filled out by pilgrims visiting Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica between March 10 and April 10, 2015. 10 Dyas, Dee. 2001. Pilgrimage in Medieval English Literature, 700-1500. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: D.S. Brewer, pp. 245-6. See also Edwards, Philip. 2005. Pilgrimage and Literary Tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 8. 11 For example, D.K. Connolly. 1998. Imagined Pilgrimages in Gothic Art: Maps, Manuscripts, and Labyrinths (University of Chicago, Ph.D. thesis), p. 1 and K.M. Rudy, “A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage: Paris, Bibliotheque de L’Arsenal Ms. 212,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 63 Bd., H. 4 (2000), pp. 494-515. 12 K. Beebe. 2008. “Reading Mental Pilgrimage in Context: The Imaginary Pilgrims and Real Travels of Felix Fabri’s ‘Die Sionpilger”’, Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 25, pp. 39-70. 13 Coleman, Simon, and John Elsner. 1995. Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, p. 6. 14 The complexity of this experience for the medieval reader/viewer has recently been explored by Megan H. Foster-Campbell in her essay “Pilgrimage Through the Pages: Pilgrims’ Badges in Late Medieval Devotional Manuscripts,” in Blick, Sarah, and Laura Deborah Gelfand (eds). 2011. Push Me, Pull You: Imaginative, Emotional, Physical, and Spatial Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, Leiden: Brill, p. 229 and passim. 15 Pullan, Wendy, ‘Intermingled Until the End of Time’: Ambiguity as a Central Condition of Early Christian Pilgrimage’, in Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. Jas Elsner and Ian Rutherford, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 408-409. 16 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, December 9, 2015. 17 See, for example, the efforts of the Yale University Center for the Material and Visual Cultures of Religion (http://mavcor.yale.edu) and pioneering publications by Sally Promey and David Morgan including Morgan, David, and Sally M. Promey. 2001. The Visual Culture of American Religions. Berkeley: University of California Press 18 There are also fertile parallels to the Orthodox tradition of writing and viewing icons. In a way, the Camino itself functions as an icon, or doorway through which God can be met through spiritual ascent; likewise, icon writing itself can be thought of as a form of mental pilgrimage, inclusive of periods of prayer and fasting. It is the brush, not the feet, which traverse the mystical forms and leads to a closeness with God. I am grateful to Phil Volker and also Kevin Burke, SJ for pointing out that there are some compelling analogies here. 19 I borrow from the Thomist notion, applicable here, that “artistic creation does not copy God’s creation, it continues it”. See, for example, J. Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, in G.E. Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics: A Reader (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2005), p. 327. 20 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, December 11, 2015.
- 83. Barush, The Root of the Route 79 Practical Matters Journal 21 In a different context, C. Wood has characterized all pilgrimages as re-enactments of those that had come before, noting that “[t]he point of interest is where the re-enactment slips a gear – where there is a medial shift, a transfer of meaning from original building to a replicated building to painted building,” in Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art (Chicago, 2008), p.239. 22 Eliot, T. S. 1943. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. p. 58. 23 Connolly, “At the Center of the World: The Labyrinth Pavement at Chartres Cathedral,” Blick, Sarah, and Rita Tekippe. 2005. Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles. Leiden: Brill, pp. 285-286. 24 Connolly, ibid., p. 286. 25 Phil Volker in a correspondence with the author, May 4, 2016. 26 Turner, Victor W., and Edith L. B. Turner. 1978. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, p.13. 27 Alston, George Cyprian. “Way of the Cross.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 12 Dec. 2015. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15569a.htm>. 28 Alston, George Cyprian, ibid, “Way of the Cross.” I am grateful to Gina Hens-Piazza for pointing out that up until Pope Clement XII fixed the number at 14, there had been 37 sites in Jerusalem, beginning at the Mt. of Olives, and During the 18th century Jesuits and Passionists incorporated the 14 stations as part of their missions and retreats. 29 Indulgences became attached to Holy Land pilgrimages, but Innocent XI realized that comparatively few would be able to undertake the journey so granted the Franciscans the rite to construct Stations in their churches in 1686, “declaring that all the indulgences that had ever been given for devoutly visiting the actual scenes of Christ’s Passion, could thenceforth be gained by Franciscans and all others affiliated to their order if they made the Way of the Cross in their own churches in the accustomed manner.” Innocent XII went on, in 1694, to support this, and subsequently Benedict XIII extended the privilege ‘to all the faithful’. Alston, George Cyprian. “Way of the Cross.”, ibid. 30 See, for example, Genesis 12:1, where Abraham leaves his home and family and goes into the wilderness; the Emmaus narrative in Luke Ch. 24; 1 Peter 2:11 where Christians are beseeched as “pilgrims and strangers,” and Hebrews 11:13 where the Christian condition is described as that of ‘pilgrims and strangers on earth’. 31 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, December 9, 2015. 32 Rock, Daniel. 1852. The Church of our Fathers, as seen in St Osmund’s Rite for the Cathedral of Salisbury, iii, 353-4 and 441. “…sometimes [tombs of the saints] arose as tiny Minster-like buildings, overshadowing the silver or the stone case which held the saints’ relics, and allowing, through a hole or window in the side, those who might like, to stretch forth their hands and gather the dust which lay upon the coffin lid,” p.353-4 and n.19: “Obiit autem Ceadda ;— constructa ibidem ecclesia beatissimi apostolorum principis Petri, in eandem sunt ejus ossa translata. In quo utroque loco ad indicium virtutis illius solent crebra sanitatum miracula operari.—Est autem locus idem sepulcri tumba lignea in modum domunculi facta, coopertus, habente foramen in pariete, per quod solent hi, qui causa devotionis illo adveniunt, manum suam immittere ac partem pulveris inde assumere, &c.” Bedae, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv, C. iii.
- 84. Barush, The Root of the Route 80 Practical Matters Journal 33 Phil Volker in an email to the author, March 31, 2015. 34 Pope Francis, Address and Dialogue with Students of Jesuit-Run Schools, June 7, 2013. 35 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, December 9, 2015. 36 Phil Volker in a correspondence with the author, May 4, 2015. 37 For an article which explores this concept through the lens of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling, see E.D. Dotson, “An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling”, Parts I and II. Art Bulletin, vol. 61 (1979). 38 Phil Volker in an interview with the author, March 15, 2015.
- 85. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 81-101. © Paul Numrich 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 81 Space-Sharing by Religious Groups Paul D. Numrich Methodist Theological School in Ohio and Trinity Lutheran Seminary Abstract This article examines space-sharing arrangements between congregational subgroups as one iteration of the larger phenomenon of space-sharing by religious groups. Cases of both ineffective and effective space-sharing arrangements in Roman Catholic parishes, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques, and Hindu temples will be offered, “effectiveness” being gauged by the degree of conflict in managing the common space. Drawing upon insights from commons management research based on the pioneering work of political economist Elinor Ostrom, the article argues that an effective or relatively conflict-free space-sharing arrangement can usually be attributed to the adequacy and clarity of the design principles underlying the arrangement. The article will conclude by discussing similarities and differences between space-sharing by congregational subgroups and other iterations of the space-sharing phenomenon (host and guest congregations, joint operation of a facility, and use of a third-party venue).1 Introduction: Space-Sharing Arrangements T he phenomenon of religious groups sharing common space is becoming commonplace in the United States. Such arrangements can involve one congregation using another congregation’s building, religious organizations operating a joint facility, or religious groups using venues that are managed or co-managed by a third party. This article will examine a familiar iteration of the space-sharing phenomenon—two or more distinguishable subgroups within a congregation managing their use of common space at different times and for different purposes. I focus here on subgroupings defined by differences in ethnic identity and/or religious beliefs and practices though distinctions of social status, generation, gender, or sexual orientation feature
- 86. Numrich, Space-Sharing 82 Practical Matters Journal can also create congregational subgroups. What makes for effective management of the common space, that is, a relatively conflict-free space-sharing arrangement? Conversely, what accounts for ineffective management, that is, a generally conflictual space-sharing arrangement? The article has four sections. First, I will discuss insights from commons management research that lead to the following hypothesis: the effectiveness of a space-sharing arrangement can usually be attributed to the design principles underlying the arrangement—the more adequate and clear the principles, the more likely the arrangement will be relatively conflict-free. Second, drawing upon scholarly and other reports, I will offer cases of both ineffective and effective space-sharing arrangements in Roman Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu congregations. Next, I will analyze the cases according to the design principles underlying the space- sharing arrangements, identify potential thresholds of dissonance that can undermined such arrangements, and discuss both minimalist and maximalist definitions of “effectiveness” in managing congregational common space. Finally, I will conclude with speculations about other space-sharing contexts. I prefer the term “common space” to “sacred space” for two reasons. First, the shared space may not be designated as sacred in a permanent or ongoing sense. Whereas the common space at times may be a church sanctuary, a mosque prayer hall, or a temple sanctum, at other times it may be an ordinary room. Moreover, the common space may sometimes be used for purposes not considered “sacred” by the participants, such as social activities or cultural celebrations. Second, the term common space alludes to the notion of a “commons.” Insights from Commons Management Research An extensive body of commons management research derives from the pioneering work of political economist Elinor Ostrom.2 A “commons” is a resource shared by two or more parties over time, ranging from household refrigerators to community playgrounds, from bodies of water to bodies of knowledge.3 Much of commons management research has focused on sharing natural resources (like fishing grounds). I have found nothing to date regarding religious groups sharing common space in the way I have framed this article.4 In her groundbreaking Governing the Commons, Ostrom described eight design principles that characterize effective management of a shared resource or “commons” over time: (1) the boundaries of the commons and its legitimate users are clearly defined, (2) the rules of use match the local context, (3) users have opportunities to modify the rules, (4) outside authorities respect the users’ right to create their own rules, (5) users’ behavior is self-monitored, (6) a system of sanctions is in place for rules violations, (7) conflict-resolution mechanisms are easily accessible, and (8) large-scale commons use involves multiple layers of governance.5 Ostrom’s principles have held up well over years of application and study.6 Note that the importance of rules is explicit or implicit throughout the principles, though specific rules will differ according to the context.7 I will use these design principles in assessing the effectiveness of the space-sharing arrangements in the congregational cases described below, though all eight principles need not pertain in every case. I am arguing that the more adequate and clear the principles, the more likely the space-sharing arrangement will
- 87. Numrich, Space-Sharing 83 Practical Matters Journal be relatively conflict-free; conversely, inadequate and unclear principles will likely conduce to a generally conflictual space-sharing arrangement. In framing effectiveness in terms of the degree of intergroup conflict I am again drawing upon insights from commons management research. As Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern observe, managing an environmental commons inherently involves struggle and conflict.8 I would argue that the potential, at least, for intergroup struggle and conflict is inherent in managing congregational common space. My definition of an effective arrangement as “relatively conflict-free” is admittedly minimalist in that the intergroup relationship can be actively congenial or rather aloof—either way, it is not contentious. (I will discuss a maximalist definition of effectiveness below.) The frequency of group interaction is not relevant to my inquiry about the effectiveness of the space-sharing arrangement. The intuitive notion that minimal interaction conduces to better group relations due to fewer opportunities to “cross” each other’s paths—in both senses of the word, physically meeting and fostering conflict—does not always hold. The duration of the space-sharing arrangement over time is also not relevant to my inquiry.9 An arrangement may be short-term and can dissolve for any number of reasons, as when a subgroup of a congregation accumulates enough resources to purchase or build its own facility. Cases of Space-Sharing by Congregational Subgroups I have selected both ineffective and effective cases from scholarly and other reports that reflect three variables in space-sharing arrangements by congregational subgroups. First, I have organized the cases accordingtoreligioustradition,inthisorder:RomanCatholicparishes,Jewishsynagogues,Muslimmosques, and Hindu temples. Second, the subgroups in all cases differ by ethnic identity and/or religious beliefs and practices. Third, I have included cases that reflect different rates of group interaction. My assumption is that the effectiveness of the space-sharing arrangement does not depend on any of these variables—the larger religious tradition, group distinctions of ethnicity and/or beliefs and practices, or the frequency of intergroup contact. The accompanying figure shows the cases; the descriptions begin with the ineffective cases in each tradition. Figure. Cases of Congregational Space-Sharing Type of Congregation Ineffective Cases Effective Cases Roman Catholic Parishes All Saints Catholic Church Duplex/Integrated Parishes St. Catherine’s Catholic Church St. Francis de Sales Parish Jewish Synagogues Congregation Shearith Israel Congregation Beth Elohim Kehilat Chovevei Tzion Muslim Mosques Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago North Hudson Islamic Educational Center Hindu Temples Pittsburgh Temples Hindu Bhavan
- 88. Numrich, Space-Sharing 84 Practical Matters Journal 1. Roman Catholic Parishes All Saints Catholic Church. Religion scholar Brett Hoover describes the frequent and often contentious interaction between Anglos and Latinos at the pseudonymous All Saints Catholic Church in a Midwestern city. Hoover calls this a “shared parish,” that is, “two or more cultural groups, each with distinct masses and ministries, but who share the same parish facilities.”10 He claims that this arrangement “has become, whether in incipient, intentional, or ad hoc form, the primary local way in which Roman Catholics address cultural diversity within the [U.S.] Church.”11 Hoover argues that this parish model “institutionalizes both avoidance and connection,” requiring continual negotiation between the two groups.12 Although All Saints has one administrative structure and seeks to serve all parishioners,13 asymmetries of power and privilege affect the relationship between the dominant Anglo group and Latinos on many levels.14 Significantly, the two groups have differing understandings of rules and norms, including protocols for facilities usage. Hoover reports that the Latino priest “on many occasions pleaded that his parishioners obey the parking rules so that they not incur the wrath of the americanos, potentially limiting their ability to conduct ministry.”15 “Duplex” and “Integrated” Parishes. High levels of intergroup tension characterized certain Catholic parishes in previous periods of American immigration history even though the frequency of group interaction was quite low. Italian immigrants were accommodated in “duplex parishes” in the late 1800s, relegated to the basements or annexes of established churches in an arrangement so untenable that the Catholic hierarchy eventually abandoned it in favor of the ethnic parish model.16 Catholic historian Silvano Tomasi quotes from the written history of Transfiguration Parish in New York City regarding the minimal group interaction in 1897: “Father McLoughlin did his best to make the two races coalesce, by compelling the Italians to attend services in the upper church, but found that far better results could be obtained by having the two people worshipping separately.”17 The inequities and denigrations of such an arrangement were patently obvious. “The immigrants were not even in full control of the church basements [and other spaces] they were using,” writes Tomasi.18 “What a humiliation,” complained the Italian priest serving the Italian parishioners of the cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota, “for us, here, numerous as we are . . . to have to come here in this low and humid hall, placed under the feet of a dissimilar people who sometimes look down on us.”19 For Puerto Rican migrants to New York City following World War II, the archdiocese instituted an “integrated parish” model analogous to the Italian duplex model.20 Here, again, interaction with the dominant parish group was both relatively infrequent and inequitable. In describing the typical relationship, church and society scholar Ana Maria Diaz-Stevens explains that “the faithful in the basement church often felt treated as second-class citizens and second-class Catholics, because the basement represented social distance from the upper church.”21 Diaz-Stevens finds the phrase “internal colony” more suitable than “integrated parish” in describing the Puerto Rican experience. St. Catherine’s Catholic Church. The arrangement at the pseudonymous St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Houston also exemplifies low frequency and contentious group interaction.22 In the past, whites seemed to have been the de facto dominant group at St. Catherine’s, a remnant of whom still attend. In addition,
- 89. Numrich, Space-Sharing 85 Practical Matters Journal St. Catherine’s today features “a totally segregated Vietnamese Mission” plus “five ethnically based Catholic Communities which function as effectively parallel—often hostile—congregations.”23 Anthropologist Kathleen Sullivan notes how little group interaction takes place in the parish, even at the “multicultural evenings” held four times a year,24 but she also reports that “inter-ethnic conflicts” flare up around scheduling snafus.25 Although some complain that the white minority still wields undue influence in the parish, authority is invested in the official statuses of the Vietnamese Mission and the five Catholic Communities, and the pastor has made strides in broadening the representation of the parish’s oversight councils.26 St. Francis de Sales Parish. We began this section with the case of All Saints Catholic Church, a “shared parish” characterized by high frequency/high tension group interaction. Brett Hoover advocates a different model, which he calls “communion,” based on Catholic theological and ecclesiological principles, offering St. Francis de Sales Parish in Holland, Michigan as an example.27 The pastor of St. Francis, Fr. Stephen Dudek, has chronicled the transformation of the church from a shared parish dominated by whites to a communion model characterized by high frequency/low tension group interaction.28 A fire that destroyed the church facility provided an opportunity for the constituent ethnic groups—“English, Spanish, and Vietnamese speakers”—to build a new church “designed to sustain the faith life of three unique communities and to promote among them cross-cultural understanding and dialogue.”29 In this design, reverence replaces antagonism: “reverence must be shown for all cultural groups within the parish, as well as for what is proving to be a new culture, the multicultural context itself. Reverence is exhibited for self and others as a mutually enriching two-way process.”30 Dudek offers several strategies and practical suggestions for creating a reverent multiculturalism in a parish, including acknowledging loss of group privilege,31 empowering subordinate groups,32 and establishing a broad-based but nimble decision- making process.33 Dudek also encourages “intercultural dialogue” instead of “[t]he natural tendency in multicultural parishes [which] is to minister using a parallel-tracks approach where each ethnic group worships, catechizes, and functions as Church in a way that affirms individual group identity but rarely promotes true dialogue across cultural boundaries.”34 2. Jewish Synagogues Congregation Shearith Israel. This synagogue in New York City offers a historical case of internal congregational conflict over ethnic identity and religious beliefs and practices. Sephardic Jews founded Shearith Israel in 1654, the first synagogue in North America and the only synagogue in the city for more than a century and a half. Ashkenazi Jews attended early on, and although the two groups “differed from each other linguistically, culturally and in the manner in which they practiced their religion,” explains one account, “they lived together harmoniously and shared the same synagogue until 1825.”35 The congregation followed the Sephardic minhag, or custom, in its worship services. The harmonious space-sharing arrangement began to unravel as the number of Ashkenazi members increased in the early 1800s: “The new immigrants found the rituals of Shearith Israel very strange, and repeatedly asked the trustees to hold separate services for them. They were denied.” Tensions escalated when the Sephardic leaders denied membership to most of the Ashkenazi applicants in 1825 and barred
- 90. Numrich, Space-Sharing 86 Practical Matters Journal an Ashkenazi member from reading the Torah passage in synagogue services after he refused to offer the customary monetary donation to do so. A contingent of Ashkenazis left Shearith Israel and established their own synagogue, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, according to the German and Polish minhag, though the two congregations maintained an amicable relationship.36 AlthoughShearithIsraelstillcallsitself“TheSpanish&PortugueseSynagogue”andfollowstheSephardic minhag, its membership includes Ashkenazi Jews. “Today,” proclaims its Website, “Jews of all backgrounds make up our welcoming, traditional community.”37 Congregation Beth Elohim. This synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina offers another historical case of internal congregational conflict. Here the Sephardic/Ashkenazi division was overlaid with tension between traditionalists and reformists that eventuated in the first Reform synagogue in the United States. Beth Elohim was established by Sephardic Jews in 1749, and although Ashkenazi Jews joined the congregation from the beginning, the Sephardic minhag was followed by all and those who favored that tradition dominated the synagogue.38 By the 1820s, Beth Elohim was “severely autocratic” and religiously moribund, according to one historian.39 In 1824, a group of reform-minded members petitioned the synagogue’s board of directors to make several changes in the religious services: inclusion of English, deletion of “superfluous” elements, and reduction of the overall length.40 The board refused to consider the petition, leading several of the reformists to depart and establish the Reformed [sic] Society of Israelites, which lasted into the 1830s.41 But in the early 1840s, a reformist contingent in Beth Elohim (some from the defunct Reformed Society) again pushed for innovations (including installation of an organ) and were opposed by the traditionalists. As historian Robert Liberles reports, “The synagogue’s minute books attest to the bitter divisions within the congregation” over the proposed changes.42 At one point the president refused to allow the board to meet in the building, defying them to break in if they dared. For a time, the contending parties agreed to worship in the building on alternating weekends.43 The dispute was finally settled in the courts in favor of the reformists. This shift at Beth Elohim was influenced by cultural factors in the larger society, including the American Reform Jewish movement.44 Kehilat Chovevei Tzion. This “dual” synagogue in a Chicago suburb offers a contemporary case of Sephardic and Ashkenazi groups sharing a common facility, the only such arrangement in the area and one of only a few in the United States.45 Jewish solidarity and ethno-religious sensitivity have undergirded the relationship between the two groups from the start. As one of the rabbis puts it, “We fully accept each other as brothers and sisters in faith. But at the same time there is a concern that we want to preserve the individual rituals that we cherish as sacred.”46 The building features separate sanctuaries for Ashkenazi and Sephardic worship. The men’s and women’s sections are positioned side-by-side in the Ashkenazi sanctuary, front-and-back in the Sephardic sanctuary. In both, the podiums for the Torah reading are adjustable in order to accommodate the Ashkenazi practice of reading from a slanted surface and the Sephardic practice of reading from a flat surface.47 The building also has areas used by both groups, including a social hall, classrooms, and kosher kitchen facilities. The rabbi calls the overall design a combination of “sacred space and shared space,” saying, “Our children will play together, our children will attend groups together, we will have kiddishes [celebrations],
- 91. Numrich, Space-Sharing 87 Practical Matters Journal social functions, educational programs, but at the same time there will be unique prayers.”48 The rental agreement for use of the building specifies that a supervisor approved by the synagogue must be present for all group activities and an approved mashgiach, an expert in kosher rules, must oversee the preparation of food in the kitchen.49 One Sephardic member of Kehilat Chovevei Tzion expressed her appreciation for the relationship between the synagogue’s two constituencies: “[We are] more than friends. We are family.” Even so, worshiping separately can be “bittersweet” for some members, as another member remarked about the first Rosh Hashanah services in the new building, though he hoped that the sounding of the shofar would inspire both groups “to look back and realize there’s no way we could’ve done this in any way without the help of God. Simple as that, it doesn’t happen otherwise.”50 3. Muslim Mosques Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago (ICCGC). This mosque was preceded by a Bosnian mutual aid and benevolent society (est. 1906) and two iterations of a Bosnian ethno-religious organization (est. 1955, reconfigured 1968), the most recent of which created ICCGC in 1972 in order to build a new mosque in suburban Chicago.51 In the words of a promotional booklet for the mosque’s opening in 1976, ICCGC was intended to be “a fraternal Islamic organization, dedicated to serve all Muslims, regardless of their ethnic background.”52 ICCGC’s board of directors comprised both Bosnian and non-Bosnian representatives. Despite this equitable co-ethnic polity, some perceived ICCGC to be a de facto Bosnian organization like its precursor ethno-religious bodies. Leaders from the Montenegro region of Yugoslavia in particular sought membership in ICCGC’s Bosnian parent body in the late 1980s, which Bosnian leaders interpreted as an attempt to take control of both organizations. The dispute escalated, and at one point the dissident group changed the locks on the mosque, which “prevented many persons of Bosnian descent from entering the mosque or using it for religious or social activities,” according to a court document filed by ICCGC’s Bosnian parent body.53 In June of 1989, the contending parties sought arbitration before the Cook County Circuit Court. A written history produced by ICCGC not long after the dispute would deem this period “troubled times.”54 The turmoil within the mosque mirrored that in the homeland of many members which culminated in the Yugoslav Conflict of 1991-1995. At one point in the litigation, two of the principals laid out the full parameters of the ethnic battle: “Unfortunately, as the Court is aware, the ethnic tensions, both within the Yugoslavian community and between certain members of the Yugoslavian community and non-Yugoslavian Muslims, are quite intense at this time.” The ethnic conflict was also placed into its larger religious context: “Islam is a world religion, whose adherents come from numerous ethnic groups. Unfortunately, as this Court must recognize from the painful history of this litigation, the common ties of religion do not necessarily preclude the existence of fierce ethnic and cultural animosities within Islam.”55 In 1990, the court appointed a temporary Custodian Committee comprising one person from “the Montenegran faction,” one from “the rival Bosnian faction,” and “a Muslim of Arab descent who is not [a] member of either faction.”56 The committee was charged “to further the Center’s goals of cooperative action by Moslems [sic] for religious and cultural purposes . . . and [to] have primary responsibility for
- 92. Numrich, Space-Sharing 88 Practical Matters Journal management of the Islamic Cultural Center.” The court also named a local Muslim university professor to serve as advisor to the committee, and issued this stern warning: “All parties are restrained from using force, violence, or threats of force or violence to interfere with the peaceful use of the Islamic Cultural Center.”57 The Custodian Committee labored to keep the peace as the judge watched its progress toward negotiating a fair conclusion to the conflict. In March of 1992, representatives of four parties—two Bosnian groups, Montenegrans, and non-Yugoslavian Muslims—failed to broker a resolution outside of court.58 The final outcomeinNovemberofthatyearcalledforareconfiguredICCGCboardofdirectorsthatprecludedBosnian domination, thus reestablishing the original intention of equitable co-ethnic oversight of the mosque.59 North Hudson Islamic Educational Center. This predominantly immigrant mosque in Union City, New Jersey has actively recruited members from the local Latino community.60 Estimates vary, but Latinos may comprise 25 to 35 percent of the worshiping congregation. The two groups interact at regular religious events like Friday jumah prayers and Islamic holidays. The mosque also provides services and activities tailored for Latinos, such as Qur’an studies in Spanish and an Annual Hispanic Muslim Day. The 2009 Day featured halal (religiously acceptable) empanadas, speakers relating stories of their “reversion” (the term often preferred to “conversion”) to Islam and experiences as Latino Muslims, and a martial arts display by students of a Puerto Rican Muslim teacher.61 The page for the mosque’s Dawa (“Outreach”) Committee advertised several events for Ramadan 2015 targeting converts/reverts (both words are used), such as an Iftar dinner pairing them with “Muslim hosts,” and quoted the Qur’an in both English and Spanish.62 The imam reports the welcoming attitude of the immigrant majority: “The non-Latino Muslims in our [mosque] think highly of the Latino converts. They believe they are real brothers and sisters in Islam and they treat them as such.”63 One Latina thinks that acceptance has taken some time but is now at a high level: “It’s not so shocking nowadays when you hear a Latina Muslim speak her language in front of other Latinos. It still does raise an eyebrow but the power in numbers is helping familiarize others about the growing numbers of Latinos in Islam.”64 4. Hindu Temples Pittsburgh Hindu Temples. Ritual studies scholar Fred W. Clothey describes the emergence of two Hindu temples in the Pittsburgh area stemming largely from a dispute over spaces dedicated to various deities.65 In March of 1973, a local group representing several Indian regional identities incorporated the Hindu Society of North America, Pittsburgh, an affiliate of the organization of the same name in New York City. The following month, they established a temporary temple facility in a former Baptist church in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville, with images of several Hindu deities as well as ritual spaces to accommodate the local Jain and Sikh communities. Later in 1973, representatives of the famed Sri Venkateshvara temple in Tirupati, south India, approached the leadership of the Monroeville temple with a plan to build a Venkateshvara-affiliated temple on the site. Approvals were secured and groundbreaking for the new temple took place in April of 1975. But, as Clothey explains, it quickly became “evident that the community was profoundly divided,” especially over the issue of ritual spaces in the new temple.66 At a general meeting in July of 1975, a resolution was passed that called for images of the Venkateshvara
- 93. Numrich, Space-Sharing 89 Practical Matters Journal sect to be located in the center of the temple, but also for images of other Hindu deities to be included in the temple and for provisions to be made to add more such deities in the future if desired. The resolution promised to refund the contribution of anyone who had supported the new temple “under the impression that this will be exclusively [a] Lord Venkateshvara Temple” and now felt dissatisfied with the “non-sectarian and broad-based” identity of the temple.67 The Tirupati Venkateshvara temple withdrew its support of the project upon hearing of the resolution. Various attempts at compromise failed, including a suggestion to configure the new temple with separate spaces dedicated to the respective deities plus an adjacent common hall. A general meeting in December of 1975 revealed the “hostile feelings” within the community over the issue, and that same month a group formed a corporation to establish a Venkateshvara temple in the Penn Hills suburb of Pittsburgh.68 Groundbreaking for that temple took place the following June. Hindu Bhavan. Hindu Bhavan temple in Morrisville, North Carolina (between Raleigh and Durham) presents a much different picture than the Pittsburgh case. Its parent organization, the Hindu Society of North Carolina, established Hindu Bhavan in the mid-1980s. The temple exemplifies what religion scholar Steven W. Ramey calls a pan-Indian philosophy that seeks to unify the many Indian regional identities and deity-particular Hindu groups in the area,69 an “ecumenical” approach found in many Hindu temples in the United States, including the Monroeville temple discussed above.70 From the start, Hindu Bhavan has employed “democratic” procedures, to use Ramey’s term, in selecting the deity images for the temple. By popular vote of temple members, Krishna and Radha took center place in the sanctum, flanked right and left by several other Hindu deities. An image of Mahavira sacred to Jains was also installed. Several other Hindu images were later added at the request of temple members.71 Hindu Bhavan’s facilities are heavily scheduled by numerous Hindu ethno-religious groups.72 The Jain Study Center of North Carolina also uses the temple and has designated an official liaison with the temple.73 Stipulations for facilities usage are clear and detailed in the rental contract. Allowable and not allowable activities are listed for the various spaces in the temple. For instance, “Bollywood / Western Music and any kind of Filmy Dancing, DJ, Garba, Bhangra, and loud nonreligious related Music etc. is not allowed in Temple Hall. Temple Hall is a place of worship and only Religious events are allowed. Floor dancing is not allowed except for HSNC Navratri Garba” (emphasis in original). Moreover, the temple authorities responsible for facilities usage are identified in the rental contract.74 The various constituent groups interact at times, for instance at the annual Indian Independence Day celebration. Describing part of the event one year, Ramey writes, “a standing-room-only crowd attended a pan-Indian fair. Representatives of each region prepared the culinary specialties of their regions and performed dances and music for the entire community.”75 But more often, the groups use the temple in serial fashion for their own unique celebrations. Certain popular celebrations like Holi have multiple iterations, as Ramey explains: For example, in 2000, although the Hindu Society conducted a Holi celebration for the entire community, the Gujarati association and at least one other organization held their own festivities at the Bhavan. While some people attend several of the Holi celebrations, naturally the celebrations organized by a person’s own regional association has [sic] an
- 94. Numrich, Space-Sharing 90 Practical Matters Journal added significance. Moreover, the diverse languages of South Asia make it difficult for everyone to come together for festivals or other occasions, as no single language is effective for communicating to everyone.76 Although Ramey reports some strains over language differences and perceived north Indian dominance, Hindu Bhavan seems to manage its high-traffic facility usage with resolve and efficiency. As Ramey writes, “The democratic emphases of this temple correlate with the ritual openness that the community maintains.”77 Interestingly, given the Pittsburgh experience, Hindu Bhavan has included an image of Sri Venkateshvara in its temple from the beginning, though a Venkateshvara group split off to establish its own temple not far from Hindu Bhavan. The relationship between the two temples is amicable—the Venkateshvara group even uses Hindu Bhavan’s facilities for occasions when their own building cannot accommodate the turnout.78 Effective and Ineffective Space-Sharing Arrangements: Design Principles, Thresholds of Dissonance, and Definitions of Effectiveness What makes for effective management of common space by subgroups within a congregation, that is, a relatively conflict-free space-sharing arrangement? What accounts for ineffective management, that is, a generally conflictual space-sharing arrangement between groups? The foregoing cases suggest that the adequacy and clarity of the design principles underlying the arrangement are key. Principles 1 (the boundaries of the commons and its legitimate users are clearly defined) and 2 (the rules of use match the local context) lay the foundation for a space-sharing arrangement. The conflictual cases all involve a dispute over some group’s access to or equitable use of congregational space. Anglos and Latinos at All Saints Catholic Church do not see eye-to-eye on the protocols for facilities usage, and the Latinos must be on their best behavior even in the parking lot so as not to “incur the wrath of the americanos, potentially limiting their ability to conduct ministry,” in the words of the Latino priest. Italians and Puerto Ricans were barred from the main sanctuary in “duplex” and “integrated” parishes. Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews clashed at Congregation Shearith Israel and Congregation Beth Elohim; in the latter case, the factions were unwilling even to worship in the same building on the same weekend. The conflict over legitimate oversight and use of ICCGC by ethnic factions within its membership became so intense that only court intervention could keep the mosque’s doors open. In Pittsburgh, the configuration of the sacred spaces within the Monroeville Hindu temple, and thus the arrangements for their use by devotees of the respective deities, was contested by the Venkateshvara group, which eventually withdrew to establish their own temple where they could control the sacred space to their liking. In contrast, the cases with relatively conflict-free space-sharing arrangements have worked out principles 1 and 2, sometimes with great effort. St. Francis de Sales Parish transitioned from a shared parish model with Anglo dominance to a communion model of multiethnic reverence. ICCGC had to endure “troubled times,” relying on the court to reestablish its original, equitable, co-ethnic space-sharing arrangement. The arrangement at Kehilat Chovevei Tzion seems to have evolved effortlessly, while Hindu Bhavan’s ecumenical approach to the diversity within the local Hindu population and its democratic procedures for sharing common space have minimized intergroup conflict at the temple.
- 95. Numrich, Space-Sharing 91 Practical Matters Journal Principles 3 (users have opportunities to modify the rules), 5 (users’ behavior is self-monitored), 6 (a system of sanctions is in place for rules violations), and 7 (conflict-resolution mechanisms are easily accessible) provide the means for modifying the space-sharing arrangement and adjudicating conflicts over space usage. When a group has no voice in setting acceptable rules for its own use of the common space, when a group shows no accountability in using the common space and incurs no penalty for egregious behavior, when there are no procedures for resolving disagreements over common space—any or all of these conditions conduce to conflict. The untenable duplex and integrated parish models come immediately to mind, as does the intense conflict at ICCGC. The clear and detailed stipulations for facilities usage at Hindu Bhavan offer a model for avoiding or reducing conflict over the use of common space. It should be noted here that an otherwise dominant/subordinate group relationship does not necessarily impede the implementation of the design principles. The de facto dominance of one group in some of our cases—immigrants at North Hudson Islamic Educational Center, Bosnians at ICCGC (it continues to be known locally as “the Bosnian mosque”), and north Indians at Hindu Bhavan—has not precluded the other groups from having equitable access to the common space. All parties must agree to the design principles. As mentioned earlier, all eight design principles need not pertain in every space-sharing arrangement. Principle 4 (outside authorities respect the users’ right to create their own rules) typically would not be relevant for congregations with an independent polity, unless external arbitration is sought for an internal conflict, as in the Beth Elohim and ICCGC cases. This principle, and perhaps also principle 8 (large-scale commons use involves multiple layers of governance), may be pertinent for congregations governed by a mid-level judicatory or a larger denominational body.79 We recall the role of Catholic authorities in the unsatisfactory duplex/integrated parish models and the influence of the Tirupati Venkateshvara temple in India in the eventual schism in the Pittsburgh Hindu community. I have suggested that the adequacy and clarity of the design principles underlying the space-sharing arrangement can make the difference between effective (i.e, relatively conflict-free) and ineffective (i.e., generally conflictual) management of common space between groups within a congregation. That said, we must keep this claim in perspective. In their review of more than ninety studies of natural resource commons, Cox, Arnold, and Tomás note the concern that the design principles “might be seen as something of a magic bullet or institutional panacea,” or that they might be applied “as a blueprint approach” that does not sufficiently account for local conditions.80 These authors astutely point out that this would be an ironic violation of design principle 2 (the rules of use match the local context). As the adage goes, everything is local, and so the design principles for any space-sharing arrangement must be localized. Cox and colleagues suggest a “diagnostic approach” in adapting the design principles to a local context. Realistically, intergroup conflict can arise even with adequate and clear design principles, but we can safely say that resolution of the conflict is unlikely without them. We must also recognize the complexity of intergroup relationships. Although I have pinpointed the primary factor in each conflictual case above, the reality is that multiple factors often underlie intergroup tension. Here again we can safely say that resolution of a multilayered intergroup conflict is unlikely without adequate and clear design principles for sharing common space.
- 96. Numrich, Space-Sharing 92 Practical Matters Journal This leads us to consider what I call the threshold of dissonance. By definition, the groups in a congregational space-sharing arrangement differ in some recognizable way, but when do those differences reach a tipping point that renders the arrangement conflictual, sometimes ending the arrangement altogether? Our ineffective cases confirm that differences in ethnic identity and/or religious beliefs and practices can create powerful intergroup dissonance, but our effective cases suggest that these differences need not reach that tipping point. All Saints, duplex/integrated parishes, and St. Catherine’s Catholic Church reached the tipping point, but St. Francis avoided it. Ethnic dissonance was overcome at ICCGC and it has not troubled the North Hudson mosque. Dissonances of ethnic identity and/or religious beliefs and practices undermined the arrangements at Shearith Israel and Beth Elohim, but not at Kehilat Chovevei Tzion. The threshold of dissonance was reached in the Pittsburgh schism but not at Hindu Bhavan. The adage is again pertinent—everything is local. The groups must work out their own space-sharing arrangement, or not. Religious leaders often play a crucial role in this, as we have seen, for instance, in the positive roles played by the pastors of St. Francis and (to some extent) St. Catherine’s, and both positive and negative influences of the lay leaders in the ICCGC case. But extra-local factors can fuel internal congregational dissonance. The situation in Yugoslavia certainly factored into the ethnic tensions at ICCGC, while the larger Reform movement in American Judaism influenced the conflict at Beth Elohim. Even so, precisely how such external factors will affect a particular congregation’s space-sharing arrangement depends in large part on the adequacy and clarity of the design principles underlying it. One further observation can be made before turning to the definition of “effectiveness.” All religions seem to be created equal in that none seems better equipped than others to avoid conflict in congregational space-sharing arrangements. Our cases include Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus on both ends of the continuum, from generally conflictual to relatively conflict-free arrangements. Other religious cases on both ends of the continuum could have been added (see the next section for Protestant examples). Religious beliefs and practices can inform the design principles, as we saw in the “communion” model based on Catholic theological and ecclesiological principles, but no particular religious beliefs and practices guarantee a conflict-free arrangement. That member of the dual synagogue Kehilat Chovevei Tzion may believe “there’s no way we could’ve done this in any way without the help of God,” but they still needed adequate and clear design principles to make the arrangement work. Of course, this is a testable hypothesis. I encourage other scholars and observers to make a case for a religious group that has always engaged in conflict-free congregational space-sharing arrangements.81 I have employed a minimalist definition of an “effective” space-sharing arrangement, namely, one that is relatively conflict-free, whether the intergroup relationship can be characterized as actively congenial or rather aloof. In this view, only the degree of conflict, not the frequency of group interaction, is relevant in assessing the effectiveness of sharing common space. I suspect that the constituent groups at both St. Catherine’s and Hindu Bhavan interact with comparably low frequency, yet the relationship at St. Catherine’s is generally conflictual while the relationship at Hindu Bhavan is relatively conflict-free. Likewise, the constituent groups at both All Saints and St. Francis interact with comparably high frequency, yet the two cases fall at opposite ends of the conflict continuum.
- 97. Numrich, Space-Sharing 93 Practical Matters Journal Some—perhaps many—may wish for a maximalist definition of effectiveness. Can an aloof space- sharing arrangement among congregational subgroups truly be considered effective? Should not active congeniality be the gold standard? I would defend a minimalist definition on three counts. First, the positive value of a relatively conflict- free intergroup relationship should not be discounted, especially in contentious times. The mere fact that distinct groups can “get along” enough to share a common space should be celebrated, especially when thresholds of dissonance can cause conflict in their own respective circles as well as in the larger society. It is no small task to share common space, and to do so without serious or sustained conflict presents a positive model whatever the frequency of group interaction. Secondly, we should not expect too much of congregations. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow helpfully differentiates a congregation and a community: Community . . . implies a supportive set of interpersonal relationships that forge a common bond of identity and caring among people. It requires interaction, give and take. A congregation in contrast connotes something more akin to a gathering or an assembly than to a community. To congregate means literally to come together. People can be part of a congregation without knowing each other or interacting on a personal level. . . . Having community in the form of a membership that cares for one another and interacts socially in a deep and intensive way . . . is not absolutely essential [for a congregation].82 In other words, subgroups within a congregation do not need to relate to each other with the depth and intimacy of a community. Thirdly, congregations (and their larger religious traditions) have different gold standards or norms for how interactive their constituent groups should be. For instance, the Hindu emphasis on individual, family, and region-specific religious practices renders intergroup activities less important in Hindu temples than in the Catholic model of communion exemplified in the St. Francis case. Other Space-Sharing Contexts This article has examined space-sharing arrangements among congregational subgroups defined by distinctionsofethnicidentityand/orreligiousbeliefsandpractices.Iassumethatspace-sharingarrangements among congregational subgroups defined by other distinctions, such as social status, generation, gender, or sexual orientation, involve dynamics similar to those found in the cases discussed here. For instance, we see both effective and ineffective arrangements between the immigrant and American-born generations in Korean Protestant churches.83 I will conclude with some speculations about other iterations of the space-sharing phenomenon in the hope that further research will tease out both the similarities and the differences across types. More than twelve percent of the reporting congregations in the National Congregations Study use a building owned by another group.84 Such arrangements emerge for a variety of reasons, such as economic feasibility and/or geographic proximity. To take just one group, sociologist Pyong Gap Min reports that the
- 98. Numrich, Space-Sharing 94 Practical Matters Journal majority of Korean congregations in the United States use space in non-Korean (usually white) churches.85 Given a conservative estimate of more than 4,000 Korean congregations nationwide,86 the number of host/ guest relationships involving Koreans alone is significant. In these contexts, one congregation is the legal proprietor of the common space. How does that affect the space-sharing arrangement? I suspect that design principle 1 (regarding the boundaries of the commons and its legitimate users) is clearer in such contexts, but that does not guarantee the adequacy or clarity of the other principles. The relationship between host Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church (Latino) and guest Tian Fu United Methodist Church (Chinese) in Brooklyn became so contentious that denominational authorities intervened to negotiate a covenant governing facilities usage. But the covenant did not work, the Latino pastor claiming that the Chinese did not follow the rules, the Chinese pastor admitting that many of the Chinese did not even know about the rules.87 Again, we see the importance of the design principles regarding rules. After three years of unsuccessful mediation by the denomination’s district superintendent, the Latino congregation ceded the building to the Chinese congregation. A denominational report summarized the lesson learned by the Latino pastor: “whenever two churches share the same space, boundaries and goals must be created for a peaceful collaboration from the onset.”88 In other words, the design principles must be adequate and clear. This case suggests that belonging to the same denomination or religious tradition does not guarantee an effective space-sharing arrangement. We might expect conflict to surface more often when the groups differ in denominational or traditional identities, due to the potential threshold of dissonance. Yet it may be that only those who are willing to cross wide boundaries will do so, thus diminishing the potential for conflict around the differences. An example is Calvary Episcopal Church in suburban Chicago, which has provided space for a mosque in an annex basement since the 1980s without major conflict.89 Even so, the design principles must be adequate and clear in such arrangements. In other contexts, two or more groups enter into a legal co-proprietorship of common property or facilities, perhaps for both practical and principled reasons. Researcher Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook writes of the Tri-Faith Initiative, a joint effort of a church, a synagogue, and a mosque in Omaha, Nebraska: “The concept behind the project is that co-locating facilities will maximize the resources of all the groups involved and foster respect and greater mutual understanding among the participating religious traditions.”90 Similar motives underlay the agreement between St. Clare of Assisi Episcopal Church and Temple Beth Emeth (a Reform synagogue) through their joint corporation, Genesis of Ann Arbor (Michigan).91 I suspect that the legalities involved in these contexts make for an adequate and clear design principle 1 (regarding the boundaries of the commons and its legitimate users), but again, that does not guarantee the adequacy or clarity of the other principles. It is certainly true that, in these cases, the groups crossed wide religious boundaries with eyes wide open, thus diminishing the potential for conflict around their differences. Finally, what are the peculiarities of an arrangement in which religious groups use a space managed or co-managed by a third party, and thus the groups themselves have only indirect or subsidiary authority in matters of space usage? For instance, chapels and other dedicated spaces in airports, colleges and universities, hospitals, military installations, and prisons can have multiple levels of regulation, from on-site departments to parent institutions to government bodies (such as Graterford Prison outside of Philadelphia).92 Some
- 99. Numrich, Space-Sharing 95 Practical Matters Journal employers have established elaborate mechanisms for accommodating a multifaith workforce, like the Ford Interfaith Network, one of several corporate-sponsored Employee Resource Groups at Ford Motor Company.93 Moreover, hotel conference rooms, public school auditoriums, and other rented facilities are often used for multifaith events. In all such contexts, several design principles are probably in place: (1) the boundaries of the commons and its legitimate users are clearly defined, (2) the rules of use match the local context, (5) users’ behavior is self-monitored, (6) a system of sanctions is in place for rules violations, (7) conflict-resolution mechanisms are easily accessible, and (8) large-scale commons use involves multiple layers of governance. But what about principles 3 (users have opportunities to modify the rules) and 4 (outside authorities respect the users’ right to create their own rules)? In the review of studies of natural resource commons mentioned earlier, Cox, Arnold, and Tomás cite a critic who sees Ostrom’s design principles as “an interesting point of exit . . . [that] only partly explain the success of management institutions.” This critic goes on to say, “the real ‘glue’ that keeps an institution alive over time are the social mechanisms, i.e., trust, legitimacy, and transparency.”94 This is not an either/ or proposition. Adequate and clear design principles and social mechanisms of trust, legitimacy, and transparency are crucial to creating and maintaining an effective space-sharing arrangement by religious groups, no matter the context. Notes 1 My thanks to R. Stephen Warner and four anonymous reviewers of earlier drafts of this article. Also to students Alexandria Long and Jodi Keith of Trinity Lutheran Seminary (TLS) and Joel Wildermuth of Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO) for valuable research assistance, to Randy Litchfield (MTSO) for introducing me to commons management research, and to my deans Lisa Withrow (MTSO) and Brad Binau (TLS) for supporting my research. An early version of this article was presented in the Religion and the Social Sciences Section of the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, November 24, 2015. 2 See Indiana University’s Digital Library of the Commons (accessed January 9, 2016, https://dlc.dlib.indiana. edu/dlc/) and the four-volume series from Lexington Press, Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School of Political Economy. 3 Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, “Introduction: An Overview of the Knowledge Commons,” in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, ed. Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 4. 4 Dick and Meinzen-Dick’s study of churches and one synagogue in the St. Louis area comes closest, but it focuses on congregational financial resources, not the use of congregational space per se. They cite only three sources from the commons management literature that deal with religion, none of which focuses on religious institutions (Laura Dick and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, “The Congregational Commons,” paper presented at the 13th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Hyderabad, India, January 10-14, 2011). Hess lists only five sources on the topic of “sacred commons” (Charlotte Hess, “Mapping the New Commons,” paper
- 100. Numrich, Space-Sharing 96 Practical Matters Journal presented at the 12th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, University of Gloucestershire, UK, July 14-18, 2008). The dearth of studies on religious institutions in commons management literature was confirmed by a search of the Digital Library of the Commons (accessed December 28, 2015, http://dlc. dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/advanced-search). 5 In presenting the eight design principles in this way, I draw upon both Ostrom’s original description in Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Actions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 90, and the helpful summary provided by “Elinor Ostrom’s 8 Principles for Managing a Commons,” On the Commons, accessed January 9, 2016, http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles- managing-commmons. 6 Michael Cox, Gwen Arnold, and Sergio Villamayor Tomás, “A Review of Design Principles for Community- Based Natural Resource Management,” Ecology and Society 15.4 (2010): art. 38, accessed February 18, 2015, http:// www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art38/. 7 Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 89-90; Hess and Ostrom, “Introduction,” 7. 8 Thomas Deitz, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern, “The Struggle to Govern the Commons,” Science (n.s.) 302.5652 (December 12, 2003): 1907-12. 9 Here I depart from Ostrom, for whom longevity is a defining characteristic of effective commons management arrangements: they are “long-enduring,” involving “the compliance of generation after generation of appropriators to the rules in use” (Governing the Commons, 90). Thus, successful commons management institutions are “robust, long- enduring,” in contrast to “failed systems” (Hess and Ostrom, “Introduction,” 7). 10 Brett C. Hoover, The Shared Parish: Latinos, Anglos, and the Future of U.S. Catholicism (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 2. 11 Ibid., 24. 12 Ibid., 2. 13 Ibid., 145. 14 Ibid., 119-23, 209-12. 15 Ibid., 64. 16 Silvano M. Tomasi, Piety and Power: The Role of the Italian Parishes in the New York Metropolitan Area, 1880- 1930 (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1975), 76-81. 17 Ibid. 77. 18 Ibid., 80. 19 Ibid., 77. 20 Ana Maria Diaz-Stevens, Oxcart Catholicism on Fifth Avenue: The Impact of the Puerto Rican Migration upon
- 101. Numrich, Space-Sharing 97 Practical Matters Journal the Archdiocese of New York (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 111-16. 21 Ibid., 114. 22 Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltzman Chafetz, Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2000), 255-89. 23 Ibid., 341. 24 Ibid., 277. 25 Ibid., 258. 26 Ibid., 259-60. 27 Hoover, The Shared Parish, 198-209, 220-21, 222-23. 28 Stephen Dudek, “Building a Home for a Multicultural Parish: Lessons Learned,” New Theology Review 13 (2000): 37-45. 29 Ibid., 37. 30 Ibid., 38. 31 Ibid., 39-40. 32 Ibid., 42-43. 33 Ibid., 44-45. 34 Ibid., 41. 35 Justin S., “Jewish Congregations of the Lower East Side,” Mapsites.net, accessed January 6, 2016, http://www. mapsites.net/gotham/sec8/tour2jospiegel1.html. 36 Ibid.; “Congregational History,” Congregation Shearith Israel, accessed January 6, 2016, http://shearithisrael. org/content/congregational-history; “A History of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, 1825-2005,” Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, accessed January 6, 2016, https://www.bj.org/Articles/a-history-of-bj-1825-2005/. 37 Accessed January 6, 2016, http://shearithisrael.org/; also, see “Congregation Shearith Israel,” Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, accessed December 30, 2015, http://www.sephardicstudies.org/csi. html. 38 Charles Reznikoff and Uriah Z. Engelman, The Jews of Charleston: A History of an American Jewish Community (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1950), ix-x, 18, 57-58, 297 n. 183. 39 Barnett A. Elzas, The Jews of South Carolina: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1905), 154-55.
- 102. Numrich, Space-Sharing 98 Practical Matters Journal 40 Ibid., 155-57. 41 Robert Liberles, “Conflict over Reforms: The Case of Congregation Beth Elohim, Charleston, South Carolina,” in The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed, ed. Jack Wertheimer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 286. 42 Ibid., 288. 43 Ibid., 288, 292. 44 Ibid., 292; Elzas, The Jews of South Carolina, 159; Reznikoff and Engelman, The Jews of Charleston, 123-24. 45 Pam DeFiglio, “New ‘Dual’ Synagogue One of Few in World for Both Ashkenazi, Sephardic Jews,” Skokie Patch, August 26, 2013, accessed January 4, 2016, http://patch.com/illinois/skokie/new-dual-synagogue-one-of-few- in-world-for-both-ashkenazi-sephardic-jews. 46 Manya Brachear Pashman, “Skokie Synagogue Cultivates 2 Traditions under 1 Roof,” Chicago Tribune, September 5, 2013, accessed November 11, 2013, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-09-05/news/ct-met-new- skokie-synagogue-20130905_1_ashkenazim-skokie-synagogue-jews. 47 DeFiglio, “New ‘Dual’ Synagogue.” 48 Mike Isaacs, “New Orthodox Synagogue Opens Doors in Skokie,” Chicago Sun-Times, August 20, 2013, accessed May 6, 2014, http://skokie.suntimes.com/news/new_orthodox_synagogue_opens_doors_in_skokie-SKO- 08202013:article. 49 “KCT New Building Kiddush/Rental Policies,” Kehilat Chovevei Tzion, accessed January 5, 2016, http:// images.shulcloud.com/184/uploads/Forms/congregation-kct-new-building-kiddush_rules.pdf. 50 Pashman, “Skokie Synagogue.” 51 Fred Kniss and Paul D. Numrich, Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement: How Religion Matters for America’s Newest Immigrants (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007); Paul D. Numrich, “Emergence of the Rhetoric of a Unified Ummah among American Muslims: The Case of Metropolitan Chicago,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 32 (2012): 451-53. 52 “The Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago” (N.p., n.d.). 53 Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery Division, Case No. 89CH04922, Memorandum in Support of Motion, filed January 19, 1990 (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives, Chicago, Illinois), 13. 54 “The Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago,” 18-19. 55 Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery Division, Case Nos. 89CH04922, 90CH00311, Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Declaratory Order, unknown filing date (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives, Chicago, Illinois), 5, 2. 56 Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery Division, Case Nos. 89CH04922, 90CH00311, Plaintiffs’ Response to Defendants’ Motion, unknown filing date (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives, Chicago, Illinois), 5.
- 103. Numrich, Space-Sharing 99 Practical Matters Journal 57 Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery Division, Case Nos. 90CH00311, 89CH04922, Order, filed June 19,1990 (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives, Chicago, Illinois), 3, 4. 58 Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery Division, Case No. 89CH04922, Answer to Motion for Interim Relief, filed March 23, 1992 (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives, Chicago, Illinois). 59 Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery Division, Case Nos. 89CH04922, 90CH311, Agreed Order, filed November 25, 1992 (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives, Chicago, Illinois). 60 Lyndsey Matthews, “The Latino Crescent: Latinos Make a Place for Themselves in Muslim America,” The Brooklyn Rail, September 4, 2009; Carmen Cusido, “Embracing Islam: Why Latinos Are Drawn to Muslim Beliefs, Culture,” New Jersey Monthly, February 8, 2010; Krystal DeJesus, “Being Latino and Muslim,” WordPress.com, December 4, 2010, accessed February 14 2015, https://jrn490kdejesus.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/being-latino-and- muslim/; “Islam en Español: In Conversion, a New Identity,” New York Times, January 7, 2011, accessed February 14, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/nyregion/09muslims.html. 61 Matthews, “The Latino Crescent.” 62 “Dawa,” North Hudson Islamic Education Center, accessed January 7, 2016, http://www.nhiec.com/ committees/dawa/. 63 Cusido, “Embracing Islam.” 64 DeJesus, “Being Latino and Muslim.” 65 Fred W. Clothey, Ritualizing on the Boundaries: Continuity and Innovation in the Tamil Diaspora (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 39-43. 66 Ibid., 41. 67 Ibid., 41, 42. 68 Ibid., 42. 69 Steven W. Ramey, “Temples and Beyond: Varieties of Hindu Experience in the South,” in Religion in the Contemporary South: Changes, Continuities, and Contexts, ed. Corrie E. Norman and Don S. Armentrout (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), 207-24. 70 Raymond Brady Williams, A Sacred Thread: Modern Transmissions of Hindu Traditions in India and Abroad (Chambersburg, PA: Anima, 1992), 238-40. 71 Steven W. Ramey, “Hindu Bhavan,” accessed January 1, 2016, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/ affiliates/ackland/hindubhavan_report.html. 72 Ramey, “Temples and Beyond”; Ramey, “Hindu Bhavan.” 73 Jain Study Center of North Carolina, accessed December 23, 2015, http://jscnc.org/committee.php.
- 104. Numrich, Space-Sharing 100 Practical Matters Journal 74 “HSNC Facility Rental Form and Contract,” Hindu Society of North Carolina, accessed January 2, 2016, http://www.hsnconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/HSNC_Rental_form.pdf. 75 Ramey, “Hindu Bhavan.” 76 Ibid. 77 Ramey, “Temples and Beyond,” 212. 78 Ramey, “Hindu Bhavan.” 79 See “Denominations,” Hartford Institute for Religion Research, accessed January 7, 2016, http://hirr.hartsem. edu/denom/denominations.html; “Judicatories,” Hartford Institute for Religion Research, accessed January 7, 2016, http://hirr.hartsem.edu/denom/judicatories.html. 80 Cox, Arnold, and Tomás, “A Review of Design Principles.” 81 Interestingly, Dick and Meinzen-Dick, “The Congregational Commons,” found that the Jewish synagogue of their study, followed by the Catholic parishes, were more successful than the Protestant churches in managing congregational financial resources, but the small sample size of their study precluded them from generalizing about these respective religious groups. 82 Robert Wuthnow, Producing the Sacred: An Essay on Public Religion (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 44, 45. 83 Karen J. Chai, “Competing for the Second Generation: English-Language Ministry at a Korean Protestant Church,” in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, ed. R. Stephen Warner and Judith G.Wittner(Philadelphia:TempleUniversityPress,1998),295-331;“Beyond‘Strictness’toDistinctiveness:Generational Transition in Korean Protestant Churches,” in Korean Americans and Their Religions: Pilgrims and Missionaries from a Different Shore, ed. Ho-Youn Kwon, Kwang Chung Kim, and R. Stephen Warner (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 157-80; Sharon Kim, A Faith of Our Own: Second-Generation Spirituality in Korean American Churches (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010), chap. 2. 84 National Congregations Study, Cumulative Dataset (1998, 2006-2007, 2012), version 2, accessed December 26, 2015, http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Codebooks/NCSIII_CB.asp#V21. 85 Pyong Gap Min, “The Structure and Social Functions of Korean Immigrant Churches in the United States,” International Migration Review 26.4 (1992): 1378-79; Pyong Gap Min, “Religion and the Maintenance of Ethnicity among Immigrants: A Comparison of Indian Hindus and Korean Protestants,” in Immigrant Faiths: Transforming Religious Life in America, ed. Karen I. Leonard, Alex Stepick, Manuel A. Vasquez, and Jennifer Holdaway (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2005), 119 n. 6. 86 Christian Today, May 1, 2012, accessed July 9, 2014, http://christiantoday.us/sub_read.html?uid=19600§ ion=section12. 87 Sam Dolnick, “Brooklyn Immigrant Congregations Clash,” New York Times, December 28, 2010.
- 105. Numrich, Space-Sharing 101 Practical Matters Journal 88 “Fourth Avenue UMC Moves Its Ministry to New Place,” The Vision, May 17, 2013, accessed February 26, 2015, http://www.nyac.com/files/tables/content/77806/fields/files/2905d86ce88040cd8c49079832015e43/2013_05_17_ thevision.html. 89 Paul D. Numrich, The Faith Next Door: American Christians and Their New Religious Neighbors (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), chap. 4; Frank Vaisvilas, “Muslims, Christians Sharing Worship Space in Batavia Hope to Set Example,” mySuburbanLife.com, November 1, 2012, accessed May 13, 2014, http://www.mysuburbanlife. com/2012/11/01/muslims-christians-sharing-worship-space-in-batavia-hope-to-set-example/a5s2xdz/. 90 Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, God beyond Borders: Interreligious Learning among Faith Communities (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2014), 84-85. 91 Genesis of Ann Arbor, accessed January 6, 2016, http://www.genesisa2.org/Genesis/Genesis_-_Welcome. html; Kujawa-Holbrook, God beyond Borders, 89, 90. 92 Joshua Dubler, Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013). 93 “Employee Resource Groups,” accessed July 3, 2014, http://corporate.ford.com/dynamic/metatags/article- detail/ergs-442p; “Employee Resource Groups Are Finding Support in ECD,” accessed July 3, 2014, http://fordglobe. org/2001/02/19fcn/EmployeeResourceGroups.html; “Research Report: Ford Interfaith Network,” accessed July 3, 2014, http://www.pluralism.org/reports/view/83. 94 Cox, Arnold, and Tomás, “A Review of Design Principles.”
- 106. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 102-117. © Mohibullah and Kramer 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 102 “Being True to Ourselves…Within the Context of Islam”: Practical Considerations in Hijab Practice among Muslim American Women Huma Mohibullah and Christi Kramer University of British Columbia, Vancouver Abstract Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, debates about women’s status in Islam have become particularly galvanized. Images of oppressed Muslim women permeate popular imagination in the United States and elsewhere, and concerns about their “liberation” from male-dominated cultures are so pervasive that they have been cited as justification for the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Central to the portrayal of Muslim women in distress is the veil in all its forms: a head-wrapping hijab, a niqaab revealing only their eyes, or a face covering burqa. In everyday practice, however, these coverings can convey a variety of ideals, desires, and meanings, which are not determined by doctrine alone and are as diverse as the women who wear them. This paper links interview data and an analysis of public discourse surrounding a viral video showing fashion forward women in hijab. It builds on Samuli Schielke’s discussion of ambivalence and fragmentation in religious and moral practice to show how American Muslim women’s decisions to cover are informed both by their religious sensibilities and everyday pragmatics. Introduction The topic of women’s status in Islam has been contentious for decades but has experienced a noteworthy revival since the September 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon (“9/11”). Concerns about Islam facilitating the oppression of women permeate popular discourse and the “liberation” of Muslim women from male-dominated societies has been liberally cited as justification for the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan.1 Central to the image of the Muslim woman in distress is the veil in all its forms: a head- analyzing
- 107. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 103 Practical Matters Journal wrapping hijab, a niqaab revealing only her eyes, or a face covering burqa. The color black is also associated with this image: women shrouded in darkness and rendered invisible. We embarked on this study intending to highlight the role of the hijab, a headscarf or similar form of covering used by Muslim women, as indexing the counterhegemonic stances of American Muslim women living in a post-9/11, anti-Muslim climate. However, with the passage of time, repeated interactions with our interview participants, and rapidly shifting discourse about Muslim women and forms of cover, our attention moved away from any single area of investigation (“resistance”, “identity”, or “faith”, for example). Instead, we began focusing on heterogeneity surrounding the practice, for both in its physical appearance and in its symbolic value, the hijab carries no single meaning. Instead, it conveys a multiplicity of ideals, desires and expressions, which are as diverse as the women who wear it. Hijab can express any combination of emotions, political stances, or religious convictions; it can communicate one’s fashion sense or, to some non-Muslim Americans, it can stand as a marker of ‘the other.’ Several scholars have examined such heterogeneity, for instance, those who have analyzed the practice as a politically subversive act or as a social space. 2 To our knowledge, however, there is no study examining the role everyday considerations play in shaping ideas and practices of Muslim veiling. In what follows, we turn to Samuli Schielke’s discussions of ambivalence and contradiction3 to elucidate how American Muslim women’s decisions to cover (or to not cover) are informed by a combination of religio-cultural ideals and everyday pragmatics. This paper is based on field research conducted in 2012 as well as on discussions surrounding the recent “Mipsterz” (Muslim hipsters) movement, which produced a popular internet video showing images of fashionable, young, urban women in hijab. While the video intended to challenge dominant imaginings of oppressed Muslim women, it became a catalyst for intense, ongoing debates about the meaning and representation of Muslim veiling. We link an analysis of this public discourse with qualitative data to show that prioritizing faith or function (which are the usual points of inquiry about hijab) in any discussion about American Muslim veiling habits, or conceptualizing them in the oft-referenced, stale dichotomy of “modesty versus modernity”, is shortsighted. Both the prioritization of faith and the “modesty versus modernity” dichotomy compartmentalize the practice by setting artificial boundaries around motivations that, in turn, overlook the wider contexts in which decisions to wear, and how to wear, hijab are made. Methodological and Theoretical Approach This paper is built upon interviews conducted in 2012 with six women between the ages of twenty- one and sixty who wore the hijab and lived in Harrisonburg, Virginia and New York City, New York. Both locations were chosen for their dense and highly diverse Muslim populations. Both locations were also field sites for the authors’ larger projects on post-9/11 religious subjectivities, and poetry and peace building. We used qualitative, open-ended interviews to cover a range of points. Interviewees were asked about their perceptions of modesty as an ideal of Islam, how they came to wear the hijab, and what other aspects of Islam they practice. They were also invited to describe a key religious experience from their lives and share how that experience brought them closer to Islam or otherwise solidified their self-perceptions as Muslims. Participants were asked about the possible contention between North American and Islamic ideals (as the
- 108. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 104 Practical Matters Journal two are often conceptualized as a dichotomy) and whether they have encountered any struggles wearing hijab in the United States, especially since the 9/11 attacks. The interviews were followed up with a series of informal conversations. The participants ranged in level of education and class. From GEDs to PhDs, they possessed a diverse mixture of struggles and experiences in attaining education, as well as fluctuating economic statuses in which level of education did not always correlate to upward mobility. Additionally, they came from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Several were recent immigrants. Regardless of their backgrounds, participants understood hijab to symbolize different meanings in different contexts and also to stand for multiple ideals at once. As Tajev, a woman of Kurdish background, explained about her hijab use, “Part of it is that… it’s part of my religion, and part of it is for respect for my culture, and part respect for my husband.” Along similar lines, Elizabeth, an African American participant, noted that her hijab “can mean different things to me at different times of day or many things in the same day.” Pointing out that heterogenity exists within Islamic belief and practice is certainly not a novel concept. Indeed, the notion that Islam is not monolithic has been around for some time, hence Clifford Geertz’s famous concept of many Islams or “local Islams”, each offering different approaches, interpretations, and styles of practice. 4 Of course, the idea of local Islams has been critiqued by several interlocutors, and does not generally exist in the lexicon of everyday Muslims. 5 Furthermore, articulating religious diversity by dividing Islam into localities also runs the risk of homogenizing Muslims and their practices by categorizing them under bounded subgroups. In our study of American Muslims, this approach erases meaningful complexitiesandtensionsamongfollowersofIslam,oversimplifiestheirpersonalexperiences,everydaylives, and religio-political outlooks. Ironically, some of our participants themselves imposed group solidarity on all women who wear hijab. They did so through taken for granted understandings of the custom as a perfect religious practice that was rooted in shared motivations and religious outlooks. In our analysis, however, we interrogate everyday concepts that inform such assumptions, particularly the notion of “modesty,” which remains heavily cited in conversations about hijab. In this paper, then, we examine areas of conflict, contradiction and change in hijab practice. We build on the work of Islamic studies scholar Samuli Schielke,6 who argues that studies of Muslims tend to emphasize the “Islamic-ness” of subjects and concerns about what Islam is rather than accounting for Islam’s significance in a broader context. He proposes instead a focus on the ambivalence and inconsistencies in Muslims’ lives as well as the pragmatic, everyday sensibilities and motivations of Muslim people. While hijab is often conceptualized through discussions about Islam and piety, Schielke does well to remind us that a narrow focus on religious discourse in any study of Islam or Muslims “risks reproducing Islamist goals by privileging Islam as supreme guideline in all life fields.”7 Having Islam as the central focus in a study about hijab, then, would overlook broader contexts that influence such religious practices and experiences. Schielke suggests that we begin with the ambiguity in people’s lives (which “is not an exception from what is normal but is normality itself”8 ) and the “fragmented nature of people’s biographies which, together with the ambivalent nature of most moral subjectivities,”9 should be the starting point for studying ethical practices or moral discourse. He argues that Islam undoubtedly has a big presence in Muslim lives but it is also entwined with secular experiences of everyday life. With this in mind, we have paid special attention
- 109. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 105 Practical Matters Journal to the practical considerations that influenced our participants’ veiling choices—considerations that were activated by particular “traditions, powers and discourses that grant legitimacy to some concerns over others.”10 This technique revealed that the women we interviewed were not passive participants in a religious tradition, but were engaged in a dynamic practice with the possibility of change and that their commitments to cover could take on different forms over time, even be remade time and time again. The women seemed acutely aware of the boundaries that shaped their hijab use, including particular social spaces, gender dynamics, and religious beliefs. At the same time, they expressed contradictory attitudes or ambivalence toward hijab. Rather than viewing the coexistence of such certainty and contradiction as problematic, we see it as an illuminating and inherent aspect of our participants’ complex, lived experiences. We approach the hijab much as Schielke does Islam, that is, instead of regarding it as a “thing” per se, we examine it as an unfixed aspect of the everyday that is “actively imagined, contested, give different paths and meanings” connected to other ordinary matters in life.11 Hijab in Theory The term hijab comes from the root h-j-b, which indicates a “covering”, “partition”, “curtain” and “protection”, among other, similar ideas.12 It is now a standard name for a piece of cloth commonly worn as a headscarf, and also in other styles of cover. Today, the word hijab is used so commonly to describe forms of veiling that it has been rendered vague. Even in this paper, we use the term loosely. Nevertheless, we note that the term does not stand for any single mode of practice, for as prominent anthropologist Fadwa El-Guindi points out, the word hijab is not just Arabic for “veil.” Rather, it is “a complex notion that has gradually developed a set of related meanings” (1999, 152).13 Along these lines, the exact origins of hijab practice in Islam remain open to discussion. Some suggest that the concept of hijab was first imposed on men who wished to communicate with or be in the presence of the Prophet Mohammed’s wives14 through a revelation stating, “And when you ask [his wives] for something, ask them from behind a partition. That is purer for your hearts and their hearts.”15 In line with this theory, El-Guindi has notably argued that the notion of hijab refers to a sacred divide or separation between two realms, such as good and evil, believers and nonbelievers, aristocracy and commoners, among others, and that in the context of women’s clothing, it implies a combination of sanctity and privacy. Today, the mainstream belief is that hijab is a Quranic institution for women16 which began with the revelation to: …say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and adornments except what ordinarily appears thereof; that they should draw their head cover (khimar) over their bosoms and not display their ornament except to their husbands, fathers, and their husbands fathers, their sons, their husband’s sons, their brothers or their brother’s sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women or the slaves whom their right had possess, or male servants without sexual needs, or small children who have no sense of women’s pudenda and that they should not strike their feet to draw attention to their hidden ornaments.17
- 110. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 106 Practical Matters Journal Interpretations of how veiling forms should be practiced are influenced by theories about the historical contexts in which the Quranic commands referencing them were revealed. In a preliminary study of hijab, Mostafa Sherif notes that schools of thought have been sharply divided on its implementations, with some Muslim jurists stating that the Prophet’s wives had their entire bodies covered, including hands and face, in both life and death (implying that this is the example all Muslim women should follow).18 Meanwhile, other jurists concern themselves with questions of separate spheres, arguing that the women of early Islam were under no obligation to partition themselves from society, even if they were obligated to cover. Furthermore, historians of Islam remind us that hijab practices were not invented by Islam and were customary among pre- Islamic Jews, Christians, and others (including the women of Classical Greek and Byzantine empires).19 This line of reasoning suggests that hijab is not an Islamic practice per se, but a cultural one that became meshed with Islamic values over time. For example, religious scholar Reza Aslan contends that in Mohammad’s time, hijab was only meant for his wives as a means of distancing them from his associates who would visit and pitch their tents within feet of the women. Aslan argues that extension of hijab rules to Muslim women generally occurred only after the death of Mohammed as a means of reasserting male dominance.20 Discourse about modesty—another concept that lends itself to ambiguity—also plays a vital role in whether and how Muslim women practice hijab. A lengthy discussion about modesty (haya) as a virtue in Islam would be redundant here, as many scholars of Islam and Muslim societies have written about the concept extensively.21 To summarize, dominant schools of Islamic thought consider modesty a principle that goes beyond clothing and cover, requiring the moderation of demeanor in general: speech, thought, and other actions. Avoiding speaking with angry tones or lewd connotations is one example of the self- consciousness (often conceptualized as “shyness” or “shame”) involved in the practice of haya. In terms of clothing, it is required that the awrah of both men and women be covered. “Awrah” describes sexual or intimate regions of the body, which includes male and female genitals, women’s breasts, and other parts of the body (such as the torso and legs). The method and extent of coverage, however, ranges in practice depending on textual exegesis and cultural context. As a result, understandings of what constitutes “proper” cover were variable among the women in this study. For instance, Susan was a Dominican convert to Islam, an Ivy League trained scientist who changed careers to run an Islamic clothing shop in New York City. At the time of interview, she understood khimar (the form of cover recommended by the Quran passage above) to be “a very specific thing… a covering of the head, including the ears.” She went on to say that, “A Muslim woman understands hijab. She understands the religious significance of modesty.” This significance inspired her to make Islamic clothing. But religious duty was not her only consideration. She wanted her styles to meet both religious and secular demands, allowing Muslim women to remain “modest” while tackling the mundane tasks of daily life. I think about really, initially, what I go through being a single woman, with a cat, sometimes I have to take her to the vet. I have to think of what’s the easiest style I can wear that can guard my modesty but can get me through the [subway] turnstiles with a sixteen pound cat. New York is a pedestrian city. People are carrying babies, books... what’s the easiest thing [to wear]? She [a woman who wears hijab] wants to have a certain amount of
- 111. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 107 Practical Matters Journal style—whatever that means for her—and comfort and ease. We go through different public barriers to get through our day, like any New Yorker has to. So the hijab style I make is what is as correct as possible. First is pleasing Allah... But it’s also what doesn’t get in her way when she has to go through her daily life, the stuff in her life.22 Susan insisted that her clothing line met Islamic standards. It is worth noting, however, that some of her designs were heavily decorated with eye-catching embellishments, which contradicted one prevalent aim of modesty according to many orthodox Muslims: not calling attention to oneself through ostentatious clothing. Susan reconciled this tension by emphasizing that the Quran is “very clear” on what a khimar should be: it “covers all of the hair and goes down to conceal the chest.” According to this narrow definition, her clothing line met appropriate enough Islamic standards. It was, in her words, “as correct as possible,” creating a balance between religious duty and the practical consideration of enhanced mobility in a bustling city. While Susan’s Quran-based understanding of the khimar is a common one, several Muslims we encountered in our broader fieldwork maintained that the Quran does not specify how austere one should be in covering her hair or body parts. They particularly pointed out that body parts such as ears and hands are not distinctly mentioned in the Quran as areas that require cover, but are nevertheless covered by many contemporary hijab practitioners. Furthermore, Progressive Muslim figures such as Amina Wadud argue that when it comes to what the Quran says about covering, “The principle of modesty is important—not the veiling and seclusion which were manifestations particular to that context” of early Islam.23 The difference in Susan’s, Wadud’s, and other Muslims’ outlooks on modesty and cover reveals that “hijab” is not a concrete concept that correlates to an absolute practice. Rather, it is a historically constructed ideal that remains highly contested. Nevertheless, the principle has a powerful presence that commonly surfaces in certain arenas of Muslim life. For instance, per widely accepted schools of Islamic thought, even Muslim women who do not practice hijab in day-to-day life willingly do so to some extent when performing prayers.24 Most practicing men, when in religious settings, also adhere to the Islamic rules of modest attire set for them, which is to cover from below the waist to below the knees. Hijab in Practice Elizabeth was a sixty-year-old, African American woman who converted to Islam some twenty years ago through the Nation of Islam. Like many African American converts, she ultimately left the Nation for Sunni Islam, but retained an appreciation for the former’s role in advancing Islam in the United States. In her years as a Muslim, she “experimented” (in her words) with different forms of hair coverings. She described her styles throughout the years as being influenced by various factors, such as her social circles and political motivations. For instance, in the 1990s, her choice to bind her hair upward in a gele (African head wrap) was informed by her desire to express her African roots. She explained that she would especially wear a gele when going to jazz clubs that emphasized black pride. Later in life, she joined a conservative mosque in Brooklyn, New York, where women were encouraged to cover in a style commonly used by Arab women to conceal their hair as well as the shapes of their bodies. At the time of research, she considered that particular
- 112. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 108 Practical Matters Journal form of hijab —covering everything but her face, hands and feet—to be the most authentic and legitimate form of cover. On one occasion, Elizabeth witnessed one of the authors being sexually harassed outside a mosque. In response, she flatly noted that the incident could have been avoided had the author “covered properly.” She explained that the author’s khimar could have been drawn lower over the chest to avoid attracting unwanted attention. While she acknowledged that women’s efforts to conceal their bodies provided no guarantees of safety, Elizabeth maintained that her hijab was the form recommended by Islam to curb sexual harassment. Even when her hijab had failed to curtain her from such experiences, it nevertheless provided her with a sense of self-satisfaction. “If I’m covered like I’m supposed to, and men still look at me, then it’s on them; I know I’m good,” she said. “I can be fine with myself because I know I did what I’m supposed to do: proper hijab.” The conviction and self-assuredness with which Elizabeth usually spoke about “proper” hijab was clearly rattled when she was asked to consider how other women in her mosque, who went beyond her methods by concealing their faces as well, might have regarded her level of cover as relaxed, traditionally inauthentic or inadequate. Eventually, she reasoned that women who covered their faces were religious extremists, that her form of cover was most “moderate… a balance between mini-skirts (which reveal too much) and burqas (which cover too much).” Using the language of moderation, she legitimized her hijab as the most religiously appropriate form of cover because, “Islam is a moderate religion and it is meant to be easy.” She offered no doctrinal basis for this claim, through which she ordered different forms of cover in a vague hierarchy of religious acceptability. Most of the time, Elizabeth would act as a custodian of religious tradition with her repeated references to what constituted bona fide hijab and exactly how Muslim women were “supposed” to cover to please God. In certain contexts, however, her convictions would waver and she would abandon such lectures to support women whose hijab forms were deemed inadequate. In particular, she fiercely defended African American and Caribbean Muslim women from the judgments of their non-black peers, who, using the very same arguments about “proper” hijab that Elizabeth routinely deployed, would denounce gele-style coverings as inadequate. In this context, she eschewed her routine religious and moral discourse, and prioritized solidarity with other black Muslims instead. She guarded their integrity when she saw them criticized by Arab and South Asian Muslims, who commonly demeaned black Muslims for being both black and converts (as opposed to “real” or “born” Muslims like themselves). She reminded the naysayers that hijab does not guarantee good moral character. “Don’t even begin to know another person’s status with Allah!” she steamed, “They may be a person who has devoted their entire life to taking care of their grandparents, whereas I may wear a scarf every day but I don’t give a glass of water to my mother,25 so who’s better?” Theprocessofnegotiatinghijab,asElizabethdid,inaccordancewithlife’ssecularrealmsandpractical interests was evident in almost every interview we conducted. Participants routinely spoke of “becoming ready” to wear the headscarf, and, rather than being driven solely or primarily by Islamic principles, their decisions often involved years of contemplation and the weighing of mundane and secular factors such as one’s age, marital status, hardships in life, experiences with anti-Muslim bigotry, and more. Tajev was a Kurdish woman in her forties who had migrated from Iraq to Turkey and Egypt before immigrating to Houston, Texas in 1998. In 2003, she settled in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She described her
- 113. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 109 Practical Matters Journal upbringing in Iraq as highly secular, noting that sometimes people in her ethnic community could even be adverse to hijab. Her family treated the practice with apathy. She explained, “I was against it [hijab] because I was raised in a family that didn’t care that much about religion, that nobody told me I have to wear hijab. Nobody told me I had to pray. If I was doing it, I was fine—without it, I was fine also.” It was only when her husband, who was not Kurdish, requested it of her that she began to wear hijab. He told me a couple of times, he really wanted me to wear hijab for a long time, but I wasn’t ready at all. But after 2002, when I go to Harrisonburg, I saw the women wearing hijab and I thought, “I’ll try it.” …Since 2003, there are a lot of Kurdish around here, so now people in Harrisonburg know that it is part of our religion.26 While Tajev did care about accommodating her husband, his repeated requests for her to wear a headscarf were, on their own, not enough for her to take up cover. Only when she arrived in Harrisonburg and found hijab a common sight among her peers did the practice become normalized in her view and she felt open to wearing one. Even so, she described taking up hijab as an onerous endeavor that she was still not habituated to and treated with ambivalence. It was difficult. Oh, it was so difficult… if you don’t grow up with it, if you don’t do it all the time when you’re a kid… you just don’t get used to it. I’ve been wearing it since 2003 and I still don’t feel too comfortable. Sometimes, I even forget to wear it. But when I have to be with strange men, then I have to wear it. So I mix it already, but some people are really strict about it because of their religion. Furthermore, when Tajev returned to Iraq for visits, she would follow local custom and resume life without a hijab: Actually, when I go back to Iraq, I completely lose my hijab. In the United States, I feel much better about my hijab but in Iraq I don’t. Sometimes I wear it but not like I do here. I don’t wear it in front of my husband’s family or relatives—I should, but I don’t. I live with them for a long time, they are my relatives… it’s not that every woman who makes hijab is perfect and good. When asked why she felt more comfortable wearing hijab in the US, Tajev was unable to elaborate. Her discomfort wearing hijab in Iraq may have been a reflection of cultural milieu, for in Harrisonburg, wearing one was a common practice among women, whereas it was not so in her area of Iraq. And although she believed that women were ordered by the Quran to abide by certain rules of cover, her statement showed that, for her, hijab was not a straightforward adherence to religious rules but a complex process of reasoning in which several factors informed when, where, and how she practiced it. For example, she acknowledged that although there were rules requiring coverage in front of certain male relatives, she made an exception with her male in-laws; that by having lived with her for an extended period of time, they became as her own brothers, father or uncles. In other words, she related to these men as mahrems27 and granted herself exception from rules of cover in their presence. In treating orthodox understandings of male-female taboos
- 114. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 110 Practical Matters Journal as flexible, Tajev formulated a personalized understanding of hijab requirements. She also challenged the link commonly made between hijab and morality by emphasizing that wearing a hijab is not what makes a Muslim woman “perfect and good.” This is similar to the argument Elizabeth, above, made when defending other black Muslim women from the criticisms of non-black Muslims. Zaynab, a white, American convert of over thirty years, also highlighted the idea of hijab practice depending on a woman’s social location. Like Tajev, she too lived in Harrisonburg and explained how her styles of cover evolved according to how she was perceived by people in different times and arenas of her life: I would wear black…people would say, “You’re so young, why are you wearing that?” And I had trouble getting a job covered. I got better results when I wore brighter colors to my interviews, but then when I got to graduate school, I didn’t want to walk around campus looking like a flower all the time, so I started toning it down a little bit. She added, “I’ve thought about, you know, maybe now that I’m older it’s not necessary, but I decided to continue with it.” Just as Tajev felt hijab to be less necessary around her male in-laws, Zaynab, now in her mid-fifties, felt it less necessary as one grew older. There is a widespread assumption (certainly not confined to Muslim groups) that older women are less appealing sexually, resulting preoccupation with shielding their bodies from the male gaze. Alluding to the sexual appetites of men, Zaynab and other participants—including Elizabeth, above—frequently used the word “protection” to describe their headscarves, explaining that it “kept [them] out of danger” or transformed them so that were “no longer an object.” Once she passed a certain age, Zaynab did not feel as much need for such protection. * * * Anthropologist Gabriele Marranci notes that Muslims are generally “seen as followers of Islam rather than followers of their desires, imaginations, identities and passions.”28 Examining our participants’ viewpoints and practices with Islam as the focal point would conceal that women who wear hijab are, first and foremost, “acting, reacting, thinking, feeling humans”29 whose understandings of hijab are adapted to the realities of their everyday lives. This pragmatism results in notions of cover and modesty that are far from straightforward, always complicated, and often contradictory (for example, Tajev’s use of hijab in the United States but not in Iraq). The issue of readiness, i.e., “becoming ready” to wear the hijab, continually revealed the intricacies of the practice. Several participants spoke of wearing hijab after much contemplation, only to give it up and then take it up again. This was especially true for Saima, a Bangladeshi-American in her twenties who, at the time of this research, was studying economics and starting a wedding planning business in New York City. During our afternoon visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic World exhibit, she began reflecting on how Muslims are perceived negatively in the United States. She expressed her desire to respond competently to anti-Muslim perceptions in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, including the common allegation that Islam facilitates the oppression of women. It was in this context, she explained, that she began studying Islam and feeling increasingly devout. Initially, she decided to wear the hijab to “identify with being a practicing Muslim,” as the covering provided her the visibility to challenge representations of Muslims as violent fanatics, and to call attention to the fact that the vast majority of her coreligionists
- 115. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 111 Practical Matters Journal were usual, everyday people like herself. This is not to say that her motivation to cover her hair was purely political. Together, her religious reflections and halaqa (religious study group) peers had convinced her that “true” Muslim women should wear hijab as a way to stress modesty. Therefore, she indeed dressed in hijab out of political concern, but also out of a genuine commitment to piety. This commitment proved fragile over time, as Saima’s outlook on modesty shifted. As she said, “…I realized that modesty is immaterial. And after I realized that… I took it [the hijab] off.” When asked how her ideas of modesty changed, she answered that another group of peers, outside the halaqa, introduced her to the idea of modesty being subjective30 : I guess it was the other Muslims in the community… I had a lot of people saying, “You know, this [wearing hijab] isn’t what modesty is; there are so many different kinds of people.” I guess I just didn’t hang around those people at the time [at beginning of hijab]. When I started, I felt that to identify with a certain faith [Islam], I had to wear hijab. Upon removing her hijab, Saima felt anxious about the judgments of certain women who covered, and appeared to harbor some guilt about her inability to commit to the practice. “I don’t know how to answer when they say, ‘Why did you take it off?’ Am I supposed to say, ‘Because I wanted to?’ I don’t want to say that.” She resolved these tensions by simply distancing herself from judgmental individuals who were quick to be “the haram police”31 and exacerbate her feelings of misconduct. Saima’s comments continually showed her as being the “acting, reacting, thinking, feeling” person Marranci refers to, one whose religious practice is informed and swayed not only by her identity politics and social circles, but by her emotions as well. She said of removing her hijab, “I felt so weird because I had had it for a whole year before that, so I put it back on.” Her final decision to cover was based not on any faith obligation, for as she herself put it, “Even if I took it off, I would be Muslim.”32 Nor was it based solely in social obligations or pressures to fit in with other Muslims, for as she realized, “…whatever course of action you choose, you’re always going to have critics.” In the end, Saima expressed that she wore the hijab, in part, because she had grown accustomed to wearing it. Leaving home without it felt strange, “weird,” as it had become a part of her everyday sense of being. However, habit was not the only factor influencing in her decision, for as she acknowledged, her hijab communicated multiple meanings that represented so many of her interests and values that she “couldn’t really put it into words.” She expressed that, ultimately, wearing it simply “felt right” for numerous reasons. She offered, “Maybe it is dogmatic piety and I haven’t really admitted it to myself.” Indeed, as Saba Mahmood found in her study of Egypt’s piety movement, it was through repeated bodily actions such as veiling that particular feelings were cultivated and imprinted in women, and that in the cycle of body learning and body sense, “your body literally comes to feel uncomfortable if you do not veil.”33 Fluctuationsandmultiplicityincoveringpractices,suchasthosedescribedbyourparticipants,showthat Islamisnotaculturedeterminingsocialblueprint,34 therefore,itdoesnotpredictthatMuslimwomenwilldon hijabatall,letalonethemannerorstyleinwhichtheywill.Asalmostallofourparticipantspointedout,covering oneself does not necessarily correlate to religious commitment or morality, there are countless practicing or piousMuslimwomenwhodonotsubscribetohijabpractices,andconversely,manywhowearhijabthatarenot austere about other Islamic rituals, such as the five daily prayers or almsgiving. Indeed, Muslims are humans involvedindifferentsocialactionsandinteractionsthatdictatetheirwaysoflife,includingmodesanddegrees
- 116. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 112 Practical Matters Journal of religious practice.35 This point was most recently illustrated by a group of young American Muslim women who found themselves embroiled in controversy because of their depictions of hijab in American culture. “Somewhere in America” In December 2013, a production company called Sheikh and Bake Productions, known for its short sketch commentaries on Muslim life, released a video entitled “Somewhere in America,” set to a song of the same name by hip-hop star Jay-Z. The video features a group of Mipsterz, or Muslim hipsters, who are described on their Facebook page as: …at the forefront of the latest music, fashion, art, critical thought, food, imagination, creativity… someone who seeks inspiration from the Islamic tradition of divine scriptures, volumes of knowledge, mystical poets, bold prophets, inspirational politicians, esoteric Imams,andourfellowhumanbeingssearchingfortranscendentalstatesofconsciousness…. We are united not by some identity label, but by our interest in engaging with a tradition in all its myriad forms. In the Mipsterz video, young Muslim women are seen posing around New York City and other urban settings, frolicking, hanging out, and demonstrating their freedom of movement by partaking in athletic forms such as fencing, skateboarding, and handstands. They do so while sporting high style, dressed in combinations of leather jackets, tights, high heels, bold jewelry and aviator sunglasses. Each woman is topped with a different style of hijab. According to the director of the video, its point is to show fashion forward images of Muslim women (which are indeed absent in media usually inundated with images of burqas and other conservative styles of cover).36 Aminah, a model featured in the video, asserted that she took part in it to show that “hijabis are human” and that Islam is not homogenous, but “a global religion with about two billion adherents and colorful, historical trajectories.”37 Many Muslims lauded the video for highlighting Muslim diversity and challenging common stereotypes of female oppression in Islam. Many others vociferously critiqued it, most notably Sana Saeed of the Islamic Monthly and Dr. Suad Abdul Khabeer of Purdue University. Saeed argued that the video is based on particular mores of what constitutes “normal,” doing so by objectifying Muslim women and going against central tenets of their faith.38 Abdul Khabeer opined that the video, by pairing expensive fashion with a soundtrack of record mogul Jay-Z, promoted capitalism and consumption, and thus presented only a narrow view of who Muslim women are.39 These points were echoed and built upon by countless Muslim critics on the Internet who fiercely debated the concept of hijab and the video’s representation of Muslim women.40 Reacting to these criticisms, Aminah (the aforementioned model) published a response on the popular religion site Patheos in which she interpreted criticisms aimed at the video as “taking away the agency and power” of the fashionistas who modeled in it. She also shared her own history of having worn and struggled withthehijab.Comingfromanon-orthodoxbuttraditionalfamily,shehadoncedecidedtodontheheadscarf because it was “counter culture, reactionary politics and intertwined to my spiritual development…hijab
- 117. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 113 Practical Matters Journal gave me a place to fit in and served as a barrier to intrusive men.” In time, however, Aminah found that her hijab made her feel like an outsider and exacerbated feelings of being “not white enough, thin enough or beautiful enough,” and ceased wearing it.41 From identity politics to curtaining oneself from men, Aminah’s negotiation of hijab echoes, in many respects, our research participants’, though it is important to note that, unlike most of our participants, she cites no religious or spiritual pull towards it and emphasizes instead that she wore it as an outward expression of her minority status. Like our participants, she too is caught in a process of (re)negotiation in which her hijab use is informed by everyday considerations: she wears it in certain circumstances and not in others—in the Mipsterz video, for example, but not in the author photo that accompanies her response to critics. Our participants and the Mipsterz show that hijab practice, like Islam itself, is highly dynamic in how it is (re)imagined and negotiated in accordance with other aspects of life. Scheilke calls these aspects “grand schemes” which include every realm of life, from capitalism (as in the Mipster video connecting hijab to the music industry and fashion) to love (as when the interviewees noted that they wear hijab as a means of expressing love of God, husband, or self). In hijab practices, then, we can see how secular experiences become meshed with religious ones in innovative ways. Mipster model Keziah Ridgeway spoke of this creativity when explaining the fusion of hijab conventions with the contemporary ideals of beauty, femininity, and style seen in the Mipsterz video: What these women are… what I am, are our true selves. We’ve found a way to merge our Islam with our creativity and our view on the world, whether it be loving fashion or loving make up… So the first thing we’re doing is being true to ourselves, and we’re doing that within the context of Islam… We have to understand that there are different levels of modesty; not all Muslim women are going to dress the same…42 [emphasis added] Ridgeway’s notion of a “true” self implies that Islam, while having a place of great importance in Muslim lives, is not the defining factor of Muslim women or their practices. In fact, “the first thing” Ridgeway prioritizes in her statement is not austere religious traditions or divine revelations, but conveying a sense of herself through creative modes such as clothing and other presentation. These modes make her herself: a unique person with unique preferences and habits. She carries out her lifeways within an Islamic paradigm, but that paradigm is subjective (“our” Islam, as she calls it) and allows for individual expressions of hijab. As she tells us later in her interview, echoing the essence of what Saima’s friends had told her, “Hijab is a personal journey, a personal struggle.” Conclusion Following Schielke’s suggestion to focus on aspects such as ambivalence, contradictions, and change thwarts a reductive view of women who wear hijab that defines them solely as products of Islam and ignores the various pragmatic considerations, emotions, personal experiences, and religious interpretations that go into their decisions to cover. In revealing these complexities, we end up having to present a multitude
- 118. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 114 Practical Matters Journal of messy accounts that are often rife with contradictions. For instance, Elizabeth stringently advocated a particular form of hijab, except in moments of identity salience that called for solidarity with other black Muslim women, whose unconventional forms of cover she defended. Tajev saw hijab as an order from God with universal applicability, but could not explain why she covered in the United States but not in Iraq. Saima struggled with the meaning of modesty, vacillated in and out of hijab practice, and ultimately covered her hair for reasons that she admitted were not yet clear to her. It can be tempting to iron out such inconsistencies and ambiguities by highlighting common aspects or convergences in participant narratives to validate our theories. In this paper, for example, we could have examined hijab in relation to a single analytical category, such as “Islamic values,” “Muslim identity,” or “Muslim resistance,” as these were themes through which the participants could be linked together. However, as anthropologist Daniel Varisco points out, “it’s easy to create unity of out diversity but seldom does it serve any analytic purpose.”43 In this paper, we chose to highlight differences in opinion about hijab among the various participants, and in some instances, shifts in the same participant’s opinions over time. Varisco additionally notes that the Western way of viewing Islam has largely been orthopraxy, that is, people united via practice. As our interviews and the Mipster debates reveal, however, common practices (in this case, wearing a hijab) far from eradicate disagreements and uncertainties among Muslims about those very practices. Both our interviews and public discourse about the Mipsterz showed that it is complex, practical, and shifting considerations—rather than any stand-alone religious or moral conviction—that shape hijab practice. Focusing on our participants’ commonalities as Muslims, hijab wearers, cultivators of piety, or resisters of post-9/11 Islamophobia would have left little room for elucidating the tensions in their everyday lives that inform their varied religious positions and expressions. It would have compromised showing that religious practices are fraught processes in which taken-for-granted values ascribed to faith such as “modesty” are actually negotiated pragmatically and materialize in countless ways. Notes 1 LilaAbu-Lughod, “Do MuslimWomen Really Need Saving?” AmericanAnthropologist 104 (2002): 783-790. LeilaAhmed, AQuiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East toAmerica (New Haven:Yale University Press, 2011). Rajiv Chandraskaren, “In Afghanistan, US Shifts Strategy on Women’s Rights,” The Washington Post, March 14, 2011. Accessed on June 3, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/05/ AR2011030503668.html 2 See Ahmed, A Quiet Revolution and Fadwa El-Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance (New York, NY: Berg Publishing, 1999). 3 Samuli Schielke, (2010) “Second Thoughts on the Anthropology of Islam, or How to Make Sense of Grand Schemes in Everyday Life,” ZMO Working Papers (2010): 1-16. 4 Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).
- 119. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 115 Practical Matters Journal 5 Benjamin Soares and Filippo Osilla, “Islam, Politics, Anthropology” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 45:1 (2009), pp.1-22; Samuli Schielke, “Second thoughts about an anthropology of Islam, or how to make sense of grand schemes in everyday life.” ZMO Working Papers. Vol. 2 (2010). 6 Schielke, “Second Thoughts on the Anthropology of Islam.” 7 Schielke, “Second Thoughts on the Anthropology of Islam,” 2. 8 Schielke, “Second Thoughts on the Anthropology of Islam,” 3. 9 Schielke, Samuli. “Being Good in Ramadan: Ambivalence, Fragmentation, and the Moral Self in the Lives of Young Egyptians.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 45:1, pp.24-40 (2009). 10 Schielke, “Second Thoughts on the Anthropology of Islam,” 12. 11 See also Samuli Schielke and Liza Debevec’s Ordinary Lives and Grand Schemes: An Anthropology of Everyday Religion (New York: Berghahn, 2012). 12 El-Guindi, Veil, 157. 13 El-Guindi, Veil, 152. 14 Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). Reza Aslan, No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (New York: Random House, 2005). El-Guindi, Veil. 15 Quran, 33:53. 16 Mostafa Sherif, “What is Hijab?” The Muslim World LXXVII (1987): 151-164. It is noteworthy, as El-Guindi (1999) has pointed out, that the verse immediately preceding 24:30 commands men to similarly “lower their gaze” and “cover their genitals”, although 24:31 does broaden the scope of modest behaviors for women. 17 Quran, 24:31. 18 Sherif, “What is Hijab?” 19 Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam. El-Guindi, Veil. 20 Aslan, No God but God. Aslan argues that implementing hijab for all women was one of the ways men sought to regain the power they had lost due to the prophet’s egalitarian stances. 21 Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in
- 120. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 116 Practical Matters Journal a Bedouin Society (Oakland: University of California Press, 2000). Aisha Boulanouar, “The Notion of Modesty in Muslim Women’s Clothing: An Islamic Point of View,” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 8 (2006): 134-156. El-Guindi, Veil. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 22 Emphasis added. 23 Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman: Reading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press (1999). 24 Some women who identify as Progressive Muslims strategically pray without their heads and/or limbs covered, to challenge standards that place more restrictions on women than on men. However, such efforts to subvert gender norms almost always take place in small, private gatherings rather than in everyday mosques. 25 Here, Elizabeth is referencing the religious command to honor one’s parent, and also the emphasis many Muslim societies place on the blessing that is sharing water with the thirsty. 26 In the past, Kurdish women covered neither their face nor hair. The phenomenon of Kurdish women wearing hijab is an innovation of Iraqi Kurdistan, informed by the gradual dissemination of orthodox religious discourse. 27 Male relatives that are ruled out for marriage and pose a low risk of sexual temptation per the Quran passage quoted earlier in this paper. 28 Gabriele Marranci, “Studying Muslims of Europe,” in Companion to the Anthropology of Europe, edited by Ullrich Kockel et al. (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012). 29 Gabriele Marranci, The Anthropology of Islam (New York: Berg Publishing, 2008). 30 Sana Saeed of the Islamic Monthly argues that modesty is subjective according to the perspective one subscribes to, for example, one may abide by the Islamic legal perspective (based on different schools of thought and decisions made by scholars and jurists), or community perspectives that stand for particular group ideals, or their own, individual-level perspectives (2013, Al Jazeera). 31 “Haram,” meaning forbidden, refers to things that are prohibited in Islam. “Haram police” is a colloquialism used to define hardline Muslims who constantly point out the sins of others. 32 That the hijab is not always correlated to piety is a fact noted by several scholars, including Saba Mahmood (2004) and LilaAbu-Lughod, who wrote in her discussion of Bedouin women, “everyone recognizes that modest dress and even veiling are no guarantee of modesty” (1986, 153). 33 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 158. Schielke (2009) critiques Mahmood’s emphasis on practice for its focus on
- 121. Mohibullah and Kramer, Being True to Ourselves 117 Practical Matters Journal religious activists at the expense of stories highlighting the experiences of people who were once religious but then experienced ambivalence in relation to religion, particularly in the form of their contradictory urges and wishes. 34 Marranci, “Studying Muslims of Europe.” 35 Marranci, The Anthropology of Islam. 36 “Beyond the #Mipsterz Video,” Al Jazeera, accessed December 12, 2013, http://stream.aljazeera.com/ story/201312102302-0023240 37 Amina Sheikh, “Why I Participated in the ‘Somewhere in America’ #Mipsterz Video,” Patheos, accessed on January 8, 2013, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/altmuslim/2013/12/why-i-participated-in-the-somewhere-in- america-mipsterz-video/ 38 SanaSaeed,“SomewhereinAmerica,Muslimwomenare‘Cool’,”IslamicMonthly,accessedonDecember30, 2013, http://www.theislamicmonthly.com/somewhere-in-america-muslim-women-are-cool/?utm_source=rss&utm_ medium=rss&utm_campaign=somewhere-in-america-muslim-women-are-cool 39 Suad Khabeer, “Somewhere in America?” All I Know is to be a Soldier, For my Culture, accessed on December 3, 3013, http://drsuad.tumblr.com/post/68745089632/somewhere-in-america-somewhere-in-america-there 40 The comments section of the official video illustrates these discussions and disputes: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=68sMkDKMias 41 Sheikh, “Why I participated in the ‘Somewhere in America” #Mipsterz Video.” 42 Al Jazeera, “Beyond the Mipsterz Video.” 43 Daniel Varisco, Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation, (New York: Palgrave, 2005), 134-35.
- 122. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 118-126. © Cory Labrecque 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 118 Creationism of Another Kind: Integral Corporeality, the Body, and Place in the Catholic Tradition Cory Labrecque Emory University Abstract In his oft-cited paper on the historical roots of our ecologic crisis, Lynn White, Jr. points to religion (particularly Christianity in its Western form) as the major culprit. Following a brief review of this critique, I turn to a rendering of creation and the human-nature relationship from the Roman Catholic tradition, paying close attention to the value of corporeality (both human and non-human), the notion of body as place, and the emphasis on integration in the Church’s teaching. Religion as Culprit I n his rather melancholic commentary on the character and trajectory of the American conservation movement in the 1940s, Aldo Leopold lamented that “in our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.”1 He pointed to a shallow ecology, at best, that was largely directed by economic renderings of what was considered valuable. This was certainly not helped by the Church (what Roderick Nash calls “the chief custodian of ethics”); Leopold was convinced that philosophy and religion had not even fathomed the inclusion of nature in conversations about the moral community.2 Enter Lynn Townsend White, Jr., a professor of medieval history at Princeton, Stanford, and—for just about thirty years—the University of California, Los Angeles. When he took to the stage to deliver a talk on the historical roots of our ecologic crisis at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in December of 1966, it is almost a sure thing that he did not know that his words would stir a long- lasting debate. To be sure, he did not simply bring to the fore a discussion of the blindness—if not, all-out resistance—of the Western religious traditions to environmental ethics.3 Some say that he gave impetus to the contemporary study of religion and ecology as a serious academic discipline in its own right. In his address—published a few months later in the journal Science4 of all places—White makes plain analyzing
- 123. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 119 Practical Matters Journal that “we continue today [he was speaking in the late 1960s] to live very largely in a context of Christian axioms” which are not all that eco-friendly.5 Christianity, he famously argues, “is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen”6 and it has inherited from Judaism, at least in part, a problematic rendering of the human-nature relationship. Among other things, White laments its perception of time as non-repetitive and linear that is in striking contrast to nature’s cyclicity. He highlights Christian emphasis on the particular “otherness” of humankind—alone in all of creation made in the image and likeness of God and sharing in the Deity’s transcendence—as setting us on high, as it were, above the created order. In many ways, this kind of thinking, White contends, allowed for a valuation of nature based almost exclusively on how well it served human purposes. In addition, throwing out animistic tendencies to vest living and non-living constituents of the natural world with spirit, Christianity “made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.”7 And before one should point the finger at science and technology for the mess that we now find ourselves in, White reminds that “human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that is, by religion.”8 Both science and technology, steeped in Christian culture, drew from it a notion of perpetual progress that encouraged mastery and control. This led to an interpretation of human dominion over the natural world as despotism (White contends) that is indefensible apart from Judeo-Christian teleology.9 “Modern science,” White says, “is an extrapolation of natural theology” and modern technology is “at least partly to be explained as a voluntarist realization of the Christian dogma of [human] transcendence of, and rightful mastery over, nature.”10 Accordingly, Christianity “bears a huge burden of guilt.”11 If Christians were dormant, if not indifferent, up until this point when it came to concerns about the environment, they were certainly now being roused by the likes of White’s critique; indeed, not a few were disgruntled by his piercing charges. In some Christian circles, the historian was called “a junior Anti-Christ, probably in the Kremlin’s pay, bent on destroying the true faith.”12 Religion as Resource: The Catholic Church’s Catechesis on Creation In spite of his critical evaluation, White did not advocate an abandonment of religion altogether. His take-home point (although sometimes overlooked in the fury of counter-accusations) was not to forsake religion as a destructive anachronism of our day nor to employ more science and more technology in order to get us out of the present eco-crisis.13 “Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious,” White declared, “the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not.”14 White turned, explicitly, to the model of Saint Francis of Assisi—styling him as the “the greatest radical in Christian history since Christ”15 —whose humility grasped a much more extensive notion of what (or whom, rather) constitutes community. Proposing Francis as patron of ecologists, White lauded the saint’s attempt “to depose [humankind] from ... monarchy over creation and set up a democracy of all God’s creatures. With him the ant is no longer simply a homily for the lazy, flames a sign of the thrust of the soul toward union with God; now they are Brother Ant and Sister Fire, praising the Creator in their own ways” as Brother and Sister Humans do in theirs.16 Incidentally, just over a decade later, Pope John Paul II would officially proclaim Saint Francis as the
- 124. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 120 Practical Matters Journal “heavenly patron of those who promote ecology,”17 claiming that he: offers Christians an example of genuine and deep respect for the integrity of creation. As a friend of the poor who was loved by God’s creatures, Saint Francis invited all of creation— animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon—to give honor and praise to the Lord. The poor man of Assisi gives us striking witness that when we are at peace with God we are better able to devote ourselves to building up that peace with all creation which is inseparable from peace among all peoples.18 The Catholic Church’s teaching on Creation is almost always the starting point of its catechesis. The tradition espouses a Creationism of the kind that confesses the unaided, innovative, ordered, and freely-willed hand of God in giving a beginning to all that existed outside of the Deity, and concentrates on the meaning of our origins and ends.19 I say “of the kind” because “Creationism” insinuates, for some, a dismissal or outright denial of what has been learned by the sciences. Take, for instance, the definition given for the term by Merriam-Webster: “the belief that God created all things out of nothing as described in the Bible and that therefore the theory of evolution is incorrect.”20 The Catholic Church denies this implicit causality and appreciates—though this has come about gradually if not painstakingly—that the sciences can inspire greater awe for God. The understanding is that, as Creator, God leaves his mark in creation in order to be known—through the light of reason—by humankind.21 Pope Paul VI’s 1965 pastoral constitution on the Catholic Church in the modern world (called Gaudium et Spes) confirmed a belief already made plain by his predecessors: “if methodical investigation within every branch of learning is carried out in a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith, for earthly matters and the concerns of faith derive from the same God.”22 In light of this, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about creation and evolution as “two complementary— rather than mutually exclusive—realities”23 and Pope Francis, in a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2014, brought this point to light: You are addressing the highly complex subject of the evolution of the concept of nature. I will not go into the scientific complexity, which you well understand, of this important and crucial question. I only want to underline that God and Christ are walking with us and are also present in nature, as the Apostle Paul stated in his discourse at the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). When we read the account of Creation in Genesis we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand. But that was not so. He created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who gives life to all beings. The beginning of the world was not a work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Principle who creates
- 125. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 121 Practical Matters Journal out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve.24 The Catholic tradition also teaches—grounded, for instance, in the book of Psalms25 – that the reach of God’s compassion is over the whole of creation and is not limited to humanhood. To be sure, all of creation— collectively—is very good26 and it is all—collectively—in statu viae; that is, the whole of creation is in “a state of journeying” toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained and to which it has been destined.27 However, although the Catholic Church espouses a number of tenets that speak highly of the natural world, it would be misleading not to list those teachings of this tradition that do not. On the one hand, the Church claims that (1) Creation (which is good if not only by virtue of its Author) has inherent value, (2) each of the various creatures are said to be willed in their own being, (3) interdependence and solidarity are marks of the created order, and (4), God’s providence is over all existents and humans are called to imitate said providence through the mandate of stewardship.28 On the other hand, the Catholic Church also speaks of the hierarchy of beings, with humankind as the summit of the Creator’s work since it alone shares in the light of the divine mind29 Furthermore, the destination of all material creatures for the good of the human race is underlined repeatedly.30 Even though the Catholic Church emphasizes the interdependence of all beings in the universal order and recognizes the value of the natural world in its own right (that is, aside from human utility), it nevertheless rejects biocentric and ecocentric worldviews, arguing that these erroneously propose “that the ontological and axiological difference between [humans] and other living beings be eliminated, since the biosphere is considered a biotic unity of undifferentiated value. Thus [humanity’s] superior responsibility can be eliminated in favour of an egalitarian consideration of the ‘dignity’ of all living beings.”31 And that, the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace in its compendium on the Church’s social teaching, just cannot be. White was not, perhaps, entirely off the mark in his critique of Christianity, however sweeping it may have been. This said, the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, proclaims that the world is ultimately made for the glory of God32 and not for humankind. The demand here is for a more theocentric, rather than anthropocentric, valuation of the natural world that takes its lead primarily from God’s own explicit pronouncement of Creation as “good” even before the advent of humans and “very good” in its comprehensiveness. The Catholic Church asserts that humans must not “make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to [our] will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God- given purpose, which [we] can indeed develop but must not betray.”33 The struggle to balance instrumental and inherent value draws out an important practical question: what do we owe nature if it is, at once, a shared (but limited) resource for survivability and the treasured work of a Deity who has given it its own worth and purpose? At the very least, the Catholic Church has taught that at the heart of the eco-crisis lies an “anthropological error” that gives precedence to the idea that nature is something to be used and does little to consider God’s “original gift of the things that are.”34
- 126. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 122 Practical Matters Journal Integral Corporeality and the Body as Place Christianity writ large is replete with body language: from the Incarnation to the Sacraments to the Church as the Body of Christ, value is given to the physical.35 “The Theology of the Body,” an extensive corpus of teaching on the subject by Pope John Paul II, underlines the goodness of the body and reminds that it cannot be reduced to mere matter nor mechanized. Further, the rendering of bodies as atomistic— that is, as disconnected from context and relationship—is not only suspicious, it can lead to irresponsibility. The human person—who is a body, rather than just having or experiencing the body36 —as Pope John Paul II wrote, “belongs to the visible world; he is a body among bodies.”37 Thus,integralcorporeality,aswemightcallit,speaksononeleveltothehumanpersonasbeingcomposite and covenantal in nature. In a broader sense, though, integral corporeality points to a more profound sense of interconnection when it is situated in a vision of Creation as bodies in relationship.38 As we have seen, the Catholic Church recognizes that these bodies—human and non-human—are characteristically interdependent; this is, in part, by virtue of their shared limitedness. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis urges that recognizing bodies as such is “an essential element of any genuine human ecology.”39 Whereas some define the potential of the immortal soul as “the central locus of the human-God relationship and of God’s interaction with humans,”40 the body, too—unified with the soul in the composite nature of personhood—is a locus or a place. Pope Francis reminds that Christians have not always been quick to appropriate the truth that “the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body or from nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us.”41 And, yet, this body as place motif is not unfamiliar to Christians. In his letter to the Church at Corinth, Saint Paul incites his reader with a metaphorical question: “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?”42 All of this suggests that it is in the material, in the body, that the human, God, and nature come together in deeply integrative ways.43 The American phenomenologist Edward Casey explains that “[t]o be in the world, to be situated at all, is to be in place” and that “[p]lace is the phenomenal particularization of being-in the world.”44 Ultimately, he says, “just as there is no place without body—without the physical or psychical traces of body—so there is no body without place;”45 it is the body that orients and disorients.46 As the “vehicle of the here, its carrier or ‘bearer,’”47 the “lived body energizes a place by its own idiosyncratic dynamism, intensifying that place’s own idiolocal character. If we were to begin to think in this direction, our understanding of place itself—place as lived and imagined and remembered—would gain by deepening.”48 If we also render our understanding of bodies in this same way—that is, “as lived and imagined and remembered”—then axioms of nature-as- place and body-as-place converge, underlining the inseparability of nature and body as Casey urges us to consider. In a similar way, the Church professes that it is in the bodiliness of the human person that the sacramentality of creation is made manifest and through the bodiliness of the human person that holiness can come into the visible world.49 The appeal, relevance, and urgency of this kind of integral corporeality—of “integral ecology”—that underscores this binding of nature and body is brought to light by the Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor emeritus of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. Recently honored by the White House as a “Champion
- 127. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 123 Practical Matters Journal of Change”50 for his efforts in elucidating climate change as a civil rights issue, Durley claims that: We are seeing its impacts in our own communities in the form of record-breaking temperatures, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and the list goes on and on. When your children suffer from asthma and cannot go outside to play, as is the case for many in Atlanta, it is a civil rights issue. When unprecedented weather disasters devastate the poorest neighborhoods in places like New Orleans, New Jersey, and New York, it is a civil rights issue. When farmers […] cannot feed their families because the rains will no longer come, it is a civil rights issue.51 Evenmore,theevidenceofpoorenvironmentalhealthinvulnerablecommunitiesthataredisproportionately subjected to toxic air quality further emphasizes the importance of recognizing the bound realities of nature, body, and place, which together are threatened by the “throwaway culture” that Pope Francis has critiqued time and again.52 The realization that each body (human and non-human) is actually “a body among bodies” means that rendering a body (human or non-human) as “disposable,” impoverished, or as an object of exclusion automatically renders all other bodies as negligible in the same way.53 Notes 1 Roderick Nash, “The Greening of Religion,” in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 1996), 194. 2 Nash, “Greening of Religion,” 194-195. 3 Nash, “Greening of Religion,” 195. 4 Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155.3767 (1967): 1203-1207. 5 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205. 6 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205. 7 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205. 8 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205. 9 White, “Historical Roots,” 1205. 10 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206. 11 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206. 12 Nash, “The Greening of Religion,” 198. 13 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206.
- 128. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 124 Practical Matters Journal 14 White, “Historical Roots,” 1207. 15 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206. 16 White, “Historical Roots,” 1206. 17 John Paul II, “S. Franciscus Assisiensis Caelestis Patronus Oecologiae Cultorum Eligitur,” Inter Sanctos, November 29, 1979, accessed September 3, 2015, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/la/apost_letters/1979/ documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19791129_inter-sanctos.html. 18 John Paul II, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation,” World Day of Peace, January 1, 1990, accessed September 3, 2015, https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp- ii_mes_ 19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace.html, §16. 19 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §282-290. 20 Italics mine. See: http://beta.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creationism. 21 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §286. 22 Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965, accessed September 5, 2015, http://www.vatican.va/archive/ hist_ councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html, §36. 23 Joseph Ratzinger, “In the Beginning”: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, trans. Boniface Ramsey (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1990) , 50. 24 Francis, “Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: Address of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Bust in Honour of Pope Benedict XVI,” October 27, 2014, accessed September 5, 2015, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents/papa-francesco_ 20141027_plenaria-accademia-scienze.html, par. 3. 25 See Ps. 145.9, for instance. 26 Gen. 1.31. 27 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §302. 28 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §307. 29 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §343. 30 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §299; §353; Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, April 2, 2004, accessed September 5, 2015, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html, §466. 31 Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium, §463. 32 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §293-294.
- 129. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 125 Practical Matters Journal 33 Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium, §460. 34 International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, 2004, accessed September 5, 2015, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/ rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html, §73. 35 Pope Francis is convinced that Jesus “was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of the world. Such unhealthy dualisms, nonetheless, left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel.” See Laudato Si’, §98. 36 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books, 2006), 681; §8:1; §55:2; §60:1-2. 37 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, §6.3 38 Francis, Laudato Si’, §155. 39 Francis, Laudato Si’, §155. 40 David B. McCurdy, “Personhood, Spirituality, and Hope in the Care of Human Beings with Dementia,” Journal of Clinical Ethics 9.1 (1998): 85. 41 Francis, Laudato Si’, §216. 42 1 Cor. 6.19. 43 Echoing John Paul II, Pope Francis clarifies that “Christianity does not reject matter. Rather, bodiliness is considered in all its value in the liturgical act, whereby the human body is disclosed in its inner nature as a temple of the Holy Spirit and is united with the Lord Jesus, who himself took a body for the world’s salvation.” See Laudato Si’, §235. 44 Edward S. Casey, Getting Back Into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), xv. 45 Edward S. Casey, Getting Back Into Place, 104. 46 Edward S. Casey, Getting Back Into Place, 103. 47 Casey also contends that “the fate of the here is tied entirely and exclusively to that of the body.” See Getting Back Into Place, 51. 48 Edward S. Casey, Getting Back Into Place, 104. 49 See John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, §19.5. 50 See “Champions of Change: Climate Faith Leaders,” July 20, 2015, accessed September 5, 2015, https:// www.whitehouse.gov/champions/climate-faith-leaders.
- 130. Labrecque, Creationism of Another Kind 126 Practical Matters Journal 51 GeraldDurley,“WhyClimateChangeIsaCivilRightsIssue,”HuffPostBlackVoices,August30,2013,accessed March 20, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-gerald-durley/climate-change-civil-rights_b_3844986. html. 52 Francis, Laudato Si’, §20; 25; 29; 45; 48; 49. 53 Francis, Laudato Si’, §2. This discussion of the interdependence of bodies and the co-victimization and co- liberation of nature and bodies will be familiar, in part, to scholars of ecofeminism and to those who have studied the works of Sallie McFague. Not only does McFague contend that Jesus’ paradigmatic ministry is “mediated through bodies” and that the cosmic Christ is “present in and to all bodies,” she is also convinced that the fight for “the inclusion of excluded bodies” (with nature identified as the “new poor”) is very much a part of what it means to be Christian. See Sallie McFague, “The Scope of the Body: The Cosmic Christ,” in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 1996), 286; 289; 292.
- 131. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 127-134. © Rebecca Copeland 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 127 How to Learn from the Lily: Shifting Epistemologies Rebecca L. Copeland Emory University Abstract: Ongoing and increasing ecological threats to human well-being have led to critiques of the anthropocentric focus of religion in general and of Christianity in particular. These critiques have spurred ecotheologians to retrieve sources that offer religious support for environmentally protective actions and construct less anthropocentric approaches to religion. Instead of highlighting ecological messages already present within the tradition, this paper brings a Christian text that is decidedly anthropocentric into conversation with an epistemological approach developed in the modern biomimicry movement. By applying a biomimetic epistemology to a reading of Matthew 6:25-30, this paper demonstrates both the possibility and the value of applying a non-anthropocentric interpretive lens to anthropocentric texts in the ongoing project of reconstructing Christian doctrine in an ecologically sound manner. L ikemostotherworldreligions,Christianityhasreceivedafairshareofcriticismfromtheenvironmental movement for its role in fostering anthropocentric attitudes, worldviews, and ways of knowing.1 In response, some Christian theologians have tried to recover eco-protective strands of the tradition by retrieving, reinterpreting, and reconstructing classical Christian sources and doctrines while others have tried to re-ignite a deep wonder at creation through spiritual practices and the construction of new myths.2 But in order to do more than repent of anthropocentrism, Christianity needs to make the constructive move of building a new way of knowing—knowing the world, ourselves, and God—that is not centered in the human.3 We must recognize the limits of anthropocentric epistemologies, question the sources of knowledge about the world on which we have long relied, and seek new ways to justify our beliefs about ourselves and other creatures. To demonstrate the method and value of developing such an epistemology, this paper first examines the traditional interpretation of Matthew 6:25-30 and how this interpretation currently serves to analyzing
- 132. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 128 Practical Matters Journal bolster anthropocentric tendencies. The second section examines the field of biomimicry in order to find a different perspective on the natural world that has emerged in recent years. The last section applies this biomimetic perspective to the epistemological demand of the text to “consider the lilies of the field” in order to find new horizons of meaning opened by encountering this text from a non-anthropocentric point of view. Consider the Lilies: Scripture and the Lessons of Nature While Christian scripture is not silent regarding the natural world, it tends to isolate a single object of human aesthetic or ethical appreciation—like the industry of the ant or the majesty of the mountains—and ignore the highly complex existence of the isolated object of contemplation.4 The history of interpretation of Matthew 6 reflects this oversimplification, invoking birds of the air and flowers of the field in order to make claims about the nature of God, and the proper moral behavior of human beings, without ever seeing these creatures themselves in all of their complexity. The text reads: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?5 In spite of its use of birds and flowers, this text affirms anthropocentric perspectives. Verses 26 and 30 set out a clear hierarchy that values human beings more highly than other creatures, asking rhetorically, “Are you not of more value than they?” This text was directed to human beings who understood themselves as more valuable than common sparrows and field flowers. Pedagogically, the argument takes the audiences’ preconceptions about the value of human life into account in constructing its argument.6 This paper’s purpose is to explore what more can be gained by considering this passage from a non-anthropocentric perspective, without suggesting that the text was written from such a perspective. Traditionally, this text has been understood to make complementary claims about God’s providence and proper human attitudes. Regarding God’s providence, the author turns to birds and field grass because they were commonly used to represent the brevity and fragility of life.7 Next, the author points out that even though these are relatively worthless and lazy creatures who do not work (specifically, who do not sow, reap, gather, toil, or spin), God cares for them by feeding and clothing them. In fact, God’s extravagant providence is highlighted by favorably comparing the flowers of the field to the great king Solomon clothed “in all his glory.” The argument proceeds from the lesser to the greater: if God cares so well for the birds and the grass, then will he not provide even more for human beings?8 This goes to the thesis of the passage regarding human attitudes: do not worry. The proper Christian mindset is portrayed as a trust in God that dispels all anxiety.9
- 133. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 129 Practical Matters Journal Recently, some ecologically-minded interpreters have attempted to read this text in a more inclusive manner. Richard Bauckham argues that this passage emphasizes God’s care for all living creatures, while Leske argues that it demonstrates principles of mutuality and interdependence in the kingdom of God.10 These readings highlight the roles of animals and plants within the passage, without challenging traditional anthropocentric interpretations that characterize human beings as having greater worth or that overlook the complexity of the lives of sparrows and field flowers.11 The main point of hermeneutical disagreement regarding this text has little to do with its treatment of non-human creatures. Rather, disagreement focuses on what it does not say about what is proper human work. Some ascetics took the examples of the birds and grasses as models, understanding this passage as an admonishment against doing any work in order to fulfill bodily needs. Such interpretations were vigorously opposed by early theologians who assumed that work is both necessary and good. These interpreters did not understand the birds and grasses as models to emulate, but instead limited their roles to serving as examples of God’s lavish care.12 These interpretations are not wrong per se, but they do tend to domesticate the text and strip it of its ability to trouble its audience into a new way of thinking. By reducing the highly complex lives of birds and field flowers to examples of relatively worthless things that God “takes care of anyway,” these interpretations do not delve deeply enough into the relationship between work, creatures, and the Creator. Early Christian interpreters sought greater depth in scripture, looking beyond simple messages for greater challenges. Borrowing from Greek and Stoic philosophers’ allegorical interpretations of Greek myths, Christian exegetes developed a figurative reading of scripture that sought the meaning hidden within texts that had no obvious pedagogical value.13 Such apparently fruitless passages served as “stumbling blocks” that directed the reader towards a different level of interpretation. While this method of reading scripture fell out of favor during the Protestant Reformations, with their emphasis on the literal meaning of scripture, Christian interpretation has a long and fruitful history of figurative and allegorical reading that dates back to the New Testament writings themselves.14 Where morally problematic or pedagogically fruitless passages once served as stumbling blocks, direct contradiction of what we know about non-human creatures today can play that same role. Such contradictions invite the reader to slow down and move beyond traditional interpretations in order to find wisdom never dreamt of by the original authors. While Matthew 6 appeals to anthropocentric beliefs about birds and plants, it is simply incorrect in its characterization of their lives. Birds do harvest their food, and plants do toil to create their blossoms. They just do not do these things in the same ways that human beings do. From an ecotheological perspective, these facts stand as signposts pointing out the need for an alternative epistemological approach. Biomimetic Learning The modern biomimicry movement provides insight into what such an approach requires. At its most basic, biomimicry means “imitation of life.” Within the fields of design and engineering, biomimics turn to natural phenomena to find solutions to technical problems. From our first use of weapons to emulate the teeth, tusks, and claws of our more formidable fellow creatures to current research on capturing solar energy through processes based on photosynthesis, the processes and patterns found in nature often reveal
- 134. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 130 Practical Matters Journal far more sophisticated and efficient solutions than those designed by human beings. For as long as we have made things, human beings have been deriving inspiration from the elegance of nature for our technological innovations. Recently there has been an epistemological shift in the biomimicry movement: nature is no longer just an inspiration or starting point on which humans improve. Rather, many humans are assuming the humbler role of apprentice in the school of natural design as we turn to nature not only as a model, but as the measure against which our work is found wanting and the mentor who keeps correcting our misconceptions.15 Modern biomimics recognize that while human beings have been trying to gain mastery over nature for approximately 10,000 years, nature has been honing design solutions for 3.8 billion years.16 The designs we find in the world around us are the products of wisdom accumulated over eons of natural selection. The average algae found in the humblest pond scum is four times more efficient at gathering solar energy than the best silicone-based solar cell human beings can produce—and scientists are starting to take notice. They are turning to the mundane organisms that surround us to learn more about the processes that run this living planet. Over the past decades and centuries, we have seen failures brought on by our command-and-control approach to resource management in the form of clear-cut forests, collapsing fisheries, mass extinctions, irreversible loss of topsoil, and the ongoing eradication of countless ecosystems, many of which we never even began to understand. The humbler approach of modern biomimics seeks to innovate within living systems rather than in spite of them. With numerous ecological crises threatening our current ways of life, Benyus finds hope in this new attitude, noting that, “Perhaps, in the end, it will not be a change in technology that will bring us to a biomimetic future, but a change of heart.”17 The change of heart seen in modern biomimics is accompanied by certain “shifted” epistemological assumptions. First, they understand that we still do not know how to live within our environment over the long term, in spite of the exponential growth of our scientific knowledge. Time and again, natural resource managers have controlled what they thought was the key variable in a process only to find that their management ultimately led to the destruction of the resource they were trying to optimize. These failures were caused by ignorance of other variables operating in different scales of time and space, variables that were thus invisible from anthropocentric perspectives.18 In light of such catastrophes, modern biomimics have come to recognize that we might not be able to see the answers from our scientific perspective of impartial observers over and apart from the systems in which we live. Finally, they recognize that the best answers to our questions about how we are to survive might require our empathetic engagement with other species and the imaginative adoption of their perspectives into the systems upon which we depend. Modern biomimics are learning to approach the natural world from the points of view of different members of it, seeking to follow the paths already made by their fellow creatures. Wes Jackson and his colleagues at the Land Institute have been compiling the knowledge produced by just such a shifted perspective for over thirty-five years as they try to answer the question of how we are to feed ourselves by studying America’s native prairies.19 While conventional farming strips the Midwest of soil that took ages to create, the biotic amalgam that makes up the native prairies provides a host of ecosystem services including drought resistance, erosion prevention, and pest control. Furthermore, it does so without chemical or mechanical inputs. The complexity of this single ecosystem outstrips all of our land management knowledge. This system was capable of sustaining the thousands of species that depended on
- 135. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 131 Practical Matters Journal it until the arrival of human beings armed with steel plows.20 In order to learn how polycultures of native perennials prevent devastating pest and disease outbreaks while suppressing weeds and stopping erosion altogether, Jackson’s team has had to study the prairie from the perspectives of grasses, legumes, insects, soil microbes, water, and wind, as well as from the perspective of human scientists. Because they have shed their anthropocentric lenses in order to see the vital functions played by all members of the ecosystem, they recognize that in order to develop a perennial prairie that can support human beings, they may have to include plants that do nothing to directly benefit human beings.21 This non-anthropocentric approach demonstrates two important points: first, that it is possible for human beings to expand their horizons and view the world from perspectives other than their own, and second, that doing so does not require abandoning their concern for the welfare of human beings. But it does relativize human concerns, asking not just how humans can feed themselves, but how they can do so without destroying the ecosystem and placing future generations at risk. This slightly different set of questions comes from a different epistemological and ethical starting point. Biomimeticinsightsprovideaframeworkforbuildinganon-anthropocentricreligiousepistemology that could fundamentally alter the relationship between human beings and the natural world. In light of the role religion has played in fostering our current ecological crises, Christians need to recognize that there is something wrong with the way that we currently understand the relationship between human beings and nature, and the relationship between creatures and the Creator. We simply do not know much about the relationship of God to any species but our own. Recognizing this, Christians need to accept that the corrective may not be available so long as theology begins from an anthropocentric perspective. Finally, in light of this possibility, modern theologians should adopt the humbler posture of biomimics in pursuing empathetic engagement with species other than human beings and imaginatively adopting the perspectives of other creatures on many of our key assumptions. Learning who God is and what it means to be a human being may just require that we contemplate the world from the perspective of another member of creation rather than the perspective of its master or crowning jewel. Reconsidering the Lily Matthew 6 instructed its audience to consider the flowers of the field. We have seen how considering the flowers from an anthropocentric perspective meant weighing their aesthetic appeal to a human being against any human-like work they might perform. But reconsidering this verse from a non-anthropocentric perspective requires recognition that the appearance and fragrance of non-domesticated flowers came into being without any regard for human appreciation. It requires examining the value of a flower to the plant on which it grows and to the ecosystem in which it appears. Human beings may clothe themselves in expensive clothes in order to be attractive to one another, to display wealth, and to establish a hierarchy of social worth; but plants neither see nor smell their own or each other’s flowers. Instead, flowers play interrelated roles in the life of a plant and in the functioning of an ecosystem. By allowing plants to reproduce sexually, flowers are vital for the adaptive evolution of their species. To foster such reproduction, flowers are designed to attract insects that will carry pollen between plants, allowing the production of seeds containing the genetic
- 136. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 132 Practical Matters Journal material of both parents and the emergence of a new generation. They do this by providing those pollinating insects with the food they need to survive, and sending out visual and chemical signals to indicate the presence of such nectar. Flowers contribute to the survival and adaptation of the species, but they also contribute to the well-being of their own individual plants by creating a more inviting environment for predators and parasites of herbivorous insects, enlisting bugs in the plant’s defense against other bugs that might cause them damage. Flowers are designed to attract, feed, and shelter those that are wholly other to the plant. The grasses on which the flowers grow also benefit others. Neighboring plants may benefit from the minerals and water brought up by the deep roots of perennial grasses. The grasses can improve the absorption and retention of water in the soil, and provide shelter to other species from the wind or sun. Furthermore, they do benefit human beings, as food, fuel, and objects of aesthetic appreciation. They moderate the temperature and air quality of their surroundings, convert sunlight to energy usable by themselves and by other creatures, improve the soil, and contribute to the flourishing of their ecosystems. These are just some of the valuable functions fulfilled by the flowering grasses of the field, the grasses deemed relatively worthless by traditional readings of Matthew 6. Turning next to the claim that they do not toil, it is true that plants do not spin, but they absolutely do work. They draw both water and nutrients from the soil in which they grow and use these items for their ongoing sustenance. Through the light and dark reactions of photosynthesis, they convert the energy from the sun into sugars that can nourish both themselves and other living beings. Plants work both day and night. When they begin to bloom, plants divert much of this work from their own growth and into flower production. The plant sacrifices its own individual flourishing in order to generate flowers, benefiting a host of other species and providing for the next generation of plants. Plants do not spin, but they labor at the work that is appropriate to them and to their place in the larger ecosystem. This brief reconsideration of the flowers of the field indicates that our aesthetic appreciation does not begin to capture what might be learned by truly considering them. The consensus among exegetes that this passage forbids too much anxiety over material concerns is true but incomplete. This passage also positively assesses creatures for doing the work proper to their being the creatures that they are. It indicates possible measures for what is appropriate work: work that benefits more than self, work that serves other species and future generations, and work that involves both sustenance and beauty. It encourages the biomimetic reader to contemplate the unintended benefits and the cascading goods that can come from doing small acts appropriate to the socio-ecological system in which one lives. There are as many avenues open for exploration as there are facts about flowers in the field. Furthermore, if God is manifested in every part of creation as countless theologians have claimed, the life of the flower of the field challenges Christian preconceptions about an impassive and immutable God. The creation of a field flower indicates a deep concern for mutuality and interdependence, but not for stability or immortality. The coevolution of flowers and insects indicates a Creator who uses change to create novelty, not an immutable God who finds change repugnant. Considering creation from a biomimetic perspective discloses untapped sources of knowledge in the lives of other creatures within their own environments. True attention to these sources opens up fields of theological inquiry that could correct the damaging attitudes towards nature that religion has long fostered while freeing Christianity from some of its anthropocentric assumptions.
- 137. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 133 Practical Matters Journal Notes 1 Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967): 1203-1207. See David R. Kinsley, Ecology & Religion: Ecological Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995), 103-114; and Heather Eaton, “Where Do We Go From Here? Methodology, Next Steps, Social Change,” in Christian Faith and the Earth: Current Paths and Emerging Horizons in Ecotheology, eds. Ernst M. Conradie, Sigurd Bergmann, Celia Deane-Drummond, & Denis Edwards (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014). 2 For examples of the first approach, see Jame Schaefer, Theological Foundations for Environmental Ethics: Reconstructing Patristic and Medieval Concepts (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009); Denis Edwards, “Where on Earth is God? Exploring an Ecological Theology of the Trinity in the Tradition of Athanasius,” and Sigurd Bergmann, “Where on Earth Does the Spirit ‘Take Place’ Today? Considerations on Pneumatology in the Light of the Global Environmental Crisis,” in Christian Faith and the Earth: Current Paths and Emerging Horizons in Ecotheology, ed. Ernst M. Conradie, et al. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014). For examples of the second approach, see Douglas E. Christie, The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Journey of the Universe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011) and the film by the same; Anne Primavesi, Gaia and Climate Change: A Theology of Gift Events (New York: Routledge, 2009); and Thomas Berry, The Great Work (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999). 3 This was the goal of the Earth Bible Project, although the team involved noted that even scholars committed to this task showed “a general reluctance…to discern those components of the text in context that are forcefully anthropocentric.” See “Ecojustice Hermeneutics: Reflections and Challenges,” in The Earth Story of the New Testament, ed. Norman C. Habel & Vicky Balabanski (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 2. 4 See Prv 30:25 (ants); Ps 36:6 (mountain); Is 11:6 and 53:7 (lambs); Nu 27:7, Ps 100:3, Is 53:6-7, Jer 50:6, Zec 13:7, Mt 9:36 and 10:16, 1 Pe 2:25 (sheep); et al. 5 NRSV. 6 Ecologically-minded interpreters frequently note both the presence and the inevitability of anthropocentrism in early Christian writers, who obviously had no access to contemporary ecological understandings or other insights from modern science. See “Ecojustice Hermeneutics: Reflections and Challenges,” 1-2 (“We could not expect a biblical writer to assume a biocentric perspective”), and Ernst M. Conradie, “What on Earth is an Ecological Hermeneutics? Some Broad Parameters,” in Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives, eds. David G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, Christopher Southgate, and Francesca Stavrakopoulou, (New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 297. 7 W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Edinburgh: T & T Clark Limited, 1988), 653. See also Adrian M. Leske, “Matthew 6.25-34: Human Anxiety and the Natural World,” in The Earth Story in the New Testament, 25. 8 Leske, 25; David G. Horrell, The Bible and the Environment: Towards a Critical Ecological Biblical Theology
- 138. Copeland, Learn from the Lily 134 Practical Matters Journal (London: Equinox, 2010), 66; and Richard Bauckham, “Reading the Synoptic Gospels Ecologically,” in Ecological Hermeneutics, 76. 9 Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7, Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 347. See also Leah D. Schade, “Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Gospels—A Feasting on the Word Commentary, Matthew, Volume 1, Chapters 1-13, eds. Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 148. 10 Bauckham, 76; Leske, 20-27. 11 Bauckham acknowledges the limitations of his own project, conceding that “The suggestions made here do not have direct ethical implications…the enterprise of reading the Gospels ecologically has barely begun,” 81. Horrell characterizes Leske as “rather over-optimistic in his reading…when he argues that the (ecojustice) principles of interconnectedness and the mutual kinship of humans and all created things are implicitly promoted here,” The Bible and the Environment, 69. 12 Luz, 347. 13 John H. Hayes and Carl R. Holladay, Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner’s Handbook, 3rd Ed., (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 18-19. 14 See the Pauline figurative interpretation of the story of Sarah and Hagar in Gal 4:22-31. 15 Janine M. Benyus, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1997), front material. 16 Benyus, 2, 5. 17 Benyus, 8. 18 C.S. Holling, Lance H. Gunderson, and Donald Ludwig, “In Quest of a theory of Adaptive Change,” in Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, eds. Lance H. Gunderson and C.S. Holling (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2002), 6. See also David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1998), 19-20. 19 See The Land Institute, “The Land Institute: Transforming Agriculture, Perennially,” The Land Institute, https://landinstitute.org/; and Benyus, 20-36. 20 Donald Worster, “Dust Follows the Plow,” in Nature’s Economy: The Roots of Ecology, (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977), 221-253. 21 Benyus, 32.
- 139. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 135-147. © Jonathan K. Crane 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 135 Arboreal Wisdom? Epistemology and Ecology in Judaic Sources Jonathan K. Crane Emory University Center for Ethics Abstract What can trees teach us? Some, like Socrates, insist that there is no wisdom among the trees. Others contend that though trees appear wise, their insights transcend human intelligence and striving to grasp them is epistemologically futile. And still others hold that trees have much to offer humans if only we would take the time and effort to encounter them fully, bodily even. This paper explores such positions as they are articulated in those Judaic sources that speak explicitly of trees and their different kinds of arboreal wisdom. “You must forgive me, dear friend. I’m a lover of learning, and open country and trees won’t teach me anything, whereas men in the town do.” Plato, Phaedrus, 230d. W ere Judaism to follow Socrates’ lead, this essay would be short indeed. This is because Socrates was a quintessential urbanite, so convinced that wisdom resided only within the city gates amongst fellow humans. Whatever existed beyond those barriers could only be wild and barbarous, unworthy of study or deserving respect. Of this he was certain: knowledge generally and wisdom in particular have only human provenances.1 Socrates’ disdain of nature and of trees specifically was not unique, of course. Consider the antipathy articulated by Moses toward those who would seek inspiration and protection among human-made wood idols: “There you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, that cannot see or hear or eat or smell.”2 His analyzing
- 140. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 136 Practical Matters Journal warnings against the seductions of worshipping insensate things are echoed by both the prophet Habbakuk3 and King David.4 They also insist that obeisance to manufactured idols is nothing but a sham, a delusional practice the end of which is only woody woe. Were such denigration of nature and trees the predominant attitude in Jewish sources, we would have merely mentioned such sources as proof positive that whatever knowledge and wisdom we humans possess or claim to possess derives from our own ingenuity and insight. Of course, such anthropocentricism does not preclude revelation being a possible source of wisdom and guidance. But this attitude certainly would refute ab initio any impulse to look admiringly at the natural world beyond the city gates for glimmers of fact, value, insight or even self-knowledge. It would paint the natural world in a single hue, an undifferentiated and boring wasteland except for its base utility to city life. Judaic Nature of Nature & Arboreal Difference Thankfully such hostility toward nature does not dominate in the Judaic textual tradition. As will be demonstrated here, ample material exists in classic Jewish sources that acknowledge that nature and trees in particular are not all alike, and that they offer a variety of goods, such as, for example, being a fiery site of divine revelation itself. Consider the fact that the very story of creation narrates a nature into being that is comprised of ecological niches rich with their own flora and fauna. Kind upon animal kind fly and walk, swim and swarm, creep and crawl. According to the first version of creation, trees are also dissimilar: there are seed-bearing plants and fruit trees5 that are for humans to eat, while all the other animals shall consume the other green plants.6 Such plants are deemed divinely good. The second version of creation similarly portrays the natural world as composed of different kinds of things. Here, God trots before the primordial human all kinds of animals in hopes that one might satisfy the human’s existential loneliness.7 That this experiment fails is, of course, a wonderment on so many levels. But perhaps even more fascinating is that God plants a garden with a wide array of flora and places therein the human. Observe the diverse kinds of plants in this Edenic garden: Adonai God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom [God] had formed. And from the ground Adonai God caused to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.8 There are trees that are aesthetically pleasing, there are trees that are nutritious, and there are at least two special trees—one called the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the other that ominously sits in the garden’s center. The primordial human is situated in this garden and tasked to till and tend it. Heaped atop this responsibility is restraint: the human may eat of every tree except for the peculiar tree of the knowledge of good and evil; consuming from that special specimen curries lethal consequences.9 About the tree of life in the garden’s center more will be said later. For now, alone, naked, with barely a trowel in hand, this primordial person is bidden to steward this divine and edible garden. More, this person must somehow discern which tree is which. Some trees appear
- 141. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 137 Practical Matters Journal to be appetizing (“pleasant to the sight”) yet their real nutritional value is negligible if not deleterious. Other trees that are nutritious (“good for food”) may not be as aesthetically pleasing yet knowing which they are is existentially advantageous. The tree of moral knowledge, by contrast, eludes discovery because it lacks any special markings. The human could only know which specific tree it is from some other source. That other source is, of course, our wily friend the naḥash,10 who comes to guile the second human, the woman, into eating from that very tree. To her, that tree appears simultaneously as nutritious, beautiful, and a desirable source of wisdom.11 No wonder she plucks its fruit, takes a bite and gives some to her partner. Theologically speaking, that bite forever changed human history. Indeed, it changed humanity itself. After this incident the other special tree—the otherwise unidentified tree in the middle of the garden—becomes even more valued. But more valued by whom? Even though they know precisely where it is, the now morally knowledgeable humans do not rush to it much less eat from it. Indeed, they remain blissfully ignorant of that central tree’s powers. Had they known, perhaps they might have rushed over to eat from it so to counteract the lethal demise promised them for nibbling the other tree’s forbidden fruit. But they do not. These now morally wise people do not care about that tree because they do not know what it is physically or what it promises metaphysically, but God surely does. God knows it is the tree of immortal life, and fearful that the humans become no different from deities generally, God banishes them from the garden altogether so to protect the tree from any human encroachment.12 Thus far the bible identifies many kinds of trees. There are edible ones; attractive ones; a morally illuminating one; and one theoretically promising immortality. In brief, trees supply various and necessary goods. Just as some provide physical sustenance, others are sources of aesthetic preference, or morality, or the very idea of futurity itself. And since God calls trees good and plants them in the first place, it stands to reason trees enjoy divine endorsement. Indeed, consider the one flaring beyond the verdant garden and well outside any city gate. This tree burns with a flame that consumes it not. Astonished, Moses stops to investigate this phenomenon. It is precisely his turn to study nature—particularly a weird tree—that stimulates God to make Godself known to Moses.13 Intentional human observation not just of nature but of trees as such, is thus a prerequisite for divine revelation. So too is the preservation of distance. God forbids Moses to come closer. Sight—the sense by which Moses chooses to study and learn about this strange fiery arboreal phenomenon—and sound— the sense by which God chooses to communicate with him—are distal senses. Too much intimacy would compromise the communion God seeks. The pedagogy of place, the teaching this or perhaps any tree can provide, requires both immediacy—no sandals, please—and some mediation—attend, but do not touch. When Moses prostrates himself, it is not from fear of witnessing the physical phenomenon of the enflamed ashless tree. Strange nature does not scare. Rather, he hides his face so to blind himself from seeing the metaphysical face of God. What is radically unknowable terrifies more than the currently unknown. This incident suggests that this tree—any tree, for that matter, since this enlightening one is unspecified— can serve as both a medium of revelation as well as part of its message. Wisdom, and divine wisdom at that, may be encountered by and in a tree. There’s just one caveat, of course: trees are revelatory if and only if one pauses long enough to observe them.
- 142. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 138 Practical Matters Journal Such an interpretation is not too distant from a Levinasian one. The idea that the other is the enemy of the Same is an abuse of the notion; its alterity does not bring us to the play of the dialectic, but to an incessant questioning, without any ultimate instance, of the priority and tranquility of the Same, like an inextinguishable flame which burns yet consumes nothing. And the form of this flame, surely, is the prescription of the Jewish Revelation, with its unfulfillable obligation. An unfulfillable obligation, a burning which does not even leave any ash, since ash would be still, in some respect, a substance resting on itself. The ‘less’ is forever bursting open, unable to contain the ‘more’ that it contains, in the form of the ‘the one for the other.’14 On his account, though this burning tree is ashless, its residue is prescription, specifically God’s instruction— nay, command—to liberate the Israelites. The tree patiently bursts open, forever revealing the boundless ‘more’ of the command that resides in the natural boundedness of the tree. In this way this inextinguishable bush embodies the eternality of “the one for the other” – the insatiable burning of responsibility for and obedience to the other’s commanding presence. For Levinas as for Moses, one may never and can never fully know the mystery of an other—be it human, tree, or divine. This very limitation bespeaks the existence of the other’s transcendence that is irreducible to any substance that could, like ash, fall back inert upon itself. This means that what we know we know is limited; we can be certain about many things but our certainty cannot be exhaustive. Thus for Moses and Levinas, we can know that we are commanded, obligated, encumbered by the other others whom we encounter. But we cannot know the full nature of those commands and obligations and encumberances before or during those encounters. We may only glimpse the other’s transcendence in their fiery existence before we fall before them in obeisance. It cannot be otherwise, for were we to fully and truly know these other others, they would be neither: they would be same; they would be us and we would be so self-consumed we would be inert, ash, dead to the world. Such a collapse into self cannot and should not be. Arboreal Wisdom For now, it seems Socrates and those other tree disparagers give expression to the underlying question: what can nature—and trees—do for me? In their view, the value of nature and trees rests solely on their utility for furthering human interests. There is no mystery or metaphysical feature to trees. Senseless and dumb, there is no reason to give trees much thought or attention. Such people do not see trees for what they are but for what they can become through human hands, such as idols or siegeworks. The bible on the whole strongly disagrees. It wonders not what trees can do for me but what they can do to me. Consider that trees shape and nourish our corporeal existence no less than our aesthetic preferences, our ethical impulses, and even our glimmers of holiness. That one tree holds the secret to longevity—a secret that would radically alter our very essence to be sure—yet is eternally beyond our reach, perhaps human mortality is purposeful and we should be content with our lot. The difference between Socrates and the Bible could not be more different or radical: the burning question is not what humans can
- 143. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 139 Practical Matters Journal make from trees but how trees make us human. There is yet more. As we shall now see, Judaism contends that trees are a prime source of ideas, of all-encompassing conversation, and of contemplation of my very being in existential, philosophical, as well as theological terms. Some sources go on to hold that humans would do well to emulate trees, for arboreal existence is in many ways divine. For example, in this prophetic text Jotham rails against his brother Abimelech who arrogantly appointed himself king over Israel. He conveys to the Israelites the danger of such monarchical comeuppance through a parable. Here trees are no longer trees per se but illustrations of some idea, which, in this instance, is the idea of proper governance. Through Jotham’s mouth, trees bespeak the radical notion that when populations allow a ruler to be appointed without divine imprimatur, good candidates will and should rightfully decline the opportunity. This means the people in the end will find themselves a shady and shaky leader whose thorns promise only a fiery demise for the population itself. In this parable certain trees—the olive, fig, and vine—stand for the virtues of humility, unselfishness, and restraint, while others like the jujube tree represent vices of egoism and excessive overconfidence.15 More than merely representing ideas, virtues and vices, trees also speak of them through arboreal language. All the trees ()חיש of the field (Genesis 2:5). All the trees, as it were, conversed ()םיחשמ with each other; all the trees, as it were, conversed with mankind; all the trees were created for man’s companionship [or benefit].16 This special language—hinted at in biblical materials—becomes for the rabbis one of the many secrets of the natural world that can be learned. No less than Hillel, a great sage who lived in Jerusalem during King Herod’s reign, took pains to study the natural world and its secret languages alongside human sources.17 If it is true that trees communicate in their own language, it must be possible then to converse with them. On this account we can learn a great deal from them and of them. This is no fanciful rabbinic worldview, mind you. Consider that Martin Buber—the great 20th century philosopher and theologian— situates encountering a tree as the example par excellence of relation and dialogue, even of contemplation itself. In one text Buber describes holding his walking stick against an oak tree’s trunk. In that instance he felt “contact with being.”18 He was simultaneously here and there. Moreover, his stick was the medium through which conversation—the transportation of ideas—occurs: it is genuine speech. But speech is not just a thing of this world, a substance like dead ash. Genuine, living speech entails both the physical me here and the insubstantial me over there where you—tree or person—are. In genuine speech I am simultaneously natural and supernatural. At one and the same time, I am comprehendible because I am tangible here (“where I am, where ganglia and organ of speech”) and I am incomprehensible because I must be received over there (“also there, where he is, something of me is delegated…pure vibration and incomprehensible”). Though any and every reception is only partial, genuine speech is transcendent insofar as it breaks me from my groundedness here and transplants me over there where I am received. Genuine speech encompasses being (“I encompass him to whom I turn”). Trees communicate and thus also spark contemplation. In his famous I and Thou, Buber describes
- 144. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 140 Practical Matters Journal the various ways we contemplate and especially the ways we increasingly abstract from the beings we encounter.19 This process decreases our intellectual proximity to that which we contemplate, dissolving it and ourselves into a mutual exile. Such is the power of I-It contemplation, of keeping beings as objects. A wholly different kind of encounter is possible that draws self and other out of exile and into true relation. Like gravity, there comes a point where “the power of exclusiveness seizes” and two entities encounter bodily, intimately, requiring no forgetting. And here Buber introduces reciprocity. Reciprocity is neither equality nor equanimity, but a quid pro quo, an encounter between different selves in which differences matter yet paradoxically are immaterial to the intensity of the relation itself. How a tree encounters me—whether it contemplates me at all and if it does, whether it contemplates me as I do it—remains transcendent, beyond the limits of my experience and knowledge. So even as I set about embracing this tree I encounter in front of me and allow myself to be seized by its very being, I must also embrace the limits of this encounter, that is, the limits of my own transcendence. For at one and the same time as I encounter this tree I am here and there, transmitting language from here and being received over there. I am here receiving arboreal communication—such as it is—and yet I can never completely situate myself there in and as the tree itself for I am forever, eternally, just me. The transcendence of such I-Thou relations paradoxically reveals my own boundedness and limitations, the edges of my existence, the bark of my being. Buber’s student and colleague Franz Rosenzweig similarly points to trees to investigate philosophical contemplation. For experience knows nothing of objects; it remembers, it lives, it hopes and fears. At best, the content of memory could be understood as an object; [but] then it would be precisely an understanding, and not the content itself. For [the content] is not remembered as my object. It is nothing but a prejudice of the last three hundred years that, in all knowing, the “I” must be present; thus that I could not see a tree unless “I” saw it. In truth, my I is only present if it – is present; for instance, if I have to emphasize that I see the tree because someone else does not see it, then, certainly, the tree is in connection with me in my knowing. But in all other cases I know only of the tree and nothing else; and the usual philosophical assertion of the I’s omnipresence in all knowing distorts the content of this knowledge.20 He criticizes the presumption of Western philosophy that its thoughts are atemporal, outside of time, eternal—as if its thinkers had already consumed of the tree of immortality. This deceit is egotistical, to say the least. By contrast, he calls for a new thinking that is more humble and earthy. Why is truth so woefully Removed? To the deepest ground banned? None understands at the right time! If we But understood at the right time, how near and broad The truth would be, how lovely and mild!21
- 145. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 141 Practical Matters Journal Pointing to Goethe’s observation that truth and wisdom are unearthed only at the right time, Rosenzweig’s new thinking champions verbs more than nouns. Movement, not stasis, is the stuff of life and thus the stuff of philosophy. This new thinking concerns more the very act of speaking than it does with what is actually said. As such, it requires thinking for the other, a reaching out toward the other, a rupturing oneself so to relate. It is where beings interact—where verb-ing occurs—that temporality itself eternally unfolds. Relation is where immortality resides. Trees are instructive not only about the limits of our purported philosophical wisdom but also about the nature of our nature. Take, for example, the theological conviction that God is radically singular. It stands to reason for the 9th century philosopher Saadia Gaon that all other entities—trees and humans alike—cannot be radically singular. When the substances of all beings are analyzed, they are found to be endowed with the attributes of heat and cold and moisture and dryness. When the substance of the tree is examined, it is found to include, in addition to the aforementioned, branches and leaves and fruits, and all that is connected therewith. When the human body, again, is examined, it is found to be composed, besides the elements listed above, of flesh and bones and sinews and arteries and muscles and all that goes with them.22 They—we—must be complex concoctions of multiple substances. Such discoveries about our physical existence sharpen our understandings of our metaphysical properties, and these discoveries emerge from our study of the natural world, especially of trees. Even more profound, by appreciating how trees grow we can also come to know God. The renewal rabbi Zalman Shacter-Shalomi once observed that onions grow from the inside out while trees accrete age from the outside in. I had often in my kitchen sliced an onion and seen how in the onion and other vegetables the rings evolve from the center of the onion: the newest ring is the nearest to the center. Not so in a tree. The tree grows from the growing edge, nearest the outside bark. The inner rings are from the youth of the tree and the outer ones are from the recent past. So every year a new ring begins at that growing edge. It is between the wood of last year’s ring and the outer bark.23 Though he doesn’t mention it, these are two forms of tzimtzum, the mystical notion of divine withdrawal that enables creation to occur in the first place. There is contraction from a point, as in trees growing outward, ever expanding into the world. The Infinite contracted itself at its midpoint, in the exact center of its light, and after He contracted that light and withdrew away from that mid-point to the sides surrounding it, it left a vacant place - and empty space, and a void, like this:
- 146. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 142 Practical Matters Journal That contraction was completely uniform around the midpoint, so that the void was uniformly circular on all sides. It was not shaped like a square with fixed corners, because the Infinite had contracted itself like a circle, uniformly from all sides.24 Here the past is kept locked within the ever accreting present, the future always awaiting beyond the bark’s dark edges. The here and now forever contracts away from the tree’s core, its origin and creation. The other form of tzimtzum is constriction into a point, like onions ever expanding inward. This kind of tzimtzum pulses from within, pushing and stretching thin and ultimately bursting the past that used to be within. Try as they might, onions cannot crush themselves enough into a point, into the present, into here and now. Though true for onions, God is otherwise: God said, “That which you are explaining [about the building of the Tabernacle] is only my own explaining: 20 side-boards in the north, 20 in the south, and 8 in the west, and no more so I will come down and concentrate ()םצמצא my Shechinah inside measure for measure.”25 Just as we take both forms of plantlife seriously, so too should we consider both forms of tzimtzum. God both contracts the divine self to allow creation to come into being and God emanates from within the (relatively tiny) humanly constructed Tabernacle. Just as trees teach us about God, they also teach us how to relate with God. As if with Socrates in mind, Jeremiah warns against trusting only humankind. Thus said Adonai: “Accursed is the man who trusts in people and makes flesh his strength and turns his heart away from Adonai. He will be like a lone tree in the desert, and will not see when goodness comes; it dwells in parched lands in the wilderness, in a salty, uninhabited land. Blessed is the man who trusts in Adonai, then Adonai will be his security. He will be like a tree planted near water, which spreads out its roots along a brook and does not see when heat comes, whose foliage is ever fresh; it will not worry in a year of drought and will not stop producing fruit.”26 Those who do, suffer isolation in salty—and thus deadly—narcissism. Rather, those who trust God draw sustenance from elsewhere, outside themselves, and because of this they will exist forever fruitful, unperturbed even when climates change.
- 147. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 143 Practical Matters Journal If only we planted ourselves firmly enough in God’s soil we would be just like trees, only inverted. In the view of Judah Lowe ben Bezalel, the 16th century mystic of Prague, we humans are merely upside-down trees. For, in truth, a man is called a tree of the field, as it is written, Trees of the field are human (Deuteronomy 20:19). It’s just that he is an upside-down tree, for the tree has its roots stuck below in the land, whereas man has his roots above, for the soul, which is his root, is from heaven. And the hands are the branches of the tree, the feet are the branches off the branches, his trunk is the center of the tree. And why is he an upside-down tree? Because the tree’s roots are below for the tree’s life is from the earth, while the life of a person’s soul is from heaven.27 Our roots entangled in heaven, our handy branches meddling in the mud of this world. Ironically, this echoes a different Platonic teaching that also discusses human nature in arboreal terms: We declare that God has given to each of us, as his daemon, that kind of soul which is housed in the top of our body and which raises us—seeing that we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant up from earth towards our kindred in the heaven. And herein we speak most truly; for it is by suspending our head and root from that region whence the substance of our soul first came that the Divine Power keeps upright our whole body.28 As if we are inverted trees, we solidify our roots the more we contend with holy or rational thought. It is for perhaps this reason that being tree-like is desirable. Rabbi Nahman blesses his friend and colleague Rabbi Isaac thus: just as a tree whose fruit are sweet and offspring many, may your offspring be like you—endowed with the riches of the world, rooted in tradition, ever aiming toward understanding, illuminating and embodying God’s will.29 That is, the idealized human is hardly different from a tree. To be human is to be arboreal. Anthropocentric Aborealism? Evenaswepraiseourselvesinandthroughtrees,wemustpausetowonderaboutthisanthropocentric turn. Why and whence this impulse to compare humans to trees? Why should we aspire to be like trees? Why cannot we appreciate trees in and of themselves without this recursive and reflexive look upon ourselves? Is Socrates correct—that all knowledge necessarily reverts back to and upon the human condition? If this is the case, why distract ourselves with what grows beyond the city gates? Perhaps a different perspective on these sources challenges the anthropocentric narrative I have just outlined. This other interpretation identifies at least three schools of thought weaving throughout the Judaic textual tradition that articulate distinct attitudes toward trees. The first group—including Genesis 3 and the tree of morality, Masekhet Sofrim’s Hillel learning the language of trees, the trees seeking rulers in Jeremiah, the talking trees in Genesis Rabbah 13.2, Jeremiah’s call to be tree-like, and the encounter in Buber’s Meetings—insist that we can and perhaps should know and experience what nature apparently hides, such as morality, immortality, proper governance, and certain virtues and the like. A second group holds that we cannot know such wisdom, for that would undermine the very nature of nature, insofar as that which is supernatural cannot reside in the natural lest it risk not being supernatural at all. This group would include
- 148. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 144 Practical Matters Journal Levinas, Buber’s I and Thou, Rosenzweig, Saadia Gaon, and Shachter-Shalomi. A third group, inclusive of Genesis Rabbah 15.6 and Genesis 3 about the tree of immortality, is more skeptical and ambivalent. Even if we could know what trees are and know, we should not. For this group, we should embrace the limits of our knowledge and of our being. I am unwilling, at this stage, to claim that one is the dominant school of thought in Judaism and the others subordinate or countertraditions. Rather, I suggest that Judaism continues to wrestle with an ambivalence about the powers and limits of human knowledge. Indeed, all three schools of thought evidence an ongoing Judaic study of ecology in general and an appreciation of trees in particular. Indeed, Judaism disagrees with Socrates’ call to close the city gates and presume that wisdom and flourishing are exclusively humanly derived. Rather, Judaism encourages us to break forth from narcissistic civilization and encounter the natural world—especially as it is embodied in trees. For out there, in the embrace of those quietly communicating wise trees, we may encounter both revelation as well as ourselves. Endnotes 1 See, for example, Michael Marder, “The Philosopher’s Plant 1.0: Plato’s Plane Tree.” Project Syndicate, November 26, 2012. www.project-syndicate.org/print/plato-s-plane-tree. 2 Deuteronomy 4:28. All biblical translations taken from the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 2nd edition. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999. 3 “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.” The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” Habbakuk 2:18-20. 4 “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who fashion them, all who trust in them, shall become like them.” Psalms 135:15-17. 5 Genesis 1:11-12. 6 “God said, “See I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” Genesis 1:29-30. 7 Genesis 2:18-20. 8 Genesis 2:8-9.
- 149. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 145 Practical Matters Journal 9 “Adonai God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. And Adonai God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.’” Genesis 2:15-17. 10 The naḥash is frequently translated as serpent or snake. What we now know as a serpent (a long, limbless creature that slithers in the dust and with whom humans have antipathy) becomes this identifiable creature only after and because of the curses meted out by God for the improper eating done by the human woman and man (Genesis 3-14-15). If these curses were to be existentially significant, the naḥash must not have been this kind of creature beforehand. The term naḥash thus captures the facts that this creature knew divine knowledge (specifically about the tree of moral wisdom), knew human language, could converse with the humans which itself would not be unusual, and perhaps even had motivation to get the woman in trouble because the naḥash itself wanted to be the fitting helpmeet but was, for one reason or another, not selected by the man. 11 “When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was a desirable source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband and he ate.” Genesis 3:6. 12 “And Adonai God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” So Adonai God banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.” Genesis 3:22-24. 13 Exodus 3:1-6. 14 Emmanuel Levinas, “Revelation in the Jewish Tradition.” In The Levinas Reader, 209. Edited by Sean Hand. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. 15 “All the inhabitants of Shechem and all of Bet-Millo gathered together, and they went and crowned Abimelech as king, by the Plain of the Monument, which was Shechem. They told Jotham, so he went and stood atop Mount Gerizzim and raised his voice and cried out; he said to them, “Listen to me, O inhabitants of Shechem, so that God may listen to you! The trees went to anoint a king over themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us!’ But the olive tree said to them,‘Shall I cause my richness to cease, whereby God and men honor themselves through me, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the fig tree,’You go and reign over us!’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Shall I cause my sweetness and my goodly produce to cease, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then the trees said to the grapevine, ‘You go and reign over us!’ But the grapevine said to them, ‘Shall I give up my vintage that gladdens God and men, and go to wave over the trees?’ Then all the trees went to the jujube and said, ‘You go and reign over us!’ The jujube said to the trees, ‘If with honesty do you anoint me as king over you, then come and take shelter in my shade; but if not, then may a flame come forth from the jujube and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’”” Judges 9:6-15.
- 150. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 146 Practical Matters Journal 16 Genesis Rabbah 13.2, end. 17 “It is said of Hillel, that he did not omit to study any of the words of the sages, even all the languages, even the speech of the mountains, hills and valleys, the speech of trees and herbs, the speech of wild beasts and cattle, the speech of melody and of parable. Why did he study all of these? Because it is stated, God was pleased, for God’s righteousness sake, to make the teaching great and glorious (Isaiah 42:21).” Maskehet Ketanot, Sofrim, 16.7. 18 “After a descent during which I had to utilize without a halt the late light of a dying day, I stood on the edge of a meadow, now sure of the safe way, and let the twilight come down upon me. Not needing a support and yet willing to afford my lingering a fixed point, I pressed my walking stick against a trunk of an oak tree. Then I felt in twofold fashion my contact with being: here, where I held the stick, and there, where it touched the bark. Apparently only where I was, I nonetheless found myself there too where I found the tree. “At that time dialogue appeared to me. For the speech of man is like that stick wherever it is genuine speech, and that means: truly directed address. Here, where I am, where ganglia and organs of speech help me to form and to send forth the word, here I “mean” him to whom I send it, I intend him, this one unexchangeable man. But also there, where he is, something of me is delegated, something that is not at all substantial in nature like that being here, rather pure vibration and incomprehensible; that remains there, with him, the man meant by me, and takes part in the receiving of my word. I encompass him to whom I turn.” Found in Buber’s Meetings, “The Walking Stick and the Tree,” 41-42. 19 “I contemplate a tree. I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground. I can feel it as movement: the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air - and the growing itself in its darkness. I can assign it to a species and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of life. I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law - those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate. I can dissolve it into a number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it. Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition. But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me. This does not require me to forego any of the modes of contemplation. There is nothing that I must not see in order to see, and there is no knowledge that I must forget. Rather is everything, picture and movement, species and instance, law and number included and inseparably fused. Whatever belongs to the tree is included: its form and its mechanics, its colors and its chemistry, its conversation with the elements and its conversation with the stars - all this in its entirety. The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I must deal with it - only differently. One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity.
- 151. Crane, Arboreal Wisdom? 147 Practical Matters Journal Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.” Found in Buber’s I and Thou, 57-59. 20 Franz Rosenzweig, “The New Thinking.” In Philosophical and Theological Writings, 120-121. Translated by Paul W. Franks and Michael L. Morgan. 21 In “The New Thinking”, p 122. 22 “Inasmuch as the Creator of the universe, exalted and magnified be He, is essentially one, it follows by logical necessity that His creatures be composed of many elements.... [T]he thing that generally gives the appearance of constituting a unity, whatever sort of unit it be, is singularonlyinnumber.Uponcarefulconsideration,however,itisfoundtobeofamultiplenature.Toreducethis generalization to simpler terms, when the substances of all beings are analyzed, they are found to be endowed with the attributes of heat and cold and moisture and dryness. When the substance of the tree is examined, it is found to include, in addition to the aforementioned, branches and leaves and fruits, and all that is connected therewith. When the human body, again, is examined, it is found to be composed, besides the elements listed above, of flesh and bones and sinews and arteries and muscles and all that goes with them. This is a matter about which no doubt can be entertained and the reality of which is not to be denied.” Gaon, Saadia. The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Treatise X. Translated by Samuel Rosenblatt. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1948. 23 Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, “The Rings of Growth,” In Trees, Earth, and Torah, 285. 24 Chayim Vital, Etz Chayim, 11-14. 25 Exodus Rabbah 35:1. 26 Jeremiah 17:5-8. 27 Netsah Yisrael, p 47, section 7; found in Trees, Earth, and Torah, p 298. 28 Timaeus, 90a-b. See discussion in Marder (2012). 29 “When they were about to part, [R. Nahman] said: Pray Master, bless me. [R. Isaac] replied: Let me tell you a parable — To what may this be compared? To a man who was journeying in the desert; he was hungry, weary and thirsty and he lighted upon a tree the fruits of which were sweet, its shade pleasant, and a stream of water flowing beneath it; he ate of its fruits, drank of the water, and rested under its shade. When he was about to continue his journey, he said: Tree, O Tree, with what shall I bless thee? Shall I say to thee, ‘May thy fruits be sweet’? They are sweet already; that thy shade be pleasant? It is already pleasant; that a stream of water may flow beneath thee? Lo, a stream of water flows already beneath thee; therefore [I say], ‘May it be [God’s] will that all the shoots taken from thee be like unto thee.’ So also with you. With what shall I bless you? With [the knowledge of the Torah?] You already possess [knowledge of the Torah]. With riches? You have riches already. With children? You have children already. Hence [I say], ‘May it be [God’s] will that your offspring be like unto you.’” BT Ta’anit 5b-6a.
- 152. Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 148-164. © Hung Pham and Kathryn R. Barush, 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 148 From Swords to Shoes: Encountering Grace on the Camino Ignaciano Hung Pham, SJ, and Kathryn R. Barush Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University at Berkeley Abstract OnJune2015,sixyearsbeforethe500thanniversaryofIgnatius’pilgrimage, theinstructors,Prof.HungPham,S.J.andProf.KathrynBarush,withagroup of twelve graduate students, set off from Berkeley, California following the road where Ignatius once walked, anticipating a transformative journey of their own. Collaborating with Fr. Josep Lluís Iriberri, SJ, director of Oficina del Peregrino del Camino Ignaciano, the Camino Ignaciano Course was designed to give the students an opportunity to deepen their personal relationship with God and to serve as part of the discernment of their life direction. As Ignatius’ conversion was inspired by the lives of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, students were moved by Saint Ignatius’ experience and his spiritual exercises. Envisioning the students as pilgrims and the classroom as the road, the course emphasized the importance of encountering sacred space and objects in situ and doing theology on the road. This piece is a visual travelogue describing our journey and some of the graces we received with a focus on four sacred sites: Loyola, Arantzazu, Montserrat, and Manresa. T owards the end of February 1522, Ignatius of Loyola, a courtier descended from Basque minor nobles, left the Loyola castle and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After having recovered from what had seemed to be a devastating, dream-shattering experience (he was immobilized after a cannonball struck his legs), Ignatius committed his life to the pursuit of holiness through imitating the lives of the saints and walking in the footsteps of Christ in perpetual penance. From Loyola, Ignatius made his teaching
- 153. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 149 Practical Matters Journal pilgrimage through Aránzazu, Montserrat, and Manresa before entering Jerusalem on September 4, 1323 after spending nearly one-and-a-half years on the road. Engaging in the pilgrimage, Ignatius slowly learned not to run ahead but to allow himself to be led by the Spirit. Step by step, a camino, a road was opened leading to ever deeper conversion and transformation. As the pilgrim (for this is how Ignatius refers to himself throughout his autobiography) journeyed through various locations on the physical level, he experienced conversion in the inward journey of his soul. Ignatius reminisced, “On this journey something happened to [me] which it will be good to have written, so that people can understand how Our Lord used to deal with this soul: a soul that was still blind, though with great desires to serve him as far as its knowledge went.”12 It was this recognition of how God works in one’s life which inspired the Camino Ignaciano Course at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley (hereafter JST).3 In June 2015, six years before the 500th anniversary of Ignatius’ pilgrimage, the instructors, Prof. Hung Pham, S.J. and Prof. Kathryn Barush, with a group of twelve graduate students pursuing various theology degrees —six Jesuit scholastics, one religious sister, three women, and two laymen —set off from Berkeley, California following the road where Ignatius once walked, anticipating a transformative journey of their own. Collaborating with Fr. Josep Lluís Iriberri, SJ, director of Oficina del Peregrino del Camino Ignaciano, the Camino Ignaciano Course at JST was designed to give the students an opportunity to deepen their personal relationship with God and to serve as part of the discernment of their life direction. As Ignatius’ conversion was inspired by the lives of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, students were moved by Saint Ignatius’ experience and his spiritual exercises. Envisioning the students as pilgrims and the classroom as the road, the course emphasized the importance of encountering sacred space and objects in situ and doing theology on the road. Allknowledgebeginswithexperience. Theologicalideasandconceptsemergefromexperienceofpersonal encounter with the transcendent. Faith formation and pastoral education often take place in classrooms and pulpits, far removed from concrete realities and the messiness of the daily human experience of personal encounter. When disassociated from encounter with lived reality, theological doctrines and discourse run the risk of lacking depth of meaning. Technology, used to good advantage, means that students can explore all the events and locations of the world, but on an important level technology distances them from personal engagement with the potential associative value of such events or locations. It is one thing to watch a live event. It is another to actually be part of it, to live it. It is one thing to read theology. It is another to wrestle with and to do theology. It is one thing to theologize about Ignatius’ trust in God. It is another to walk in the 105 degree Fahrenheit summer heat for 10 to 15 miles in order to personally experience what such a trust entails. Bodily experience and even muscle memory become important parts of spiritual growth and theological discourse. It is on the road where both students and teachers participate and engage as pilgrims. Pilgrims about to depart from Berkeley, CA. Photo: Oscar Momanyi, used with permission
- 154. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 150 Practical Matters Journal It is on the road where the depth of thought and imagination is enacted. It was on the road where the Risen Lord appeared in the form of a stranger, whom pilgrims met, encountered, and were transformed (Luke 24: 13-35). It is important to note that it was not the saint whom we were chasing after, but a personal encounter with the Divine on the road where the young Ignatius once walked his conversion. LOYOLA, June 27, 2016 Professor Pham: Motivation and desire that inspired Ignatius of Loyola to make a pilgrimage did not come easy. Had his leg had not been struck and his bones not crushed during the battle in Pamplona, Ignatius would not have been confined to bed convalescing in Loyola but would have continued his pursuit of “vanities of the world and special delight in the exercise of arms with a great vain desire of winning glory.”4 Only during this period of immobile convalescence, being pushed to the extreme border between life and death, helpless on his own, removed from the world which he knew, did life alternatives emerge. Possibilities were imagined; new life directions envisioned. He read La Vida de Cristo, a Spanish translation of a work by the Carthusian monk Ludolfo (Rudolfo) de Sajonia (c. 1377-1377/78), and a book of the Lives of the Saints written by a Dominican Friar and translated into Spanish in 1480 and 15115 which helped Ignatius to pause and contemplate, “Suppose that I should do what Loyola, Conversion Room of St. Ignatius. Photo: Sarah Stanley, used with permission
- 155. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 151 Practical Matters Journal Saint Francis did, what Saint Dominic did?”6 Wrestling between his former way of life and new possibilities, between “things of the world” and “going barefoot to Jerusalem and eating nothing but herbs and performing the other rigors he saw that the saints had performed,”7 Ignatius was first aware of the various interior movements of the spirits that were stirred up in his soul. From this awareness, Íñigo began to discern the bad and the good. Furthermore, he came to realize that it was not he but God who had initiated the encounter, ever so “gently and kindly” awakening holy desires within him.8 Inflamed with divine love, Ignatius resolved to go to Jerusalem “as soon as he was restored to health undertaking all the disciplines and abstinences.”9 Although none of the participants had undergone dramatic bone-crushing injuries or were pushed to the limit of immobile convalescence in the same way that Ignatius had, we both as individuals and as a group were wrestling with our own human limitations and vulnerability on our way to and during our stay in Loyola. One Jesuit student reflected on how the difficulty of negotiating a delayed flight on foreign territory put him in touch with his fear of uncertainty, leading him to pray and to rely on God’s grace at work in the moment. For another Jesuit student, the sudden death of a good friend and Jesuit companion prior to the Camino had left him feeling helpless in grief and sorrow. For a Latina-American student, the anticipation of entering yet another culture both widened and narrowed the space-in-between in her liminal intercultural identity: widening it by being enriched with the best values which each of her cultures offer, narrowing it by being caught in the loneliness from a realization of belonging to none. Looking back, the Camino served as a way for her to contemplate life’s mysteries in a deeper and more active way. Anxiety and insecurity began to creep in as I watched members of the course assemble in the Jesuit chapel for a blessing before heading to downtown Berkeley to board the train for the airport. No longer dressed in some neat coat and tie walking to the school and meeting students in their casual attire and air conditioned classroom, all of us appeared well-equipped with walking gear and outdoor outfits, eager to get on with the journey. The road would literally become our classroom and we, teachers and students, pilgrims. Multiple worries and concerns rushed through my heart and my mind at different levels. Feeling of losing control settled in. What would happen if what we had planned all along did not come through? Would students behave the same as they had in class? Their lifestyles, customs, language were so different from mine (our students hailed from countries and cultures as diverse as Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, the United States, and Vietnam; they comprised lay and Mural with pilgrims where the Camino Ignaciano & Camino de Santiago intersect. Photo: Kathryn Barush
- 156. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 152 Practical Matters Journal religious, women and men). Three weeks walking on the Camino seemed to me, at that moment, like an eternity. What had I gotten myself into? And why? The road ahead seemed reduced into fears that choked up any previous excitement. Fear intensified and anxiety heightened as we wandered at midnight around the parking lot of the Barcelona International Airport after the long transcontinental flight, looking for our Spanish correspondent and guide. The road seemed dark; my spirit immobilized. In the bunk bed of the tiny hostel, struggling with the darkness of my fear and anxiety, I stumbled upon the folder of the students’ reflection papers. Slowly and prayerfully, I had a powerful vision of each of their faces appearing in front of mine so vividly together with their holy desires in wanting to walk the Ignatian Way. For one Jesuit student, the desire to “gain a deeper sense of Ignatius, who he was, how he thought, what made him a saint” had energized him to walk.10 For others, the desire to grow in a deeper trust of God empowered them. Reflecting on her reason to walk, a student wrote succinctly: Two years ago I spent a year in Ecuador living among those we call the poor. It was the hardest and most amazing year of [my] life. There I encountered God, witnessed suffering, tried to fight injustice, and fell in love with people. What happened there led me to JST. But I am not there anymore, and this life is not like life there. Now I know that it was my Pamplona moment and I find myself in liminal space. I have been asking deep questions like how do we know [what] God’s will is? What is my vocation? … With a hunger for God, desire for adventure and ephemeral joy I applied [to this course in order] to [have the opportunity to] walk.11 One after another, students’ motivations and desires began to ignite mine. Recalling some of the graces which I had received on the past journeys three years ago during my Jesuit formation brought me deep consolation.12 As the desire for the students to experience the grace of what it means to place their trust in God had then moved me to create the course, so had it now empowered my next step, continuing on the road with trust and courage. Walking through the forests of the Basque Country, Spain. Photo: Hung Pham
- 157. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 153 Practical Matters Journal ARÁNTZAZU, June 28, 2015 Professor Pham: Leaving Loyola, our group arrived at Aránzazu on a busy Sunday morning. The whole sanctuary was buzzing with adults and children, men and women, young and old, tourists and pilgrims, hikers and walkers, speaking and talking in different tongues. Walking up to the mountain, everyone seemed eager to reach the top guided by unspoken words and common expectation of something spectacular ahead. Excitement filled the air. One by one our group strolled into the Basilica of the shrine. Immediately upon entering, I was taken over by the magnificent modern architecture of the Basilica. The high ceiling with ample space invited us in for morning prayer. If the period of convalescence in Loyola was marked by Ignatius’ wrestling against his initial instinct of returning to his former way of life, then the journey to Aránzazu could be characterized as the beginning of his ongoing struggle against external social pressure to get in touch ever so deeply with his own desire and conviction. Riding to Aránzazu, Ignatius would have shared the road with many “pilgrims bearing crosses on their shoulders, praying and singing devoutly and practicing other penances.”13 To Ignatius, Aránzazu embodied a step in both familiar and unknown directions. Like other members of the Loyola family who had come and prayed in front of the sanctuary of La Virgen María de Aránzazu, Ignatius knelt down, his eyes fixed on the smiling Virgen with Baby Jesus on her lap.14 Rather than praying for some miraculous cure, Ignatius sought the grace to confirm his decision to leave his former way of life and to embark on the journey to Jerusalem to imitate Christ. What he had received in Loyola was meant only as an initial step in a long journey. Ignatius could have easily remained in the serene Aránzazu spending the rest of his life in devotion and penance or joined the flow of pilgrims walking toward the famous Santiago de Compostela. Instead he continued moving in the opposite direction, heading south toward Montserrat, his eyes on the horizon of the Holy Land. As in his early experience of discernment in Loyola, Ignatius recognized movement and direction were essential dimensions of his spirituality. Sanctuary of Our Lady of Arantzazu, Oñati, in the province of Guipuzcoa, Basque Country, Spain. Photo: Sarah Stanley, used with permission
- 158. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 154 Practical Matters Journal Upon entering the church, our group was scattered in all different directions mesmerized with the multiple layers of beauty found in various statues, stained glass windows, and paintings. The quiet tranquility and dimly lit candles drew me to the front of the sanctuary. The Virgen sat on the thorn bush presiding over the sacred space, one hand holding the globe, the other her baby. A rather big and rusty cowbell at her feet captured my curiosity. Continuous clicks of the cameras and muttering from dispersed groups of students who seemed in constant search for a perfect angle, a perfect photo, disturbed the quiet solemnity. I was annoyed. Wouldn’t it make better sense to settle into the space and to breathe in its air first before moving around and taking photos? Instead of praying, my mind was lost in thoughts of how distracting modern technology could be. A wave of questions flooded my mind: What were we doing here? Were we pilgrims or tourists? I decided to hide myself behind the lectern still stewing in my inner dialogue. Some minutes passed. Then I looked back to see where the group was. I was utterly moved by the magnificent glimpse of everyone praying. Detached from technology, they were either kneeling or sitting in the pews in their own silence. The serene beauty of the sanctuary had slowly unarmed the different preoccupations of our various inordinate attachments, physically or mentally, and drew us ever closer to its solemn sanctum. It was not we who found the road, but the road and its subtle yet prevailing beauty that found us. MONTSERRAT, Fourth of July, 2015 Professor Barush: With blistered feet and clothes that never got quite clean enough in the albergue bathroom sinks, we were settling into our life as pilgrims by the time we left the Saint James Pilgrim Hostel in Jorba. We had met a pilgrim from Belgium there, walking the Camino de Santiago (which intersects at several points with the Camino Ignaciano). After we broke bread, he told us, “ultreia et suseia!” – the lyrics of an old pilgrim chant in archaic words that are said to translate to, roughly, “onwards and upwards.” With his prophetic send-off, we crawled into our bunks and rested before the long journey ahead. It was early dawn when we hoisted our backpacks onto our shoulders and began the long, hot trek to A pilgrim washes her hair in the sacred spring at Arántzazu. Photo: Sarah Stanley, used with permission
- 159. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 155 Practical Matters Journal visit the ancient mountain shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat, nestled in the Catalonian mountains. When we arrived at the bottom of the mountain, the sun was racing to the center of the sky and our shadows were becoming shorter. Humming and breathing and listening to the footfalls and rhythmic taps of hiking poles, we began the ascent with determination and anticipation. Prof. Barush encountered and jotted down a powerful experience. My toenail had slowly been turning a gothic shade of dark plum due to the minor “trauma” of pushing against my boot, so she had put on some practical German sandals which were much more comfortable but sloped on the sides and so kept trapping little stones. As I walked in silence, I shook them out thinking of the song By My Side, from the 1970’s musical Godspell, that my friend Marie had sung at mine and my husband’s wedding many years ago: Let me skip the road with you I can dare myself I can dare myself I’ll put a pebble in my shoe And watch me walk (watch me walk) I can walk and walk! (I can walk!)15 A moment to rest along the Way. Photo: Hung Pham
- 160. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 156 Practical Matters Journal Here I was, skipping the road but far away from my husband and the baby daughter who is one of the most amazing fruits of our loving union. But, like the pebble in my shoe, there were burdens and shortcomings that I was reflecting on as we trudged slowly up the winding, dusty mountain pass. One of them was pregnancy loss and the healing that came with the electric heat and sweat of walking 250 miles; I was starting to trust my body again (I can walk!). There were other things, too: choices, anxieties, losses…but, as we approached the shrine, none seemed insurmountable (I can walk and walk!) Looking down the mountainside was dizzying but spectacular. I noted the huge Benedictine monastery where I would later visit the nuns who create saints and sculptures from clay. At that moment, their swimming pool looked like a mirage of some tropical watering hole as I rubbed dust out of my eye. The tour busses zipping up the mountain past us in clouds of diesel seemed as though they were from another universe; women in billowing silk scarves and men with sunglasses and panama hats shouted friendly greetings out the window and others pointed their cameras at our sunburned and dusty cavalcade. Zooming past, they disappeared around the tight bends (watch me walk, watch me walk). We knew we were getting closer when the air became cooler. Little mosaic stations depicting Madonnas the world over (Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Guadalupe) decorated the high mountain walls as we yawned to un-pop our ears in the altitude. When we finally arrived at the town, we found ourselves in a sea of tourists in shorts and linen with ice cream cones and cameras. It seemed as though there was a constant flow of foot traffic in and out of the souvenir and clothing shops as we rested on some dusty stairs quite aware of how smelly we were after the long climb. One of the students stopped in the medical bureau to get a strange rash evaluated and another looked at me and asked, plaintively and profoundly, “Where’s Mary?” The injured student emerged from the clinic (she was ok) and we all rallied for one more push— this time to the monastic housing where we would stay for the night. As we approached the outskirts of the shrine, we saw the long queue to see the Black Madonna. In the courtyard of the basilica, a group of men and women practicing a form of earth-based spirituality stood at four compass points facing the hot afternoon sun. Their ritual was a reminder that the mountain was much more ancient than the Bible, and that the ground and nature pulses with an energy of its own. It was Mary who called to the Camino Ignaciano pilgrims from inside the mountain, however, and we got in line to pay her a visit—just as Ignatius had several hundred years prior. The enthroned statue of Mary, holding a great, golden orb with Christ seated on her lap, is attached to many legends and oral histories. Some say that the statue was carved by St Luke during biblical times and then carried to Spain by one of the apostles. During a Saracen invasion in 718, the statue was said to have been hidden from the enemy in a cave.16 It was later discovered by shepherds who had been led to the hiding place upon following mysterious lights and heavenly song. A later Bishop wanted to move the statue to Manresa, but it miraculously became heavier and heavier—Mary apparently wanted pilgrims to come to her in the mountain of Montserrat. The shrine has since been the site of many miracles and attracts over a million pilgrims a year.17
- 161. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 157 Practical Matters Journal St. Ignatius of Loyola was one of those who found solace at the shrine of the Madonna of Montserrat. It was there that he surrendered his sword and took up the symbolic garments and life of a pilgrim, following the path of Christ. In their discussion of pilgrimage as a liminoid phenomenon (e.g. voluntary, non-routine), Victor and Edith Turner point to the transformative effect of approaching the final grotto or shrine, where sins are forgiven and the pilgrim identifies with “the symbolic representation of the founder’s experiences”—hence “’put[ting] on Christ Jesus’ as a paradigmatic mask.”18 Even though Montserrat was one stop—or perhaps, “station”—along the way to Jerusalem (here I am thinking of the Via Crucis, with its many sacred centers where the pilgrim pauses to pray), it was here where Ignatius symbolically (and literally) cast off his knightly attire and sword, and clothed himself as a pilgrim in sackcloth with a gourd to drink from. When he arrived at Montserrat he kept vigil all night and decided to “clothe himself in the armour of Christ.”19 While at Montserrat, functioning in this context as a both a destination and point of departure, Ignatius made a written confession for three days—compatible with the Turners’ notion of the transformative effect of reconciliation during this phase of pilgrimage. The experience of the students reflects, but also, crucially, continues what Ignatius had experienced in the sacred mountain. For example, one of the students shared that “at Montserrat, [a] sense of identification with Ignatius deepened” and another affirmed that “as [he] walked in places like Loyola, Montserrat and Manresa, [he] was permeated by the spirit of the Saint in a more radical way.”20 The student who had wondered aloud where Mary was among the throngs of people had a moment of peace and consolation at the shrine where she was able to leave behind burdens of her own: In little moments, when I paid attention to the grace around me instead of the pain of my feet and exhaustion, it was evident how the Spirit was at work. The interior work along with the great consolation at Montserrat, brought me inner peace. I became in tune with my deepest desires and was graced with interior freedom. I was reminded through this transformation, that the Christian vocation is about love. I am grateful for the grace of freedom that will enable me to love more deeply and healthily, beginning with myself.21 The Shoes of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Photo: Kathryn Barush A pilgrim praying at the black Madonna of Montserrat. Photo: Hung Pham
- 162. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 158 Practical Matters Journal Whilethisexperiencewasonethatemergedfromherownpersonalpilgrimage,struggles,andcontemplations, it was the act of following Ignatius’s route that acted as a stimulus for this shift. She recalled, “As [Ignatius’] conversion story unfolded before us, it drew me inward to the spiritual dynamics at play in my own story.”22 Likewise, another student (a Jesuit scholastic) shared a moment of letting go of unhelpful burdens keeping him from becoming a good priest and Christian. His description is framed within the autobiography of Ignatius, even though the experience is entirely his own: “The moment in which Ignatius placed his armor and sword before Our Lady of Montserrat…illustrates the power and beauty of conversion and turning one’s life around.”23 The student goes on to describe a significant vision in which Mary helps facilitate a leaving behind of burdens; together, they stamped out the unhelpful “negative messages that led ... to darkness and isolation.”24 The theme of reflecting on letting go of negativity appeared in many of the students’ narratives post-Camino. Another shared: As the scene unfolded, I wasn’t before a statue of Mary. Instead, I was experiencing the real presence of Mary alive and well in my prayer… I’ve found myself reflecting about what Ignatius had left behind, and I began to similarly ask myself if there is anything that I need to leave behind as I look ahead into the future.25 Again, the experience that Ignatius had and the imaginative putting-on of the “paradigmatic mask” of the saint helped to facilitate a powerful, and very personal, moment that revealed the things that were blocking the students in their lives and in their relationship with God. There is a lightness that comes with letting go of our swords and carving out a new path. We learn that we can walk and walk. I shall call the pebble Dare We will talk, we will talk together We will talk about walking Dare shall be carried And when we both have had enough I will take him from my shoe, singing: “Meet your new road!”26 MANRESA, July 11, 2016 Professor Barush: We were not on the road for long when the tooth-shaped mountain dwelling-place of the Madonna of Montserrat, the quietude of the monastic chanting, and the sun-drenched passes began to seem like a dream.
- 163. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 159 Practical Matters Journal We made our way down, down, down the mountain, toes jamming up against our hiking boots, dust filling our noses, drinking water that was already warmed by the heat of the morning sun. Busloads of tourists were already arriving for their days-out; there were only a few bedraggled passers-by who we recognized as walking pilgrims like us; most eyed, with curiosity, our international, backpack-and-staff-bearing, slightly scraggly group. I half-heartedly cast a rock I had been carrying to represent a “burden” down the mountain, but I had already made peace with the pebble in my shoe on the way to Montserrat. There was a moment when we were walking that I paused to look back up the mountain, shielding my eyes with my hand, and everyone was helping one another scramble down the steep and rocky ridges. One of the students exclaimed, “WOW, there are really epic things happening right now!” and another queued up one of the riveting parts of the soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings films (the bit that is played at moments when heroic things are happening–Frodo and his companions trekking across a sweeping landscape to fight evil, for example). If the road to Montserrat was characterized by teamwork and anticipation, the road to Manresa was, to borrow from one of Tolkien’s chapter titles, “The Breaking of the Fellowship.” Just as Ignatius would face a discernment of spirits in the cave (which nearly led him to take his own life), and where he had visions and revelations that would form the foundations of the Spiritual Exercises, it was a time of physical, mental, and spiritual challenges for the pilgrims.27 The heat of the early morning had already climbed to record temperatures of more than 105 degrees Fahrenheit as we slowly trudged across the parched and desert-like landscape; one of the students from Kenya aptly commented that he felt as though he were in the Sahara. The heat compounded swollen legs and the sweat introduced more blisters to already aching feet. Before we penetrated too deeply into the desert and solitude, Prof. Pham offered to arrange a bus for anyone who felt they could not carry on, but everyone opted to continue. Then the unimaginable happened. Despite our efforts stocking up on water at lunchtime (filling every conceivable drinking bladder and bottle) we slowly began to run out of our stores one by one. The heaviness of the bottles in our backpacks probably exacerbated our sweating. There was nowhere to re-stock in the desert, and not so much as a farm vehicle to hail on the lonely and empty roads, and so we carried on. The physical challenges were not, however, without Hung Pham and Kathryn Barush point out the Way. Photo: Juan Pablo Marrufo del Toro, used with permission Ultreia et Suseia – onwards and upwards! Photo: Hung Pham
- 164. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 160 Practical Matters Journal moments of spiritual revelation, one of the hallmarks of a walking pilgrimage. One student recalled a moment of grace and reconciliation: I remember [as we came close to arriving] at Manresa, [one of the pilgrims] struggled with each step, her knees swollen and giving out. I walked beside her trying to encourage her, but felt exhausted myself and wasn’t much help. [Our guide] Jose came beside her, and without a word took her backpack onto himself, and supported her as she walked. When I saw him do this, I was deeply moved. I chose that moment as my “icon” of Jose: him walking with [the pilgrims’] bag, letting her rest her hands on his shoulders. I felt like Jesus said to me in that moment, “you are seeing him as I see him. This is who he truly is.” At the same time I knew in a deep and interior way that Jesus looks at me the same way, “as I truly am,” not as I see myself and not as others see me. This moment was a moment of deep forgiveness for me, an icon of Jose, an icon of forgiveness, and a window into the compassion of God. If only I could see like that, with the eyes of Jesus all the time. How wonderful life would be.28 Ignatius did not name the Jesuits “the Ignatians;” he called them “the Society of Jesus” to emphasize the importance of the teachings, compassion, humanity, and divinity centered in Christ. The student’s experience again transcends Ignatius’ to focus directly on Jesus, which allows him to re-examine his own life. Like Ignatius, he asks to “see with the eyes of Jesus.” It again marks an example of the moments when Ignatius’ journey was not being copied by we modern-day pilgrims; rather, we were continuing it. This resonates with the Thomist notion, succinctly paraphrased by Jacques Maritain, that “artistic creation does not copy God’s creation, it continues it.”29 There was a moment on the outskirts of Manresa where we could see the vista of the city, hazy and terra-cotta colored in a smog of dust and heat. Our guide pointed out some of the Ignatian sites and we were all politely interested but preoccupied by our thirst and ready to rest and pray in the sacred cave where Ignatius had battled his demons. A final push occurred when we realized we could not cross the bridge into town; it was cordoned off with rubble and barbed wire. With no other entrance into the city, we were urged by our guide to cross, one by one, holding up wire and crawling underneath, hoping that the structure would remain intact and not send us plummeting into the river. Our slow, painful march through town was conspicuous, as usual, and it was a relief to get to the pilgrim bureau where we would receive our certificates of completion. The moment felt less than celebratory, however, with a few sick pilgrims suffering from heatstroke. I felt a twinge of affinity at that moment not with Ignatius but with my patron Pilgrims crossing a field. Photo: Kathryn Barush
- 165. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 161 Practical Matters Journal saint, Catherine of Sienna, remembering an illustration I had of her as a child pressing compresses to the heads of sick people as I rushed in and out of the bathroom with paper towels and compresses for foreheads and armpits. We were all eager to move onwards to the hostel, and when we arrived found that there was only one bathroom available. Dazed and on the verge of heatstroke, we hydrated and rinsed our underwear in the public sinks while we filed, one at a time, into the showers. It was while I was hanging my clothes off the balcony that I noticed some chaos in the hallway. One of the students had noticed his backpack was missing. After overturning the rooms, we conceded, sadly, that it had been stolen. I had often passed him at the wee hours in the morning while battling bouts of insomnia as he sat in hallways and common rooms writing, writing, writing. He travelled the lightest of all of us, with only a string bag (the kind you get for free at conferences) and the clothes on his back. He had his passport on his body, but in the stolen bag was the journal he had been writing in for the entire pilgrimage. It was with great empathy that we consoled him; there was no way he would ever see his journal again. It was heartening to watch the outpouring of kindness as the other pilgrims lent out soap and clothes and essentials. And so we battled challenges and demons and empathized with Ignatius as his prayer and longing reached a fever-pitch in the cave at Manresa. The barbed wire, heatstroke, and stolen bag all seemed to prepare us for what we would encounter in the cave. In the words of one of the students: Many of us had almost yielded to fatigue, heat and thirst which indeed overstretched our capacities to the point that we indeed felt the frailty of our humanity. Experience of human weakness and failure is an experience of our true self, our true identity. In my fatigue I was reminded that I am a limited creature and God is the almighty and unlimited creator. I view this as a call to rely on God more rather than rely on my strength and wisdom.30 It had been a long day, and it was time to go to the cave to pray and reflect on the challenges we had undergone. I was relieved that the decorative trappings and bas- reliefs had been stripped off in a recent renovation to revealthesmoothandbone-whitewallsofthecave,giving a sense of the bareness where Ignatius would instruct about how to compose a space for prayer in the Spiritual Exercises. He encourages the individual retreatant to see through the gaze of the imagination to the “physical place” of a scriptural scene or any passage or topic. He teaches, “by ‘material place’ I mean, for instance, a temple or a mountain where Jesus Christ or our Lady happens Pilgrims standing around the spiral well cover, ‘From Cardener to the Antarctica’ (2001-2004) by Chilean artist Fernando Prats. The 117 inscribed names of mystics and visionaries include St. Ignatius. Near the River Cardener, Manresa. Photo: Kathryn Barush
- 166. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 162 Practical Matters Journal to be, in accordance with the topic I desire to contemplate.”31 In a compelling reversal, we imagined first Ignatius in the cave, with his thoughts and prayers, as he was imagining mountains and temples several hundred years before. For me, the cave was full of the memories and I imagined that the walls themselves were imbued with the impact of his experience, creating a strange sensation of mild claustrophobia and awe. Even as we prayed, there was a sense that the Camino had not ended here at the cave, but was, in a sense, just beginning. One pilgrim’s thoughts reflect those that were shared while we prayed at Manresa, aloud and in silence: I continue to have a sense of Jesus’ presence near me, and I feel that this has been the point of the Camino for me. Jesus is real; he is near; he is present. I have come to realize that the Camino didn’t end at Manresa. In a genuine way, the Camino continues, and I have been assured by Jesus that he is with me. I am reminded of the words of the resurrected Jesus to this disciples: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age,” (Mt 28:20 NRSV).32 The ancient pathways that our Camino students travelled served as roads not only to and from sites and shrines, but inward. The multi-sensory pilgrimage experience—the pain of blisters, the sweat, the smell of incense in ancient churches, the feel of the cool water in mountain passes, the salted tears in those silent prayers—is something that cannot be taught through books or slides. Students no longer read about those experiences, but are living them. History blossomed in living color all around we pilgrims, students and teachers; in Spanish polychrome altarpieces from Ignatius’ time to the ancient trees along the route we Pilgrim praying by a statue of St. Ignatius, depicted holding both a sword and pilgrim staff. Photo: Hung Pham
- 167. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 163 Practical Matters Journal traversed. As we walked, the ancient pathways transcended time and space as they mapped on to our own experiences and stories. To conclude with the words of one of the student pilgrims, “that outward journey was a symbol of what continues to take place in my soul.”33 We are collectively changed for the better, with our symbolic swords left behind and words to share. Notes 1 Ignatius of Loyola, Joseph A. Munitiz, Philip Endean, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters Including the Text of The Spiritual Exercises (London: Penguin, 1996), 18. This translation is used throughout the essay unless noted otherwise. Hereafter, [Au]. 2 [Au 14] 3 We are grateful to the Bannan Institute Course Creation Grant from Santa Clara University and the Grant from the President’s Office of the same University. The financial support of these grants have made the Camino Ignaciano Course possible. We also want to thank Bill O’Neill, SJ for his judicious comments on an earlier version of this travelogue. 4 [Au 1] 5 Vita Iesu Christi e quatuor Evangeliis et scriptoribus orthodoxies concinnata and Leyenda aurea, composed in Latin by a Italian Dominican friar Jacobo de Varazze (de Voragine), d. in 1298 as archbishop of Génova. There were various Spanish translations of this work such as Flos sanctorum, a honor e alabanza de Neustro Señor Jesu Christo (1480) and Legenda seu Flos sanctorum (Toledo 1511). 6 [Au 3, 5, 7] 7 [Au 8] 8 Ignatius of Loyola and David L. Fleming, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and A Contemporary Reading (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978), 7. 9 [AU 9]. 10 A Jesuit student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 11 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 12 There were a couple of previous “journeys” that I (Prof. Pham) did in Spain. One was part of the Camino Ignaciano: from Manresa to Montserrat. The other was part of the World Youth Day in Spain where we walked eight days from Salamanca to el Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Peña de Francia, as part of Magis Experience in the summer of 2011. 13 R. Garcia-Villoslada, San Ignacio de Loyola: Nueva Biografía (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1987), 185.
- 168. Pham and Barush, From Swords to Shoes 164 Practical Matters Journal 14 Ibid. 15 Jay Hamburger and Peggy Gordon, “By My Side,” from Godspell (written by Stephen Schwartz), New York, Arista Records. 16 Fr. Michael P. Duricy, Black Madonnas: Our Lady of Montserrat, March 26 2008. Accessed May 10, 2016. http:// campus.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/olmont.html 17 Boss, Sarah Jane, Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Bloomsbury, 2000), 5 and Fr. Michael P. Duricy, ibid. 18 V.W. and E.L.B. Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 11. 19 [AU 20]. 20 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 21 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 22 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 23 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 24 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 25 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 26 Jay Hamburger and Peggy Gordon, ‘By My Side’, from Godspell (written by Stephen Schwartz), New York, Arista Records. 27 [AU 23-25]. 28 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 29 J. Maritain, “Art and Scholasticism,” in G.E. Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics: A Reader (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 327. 30 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 31 Ignatius of Loyola and David L. Fleming, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, 47. 32 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015. 33 A graduate student pilgrim reflecting on the experience of walking the Camino Ignaciano in June-July 2015.
- 169. 165 review Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 165-167. © Brandy Daniels 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 334 pages. $34.00. I n Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline, Bonnie Miller-McLemore offers a collection of her work in the fields of practical and pastoral theology that spans twenty years (1992-2010). With attendant introductions that “situate each chapter, provide connective tissue and allow for reassessment and rebuttal,” she attempts to move “the discussion of the nature of Christian theology just a little bit,” writing to the academic community, “for the sake of our wider publics” (14, 8). In offering this collection, Miller-McLemore seeks to challenge the ways academic theology, both systematic and practical, has “underestimated the intelligence involved in practice and overlooked the limitations of merely academic knowledge” (172). To do so, she draws upon scholars in practical and pastoral theology who have “disrupted conventional theological boundaries” and prompted these guilds to attend more closely to the realities of people’s lives (1). Miller-McLemore calls for a rhizomatic approach that moves from hierarchical theological approaches to “a more organic, ecological reading.” Such a reading would encourage “circular and mutually interdependent movement” while also calling for a “multiplicity of ways of knowing” (3, 162). This project of “discovering a discipline” involves three elements for Miller-McLemore, which are reflected in the text’s organization into three parts: “the living web as theological subject matter, practical wisdom as a way of theological knowing, and gender as a critical category for understanding human situations” (1). In Part I, Miller-McLemore explores this “living web” that she defines as the subject matter of theology in the first chapter. She then amends this basic metaphor in the second chapter, in light of its “widely varied meanings,” to “the human document within the web” (46; 48, emphasis mine). This emphasis on the human document within the web acknowledges that humans can only be understood within their broader context, but does not “get lost in the forest for all the trees” (47). It is through this metaphor that Miller-McLemore locates the importance of public theology and the “theological engagement of public issues of significant practical and pastoral consequence, such as child welfare and economic justice” (75). Concomitantly, it explains her reasoning in articulating pastoral theology alongside practical theology, as both share an investment in practice and experience, and “the interlocking, continually evolving threads of which reality is woven” demands “a multilayered analysis of human strife” (37, 45). She concludes the section by offering a four-part definition of practical theology, explaining its distinctive enterprise as “a discipline among scholars and an activity of faith among believers,” as well as “a method for studying theology in practice […] and a curricular area of subdisciplines in the seminary” (101).
- 170. Daniels, Christian Theology in Practice 166 Practical Matters Journal In the second part of Christian Theology in Practice, Miller-McLemore turns her attention to (or, rather, curates her previous essays attending to) the importance of multiple forms of knowing and the role of practical theology in moving beyond both the clerical and the academic paradigm (chapter 7). She explains that practical theology’s historical attempts to be identified as intellectually rigorous has restricted it to the “highly cognitive nature of Western twentieth-century theology,” which has dismissed bodily (and ostensibly, other forms of) knowing and resulted in a diminishment of the field and its ability to help people live out, to practice, their faith (138). Building on her assertion that knowledge “is seldom singular, ‘separative’ universal, or uniform,” Miller-McLemore calls for “a maternal feminist epistemology” that unites knowledge and action (chapter 5). She describes such an epistemology as “a mode of circular bodily reasoning that interweaves physical sensation, momentary cognition, behavioral reaction, and a physical sensing and intellectual reading of the results” (130). Miller-McLemore continues in this section to build upon this call for varied forms of knowing through attending to pedagogy and theological know how (chapter 8), and highlighting the subversive, liberative impacts of practical theology on and in theological education (chapter 7). Finally, building on this maternal feminist epistemology, in the third and final part of the text, Miller- McLemore turns to gender as a key category of analysis. She explores how feminist theory’s attention to context, commitment to parity and justice, and sensitivity to power dynamics has shaped pastoral (and, by extension, practical?) theology, engendering a shift in how the field looks at women and families. Throughout the chapters in this section—exploring feminist theory’s influence (chapter 9), the effects of that influence (chapter 10), and its role in psychology (chapter 11)—Miller-McLemore examines how feminist theory and gender studies have “sparked a shift in focus from the individual to the community, from personal distress to social injustice, from personal fulfillment to the common good, from an ontology of separative selfhood to an open web of relationality” (307). This has enabled pastoral theology to attend to its aims of both supporting individuals in crisis as well as of “breaking silences, urging prophetic action, and liberating the oppressed” (250). As a Ph.D. candidate in theological studies, reading Christian Theology in Practice was somewhat outside of my realm. Its topics were particularly directed to the discipline of practical theology—perhaps more suited to my colleagues in the homiletics and liturgics or the religion, psychology, and culture areas. Yet it is precisely its place outside my field of “theological studies” that speaks to its importance both in my field as well as to the broader enterprise that is “theological education” of which our respective fields/ areas/disciplines/guilds are a part. Miller-McLemore’s compendium of essays serves as an immeasurably helpful reminder of the importance to remain aware of the tendencies in my work and in my guild towards hierarchical ordering of knowing (think: theology’s historical referral to itself as “queen of the sciences”) and to be open to different epistemological frames shaping scholarship. At the same time, this text also affirms the need for practical theology as a field. It can attend specifically to “the human document” and call us, who are in other fields but hold similar commitments, to keep in mind the importance of this “living document within the web” as we pursue our respective scholarship, perhaps even compelling us to attend to the practical ourselves in various ways and to various degrees.
- 171. Daniels, Christian Theology in Practice 167 Practical Matters Journal While the text was outside of the general purview of my field, as a feminist theologian (in training), I was particularly appreciative of Miller-McLemore’s attention to gender—as a category of analysis and also as a resource for analysis and constructive theological and practical work. However, it was precisely (somewhat ironically, perhaps) here where I hoped for more. In the first two-thirds of the text, Miller-McLemore almost always situates pastoral theology alongside or as a part of practical theology (with Chapter 6 seemingly being the only exception, and even here, the scope is broader). This makes sense given her arguments in the first section about the significance of the two in tandem, highlighting their shared investments (in practice/ experience) and the heft of their combined contribution: “whereas practical theology is integrative,” she explains, “concerned with the broader issues of ministry, discipleship, and formation, pastoral theology is person- and pathos-centered” (10). Yet in the third and final part of the text, Miller-McLemore’s focus turns almost entirely to “pastoral theology.” This is understandable, given her own training/expertise (as well as the context in which the essays were originally written), but especially given her insights from the beginning of the text, it would have been useful if she would have drawn the same connections between pastoral and practical theology as they both are shaped by and shape gender and feminist studies. As someone in theology who benefitted from her insights about practice throughout the book, I longed for more reflection on precisely how gender and how feminist theory shaped and could continue to shape practical theological reflection. Relatedly, in addition to wanting to hear more about feminism and practical theology, I wanted to hear more in general—which is to say, I found that the book ended rather abruptly. In the introduction, Miller-McLemore explains her reasoning behind the format of the text, particularly explaining her choice to leave the essays in their original form and preface each with an introduction. She writes that “something compelled me to proceed first with this collection to what I had said and what needs saying” (5). Throughout the text, Miller-McLemore offers a number of insights about “what needs saying,” but perhaps it would have been beneficial for her readers to know more broadly, what (now, still) needs saying, after this articulating of—discovering of—a discipline? What work is now to be done? Despite these longings for more from her text at various points, I nevertheless found Christian Theology in Practice to be an exceptionally thorough and erudite collection of reflections on key insights, both of and for “Christian theology in practice” in our contemporary milieu. For anyone teaching and/or writing in theological education (as well as anyone training to one day do so), Miller-McLemore’s work is an invaluable resource on a number of fronts. It should be required reading for those who seek to not only “sustain a life of reflective faith in the everyday” in their own lives, but train and teach those who will lead others in that task in their roles as pastors and priests, educators and non-profit workers. Brandy Daniels Vanderbilt University
- 172. 168 review Practical Matters Journal, Spring 2016, Issue 9, pp. 168-170. © L. Callid Keefe-Perry 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. Theology and the Arts: Engaging Faith by Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith New York: Routledge, 2013. 230 pages. $125.00 I n Theology and the Arts, Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith have offered up a profoundly useful text which “brings the emerging fields of practical theology and theology of the arts into dialogue beyond the bias of modern systematic and constructive theology” (frontpage). One of the things that makes the text lively is that though neither Illman nor Smith identify themselves disciplinarily as practical theologians, they nevertheless find the work of practical theology to be profoundly helpful to contemporary discussions of faith and religion. Thus, while the text engages with a vast array of literature from practical theology, the engagement is that of outsiders looking in. From this vantage the authors are overwhelmingly excited about what practical theology has to offer. [W]e are not content to simply criticize the deficiencies in a theological tradition that was centered in the hegemony of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Western, male views of the world. We have offered as an alternative to this dominant theological approach of the 19th and 20th centuries the emerging discipline of practical theology (163). Put another way, while this book is about practical theology it is not expressly written as “Practical Theology.” That is, the book does not clearly follow the “action-reflection-action” model that is so common in self-identifying practical theologies. Indeed, rather than practical theology provided as the structural frame, practical theology is offered as useful alongside other disciplines which are – at least methodologically – placed at equivalence. For example, after a lengthy discussion on the utility of postmodern, feminist, and liberationist thinkers for contemporary theological reflection, the authors add the following: We also find the emerging literature of practical theology itself a valuable voice with which we engage in dialogue. The members of the Association for Practical Theology have provided us with direction for the development of our understanding of practical theology... As we read the contributions of practical theologians like Miller-McLemore, Chopp, Mercer, and others, the striking similarity of the thought of theologians of the arts like Robin Jensen, Deborah Haynes, Frank Burch Brown, and Richard Viladesau has become not just apparent, but glaring (164). That the interests of Illman and Smith converge on theology, art, and practical theology makes for a fertile exploration of the topics at hand, which they do with four goals in view. First, to discuss contemporary theological research on the arts, focusing on the role of gender, pluralism, and postmodern/ post-secular perspectives. Second, to discuss the emerging literature in practical theology and evaluate the
- 173. Keefe-Perry, Theology and the Arts 169 Practical Matters Journal current direction of theological discourse that takes seriously the role of praxis and faith that is embodied in the critical practices of “communities of truth” from multiple religions and cultures. Third, to develop a practical approach to theology and the arts by incorporating perspectives from dialogue philosophy and hermeneutics. Fourth, to make ground these theoretical reflections in empirical case studies where the arts have become integral in practicing a responsible, interpersonal, and empowering theology (6-7). Methodologically, this is done by splitting the book into two parts. Part I, “A Practical Theology of the Arts,” contains three chapters which serve as the undergirding theoretical basis upon which Part II rests. Part II, “Études,” consists of seven international case-studies of arts-based communal reflection from a variety of religious traditions. It also includes the book’s concluding chapter. Throughout both sections, the authors want to be clear that the “practical theology of the arts” that they are offering has seven distinct thematic elements which are necessarily constitutive of their project at large: it is embodied, it “has a face,” it acknowledges the “voice” of those who had been silenced, it is accomplished through “dialogue,” it is based in practice, it clears a space for communities to engage themselves, and it is committed to “true transformation” (61-64). In the first chapter, “When the Center No Longer Holds,” the authors address the theological challenges with the postmodern condition, its scrutiny of “truth,” and the role of religion in contemporary Western life. They do this – including brief theoretical sketches of the work of Habermas, Lyotard, Buber, and Liberation Theology – in fifteen pages, packing their paragraphs with citations and reference points. In chapter two, “Otherness and Meaning,” Illman and Smith engage with “dialogue philosophy” and how it is that the work of Buber, Gadamer, Levinas, and Knud Løgstrup can aptly address some of the issues present at the intersection of post-modernity and religious thought while maintaining an epistemic position that is neither non-relativist nor non-absolutist. Much is made of the Gadamerian notion of the fusion of horizons and the ways in which “reading texts” can be a transformative process. Indeed, because encounters with “texts” – understood here to include people and experiences – can open us as “readers” out into the world, the argument is made that creative practices of art making are inherently ethical activities. That is, insofar as art turns us to face the (Levinasian) Other, aesthetics necessarily entails ethics. The third chapter, “Outlining a Practical Approach to Theology and the Arts,” begins with a brief historical summary of the field of practical theology, focusing on the work of Farley, Browning, Miller- McLemore, and Schweitzer. In this section the authors align themselves with a disciplinary rendition of the field as offered by Paul Ballard and John Pritchard (49). This alignment then propels them to suggest that “a practical theology... does not consist in propositional claims or positivistic statements of doctrine as much as it does in critical reflection on living as persons of faith whose practice requires that existing theory be retooled, and whose retooled theory raises implications for new practices in order to be faithful” (51). That this understanding of practical theology is their touchstone is very clear as each of Part II’s case-study chapters unfolds precisely in this manner. Each chapter in Part II serves as a concrete example of a “practical theology of the arts” in action. For example, in the sixth chapter, “Fabric Arts in Peru as Identity,” there is an exploration of the production
- 174. Keefe-Perry, Theology and the Arts 170 Practical Matters Journal of cuadros in Peruvian women’s collectives, beginning with a narrative and contextual description of the arts practice taking place. After this, there is a claim that these arts function “to make the women who produce them aware of their own voice that had been silenced... while helping them establish a sense of personal belonging” (81), a comment which is immediately followed by rapid explanations as to how the Mother’s Clubs which create the cuadros are reflecting a form of Freirean critical consciousness (89), Levinasian ethical relationality (89), Gadamerian dialogue (90), Lyotard’s postmodern condition (90), and “the wisdom of the arts as a practice of transformation that we claim is characteristic of a practical theology of the arts” (90). The text is densely packed with citations. In short, each case-study chapter is Illman and Ruth enacting their working definition of practical theology, namely “critical reflection on living as persons of faith whose practice requires that existing theory be retooled, and whose retooled theory raises implications for new practices in order to be faithful” (51). They 1) examine the particulars of the context, 2) elucidate how it is that the arts-based practices under investigation “require theory to be retooled,” 3) point to the feminist, dialogical, post-modernist, and/or liberationist theories which might support those practices, and 4) affirm the practice in question as a form of a practical theology of the arts. While useful as a reference text for theology and the arts, Illman and Smith’s methodological choice to name the locus theologica as the communities’ arts-based practices, also raises an interesting issue for practical theologians beyond arts and theology conversations. To affirm that the practices themselves are the practical theologies is to suggest that the content of the book in question, Theology and the Arts: Engaging Faith, is not itself a practical theology, but a theoretical reflection on practical theology. Following this logic, to the extent that the field of practical theology is engaged in the investigation of practices, Illman and Smith’s method suggests that the formal academic discipline of practical theology is that which discovers, legitimates, critically reflects upon, and offers opportunity to change to communities in which practical theology actually happens. That is, following the authors, books and dissertations under the heading of “Practical Theology” are not actually practical theologies themsleves, but engagements with practical theologies,whicharedefinitionallyembodiedandlocalized.Thisiscertaintobetoonarrowanunderstanding of the field of practical theology for some, but others may find it refreshingly clear cut and useful for the ways in which it takes the onus of enacting practical theology off of the practical theologian, shifting agency primarily to the hands of communities, which the theologian helps to recognize, legitimate, catalyze, and/ or critique. However one feels about the authorial decisions of nomenclature however, this text will be an undeniably useful resource for anyone working at the juncture of theological reflection, observation-based research, and the arts. L. Callid Keefe-Perry Boston University School of Theology
- 175. 171 review Practical Matters Journal, Spring 2016, Issue 9, pp. 171-172. © Sarah MacDonald 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. Just Spirituality: How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action Mae Elise Cannon Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013. 208 pages. $16.00 I n Just Spirituality, Mae Elise Cannon examines the connection between reflective spiritual disciplines and activist movements for social change. These two ways of engaging Christian life and faith might seem inherently in tension—and indeed, Cannon acknowledges her own struggle to remain “spiritually centered” in the midst of her “fast-paced life” as a Christian leader and activist (10). Citing Richard Foster, Cannon notes that the social justice tradition in Christianity, though strong in its call to care for social need, may overlook the importance of cultivating the soul or attending to one’s heart condition. To counter this imbalance, Just Spirituality offers brief biographies of Christian leaders whose lives are marked both by the practice of spiritual disciplines and by inspiring achievement in movements of compassion and justice. Undergirding the book is a vision of “justice-oriented spirituality,” a cyclical process of reflection and action in which spiritual practices and social engagement are mutually reinforcing and equally vital components in Christian faith (15). Still, Cannon’s main concern here is to assert the necessity of spiritual disciplines to a life of sustainable activism and, more broadly, to fruitful movements for social change. The book’s subtitle effectively summarizes her thesis: that “disciplines—such as silence, prayer, study, community, worship, sabbath and submission—provide the fuel by which people are inspired to make a difference in the world” (11). She concludes with an even stronger insistence on the empowering effect of these contemplative disciplines, presenting them as “the framework by which true and lasting change can occur” (175). Cannon builds her argument through narrative example. Seven chapters comprise the heart of the book. Each draws a biographical sketch of a (usually well-known) historic Christian leader and highlights a particular spiritual discipline that shaped this leader’s ministry and advocacy. To supplement these focal portraits,CannoninterviewedsevencontemporaryChristianministersandactivists—inherwords,“ordinary people doing amazing things” (12)—who also practice these disciplines. So each chapter includes both a historic and a modern-day example of an individual integrating a faith practice with social engagement. Finally, each chapter concludes with “contemporary praxis,” concrete suggestions for how readers might apply that chapter’s highlighted discipline. Just Spirituality displays a welcome sensitivity to the global nature of the Christian church and to the diverse ways spiritual disciplines and social engagement may be practiced. The seven featured biographical profiles span the twentieth-century and come from around the world: Mother Teresa (India), Dietrich
- 176. MacDonald, Just Spirituality 172 Practical Matters Journal Bonhoeffer (Germany), Watchman Nee (China), Martin Luther King, Jr. (United States), Fairuz (Lebanon), Desmond Tutu (South Africa) and Oscar Romero (El Salvador). Likewise, the book’s depiction of “social action” includes a range of activities, from charitable service to nonviolent activism, from public witness to political leadership, from evangelistic sharing of the gospel to prophetic protest of unjust regimes. While this breadth of attention helps Cannon create a more multi-faceted examination of the relationship between spirituality and activism—and offers readers a wider possibility of models to follow and disciplines to try—it also gives rise to the book’s limitations. There is too much material here to allow for substantial discussion of any one figure or discipline. Further, the connections Cannon wants to draw in each chapter from a spiritual discipline to leadership in social action (as expressed in the chapter titles) often appear dispersed and vague, loosely associative rather than clearly or persuasively demonstrated. For example, chapter 4 is entitled “Martin Luther King Jr.: From Community to Proclamation.” Yet beyond gesturing toward King’s emphasis on “beloved community,” Cannon does not clarify what form the practice of community actually took in King’s life, nor how it fueled his activism for civil rights. Similarly, the next chapter intends to portray Lebanese singer Fairuz’s movement “from worship to freedom” but remains vague about what kind of social action “freedom” constitutes. Cannon depicts Fairuz as a popular, perhaps influential, performer and artist—yet readers may be left wondering how Fairuz’s “heart for justice” (112) gets enacted in social engagement or empowered through practices of worship. Some of the book’s chapters highlight more sharply defined practices and actions. The first two chapters, “Mother Teresa: From Silence to Service” and “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: From Prayer to Discipleship,” seem more effective in showing how consistent spiritual practice can shape a person’s spirit in ways that fortify social and political leadership. However, by trying to pattern all her chapters “from” practice “to” action, Cannon has given herself a structure that ends up feeling more constraining than illuminating. It does not always fit her material, and the wealth of included examples results in an argument that seems scattered and limited in depth. Nonetheless, in Just Spirituality Cannon calls attention to an important and timely claim: that the practice of spiritual disciplines is an essential, empowering part of Christian social activism. Her book offers a good entry point to readers who want to begin reflecting upon—and more, living out—this relationship between spirituality and activism. The brief, readable chapters and the helpfully concrete “contemporary praxis” suggestions make Just Spirituality an accessible and practical introduction. The book also includes a study guide with discussion questions to accompany each chapter, making it particularly well suited for small group or devotional contexts. One can easily imagine Just Spirituality getting effectively used in settings such as campus ministry, church mission committees or Christian social agencies, to inspire fruitful discussion and deeper commitment to “justice-oriented spirituality.” Sarah MacDonald Emory University
- 177. 173 review Practical Matters Journal, Spring 2016, Issue 9, pp. 173-174. © J. Derrick Lemons 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. Ritual: Key Concepts In Religion Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern New York: Bloomsbury Academic Pub., 2014. 171 pages. $24.65 Paperback. P amela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern are anthropological research collaborators who have published over forty-five books and two-hundred research articles together. The latest publication for this husband-and-wife team is entitled Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion. The book seeks to provide an introduction to ritual studies for undergraduate and graduate students. My review is motivated by the question “Would I assign this book to my undergraduate or graduate students?” Stewart and Strathern’s book fills a growing niche in the publishing market to provide short, inexpensive introductory textbooks. Stewart and Strathern acknowledge in the preface that at points they sacrificed depth for breadth in order to meet the book’s primary aim to be an introductory text. The authors divide their attention between classic and contemporary approaches to ritual. Furthermore, they frame ritual as a community-acknowledged practice and performance that upholds important values of society. They reference the works of Frazer, Tylor, Radcliffe Brown, Harrison, Durkheim, van Gennep, Malinowski, Boas, Turner, Fortes, Evans-Pritchard, Bourdieu, Bell, and others to build a base from which to consider important themes within ritual studies. The authors reference primary sources and pertinent ethnographic examples to describe themes including social order, rites of passage, sacrifice, secrecy, and ritual failure. Stewart and Strathern cover over one-hundred years of material in ritual studies. Roughly the first half of the book focuses on classic anthropological theories and theorists of ritual studies. This half is easy to follow and convincing. They follow closely the accepted narrative that has developed over time about classic approaches to ritual studies. For example, the authors highlight the connections of thought between Radcliffe-Brown, Boas, and Malinowski, and describe why Boas settled on a four-field anthropological approach for the American school of thought. In this and other examples about classic anthropologists, the authors astutely describe the early development of the anthropology of ritual. While Stewart and Strathern’s coverage of classic ritual studies is based on an accepted historical progression, their coverage of contemporary approaches to ritual studies was primarily driven by themes in no obvious order. The result is that the contemporary section of the book lacks a sense of progression and a consensus of what is most important to contemporary ritual studies. For example, the reader is not informed if a contemporary theme like “ritual failure” is more or less important than “performance and performativity.” Additionally, theorists like Bourdieu, Bell, Latour, and Gibson are connected with anthropological themes without a sense of who is of most importance to the field. To be fair, writing about contemporary approaches
- 178. Lemons, Ritual 174 Practical Matters Journal is challenging, especially considering the fact that Stewart and Strathern are integral players in contemporary studies of ritual. That being said, switching the approach to writing midway through the book is difficult for the reader. Perhaps the authors should have followed their approach to classical ritual studies in their writing about contemporary ritual studies. If so, they would have allowed the theorists to drive the discussion. To conclude I return to the question, “Would I assign this book to my undergraduate or graduate students?” I would assign this book primarily on the strength of the first half of the book, which covers classic approaches to ritual studies. The second half of the book I would use as a reference for my class, but not assign it for students to read. If my students used Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion, I think they would gain an overview of the key themes involved in ritual studies and the approaches theorists took to understand ritual and I know they would approve of the price. Dr. J. Derrick Lemons University of Georgia
- 179. 175 review Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 175-176. © Kara Slade 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. Local Worship, Global Church: Popular Religion and the Liturgy Mark R. Francis, CSV Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2014. 181 pages. $19.95. In this compact volume, Mark Francis adds a historical perspective to the ongoing conversation around matters of inculturation and liturgical praxis. As a Roman Catholic liturgical scholar, Francis focuses particularly on the relationships between local practices of piety and the catholicity of the Mass, and between popular understandings of sacramental theology and the teachings of the Magisterium. As he writes in the introduction, What would the history of worship look like if we paid more attention to the experience of the “people in the pews” - viewing the liturgy through what we know about their popular piety? This perspective is an undeniable complement to the more official picture presented in the Church’s own pronouncements in the liturgy (5). This added perspective is necessary, he contends, not only due to the demographic shift of Christianity away from Europe and North America towards the Global South, but also because of the transition in the papacy from Benedict XVI to Francis. Francis deploys a threefold typology in his account of liturgical history. The first, official, meaning of the liturgy is that which is “explained and contained in liturgical books” and “described in ritual introductions (praenotanda) such as the General Instruction of the Roman Missal,” as well as in the “documents issued by the magisterium to explain the objective meaning of the liturgy” (8). The public meaning, on the other hand, is “that which is commonly understood by the people gathered.” The third, or personal, meaning, is grounded in each individual’s “particular history of interaction with the liturgical symbols connected with his or her own particular experience” (10). In this text, he concentrates on the development of the public and personal levels of liturgical comprehension and the possible points of tension with the official level of Church teaching. Having set out this interpretative framework, Francis traces a historical trajectory that ranges from the Apostolic age to the aftermath of Vatican II. Subsequent chapters focus particularly on the Greco- Roman world, the origins of the Roman Rite, what he describes as the “Germanization of Christianity,” the spread of Catholicism to the Americas, and the legacy of the Council of Trent (ix). In each historical period, Francis describes the public and personal reception of the liturgy, paying particular attention to how those levels of reception might broaden or even complicate the teaching of the Church.
- 180. Slade, Local Worship, Global Church 176 Practical Matters Journal As a priest in the Episcopal Church, I have no personal investment in the controversy with which Francis seems to be most concerned: the nostalgic reification of the Tridentine Latin form of the Eucharistic liturgy into the pure form of Catholic Eucharistic worship, from which all other forms are considered to be derogations. Insofar as he argues that all forms of liturgy are inculturated, and that there has never been an idealized “golden age” of liturgical praxis and theological understanding, Francis is, of course, correct. However, he also seems to overcorrect into contentious theological territory. At one point, for example, he seems to argue for a memorialist understanding of the Eucharist based on Western liturgical practice prior to the early Middle Ages (99). At another, his argument on the “Germanization of Christianity” depends on an at times essentialist understanding of “the Germanic imagination” (91). While it may indeed be helpful to consider local practices in addition to magisterial teaching, it is less helpful to do so by invoking a national, cultural imaginary. That being said, Local Worship, Global Church is a helpful contribution to the ongoing work of Catholic liturgical scholarship in the wake of Vatican II. It is written in an accessible style that would make it an intriguing choice for adult formation in Catholic parishes as well as for undergraduate teaching purposes. Kara N. Slade Duke University
- 181. 177 review Practical Matters Journal, Issue 9, pp. 177-178. © Casey Sigmon 2016. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. The Scandal of Having Something to Say: Ricoeur and the Possibility of Postliberal Preaching Lance B. Pape Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2013. 176 pages. $39.95 I s postliberal preaching a possibility? That is the question driving Lance Pape’s trimmed and published dissertation project, The Scandal of Having Something to Say. According to Pape, the lineage of the postliberal homiletic established by Charles Campbell in 1997 is more convincing in theory than in practice. In this project, Pape brings Paul Ricoeur into the postliberal conversation in order to bridge this gap between theory and practice. Postliberalism as a theory is generally skeptical of points of contact between the biblical text and the modern world. Thus, postliberal preaching seeks to preach “people into the biblical story” and out of narratives and language of this world.1 Pape, a homiletician with a hermeneutical emphasis in his work, then asks along with many skeptics of postliberal preaching whether and how this theory can be a possibility, seeing as preachers can only translate the special language of the Bible through contact with our words and/ or world every Sunday. Pape concisely and thoroughly reveals problems in the postliberal lineage that complicate the practice of preaching. Pape begins with Karl Barth’s theology of preaching, which even Barth had difficulty adhering to in practice. Then Pape summarizes the postliberal theology of Hans Frei in order to set up the core of his book: a critique of Campbell’s adaptation of Frei for homiletics in Campbell’s Preaching Jesus. Pape argues that Campbell’s proposal was for a “new direction” in homiletics away from the turn to a “New Homiletic.” Though there are many branches of the New Homiletic initiated by Fred B. Craddock, Campbell is mainly concerned with the narrative/story turn (see Eugene Lowry, Edmund Steimle, Morris Niedenthal, Charles Rice, etc). Counter to postliberalism’s starting point of the Bible, Craddock’s New Homiletic starts with the life experiences and narratives of humanity, and correlates the gospel to that narrative in order to heal, affirm, or challenge it. Campbell observes how sermon form followed suit, at times legalistically bound to the linguistic rules of narrative and story. Campbell argues that eventually narrative and plot became the most important aspect of sermon design rather then biblical hermeneutics and theology. Thus for Campbell, preaching needs to turn away from an inward human focus on charming small town stories and back towards the reconfiguring scandalous identity of Jesus Christ. But how do preachers use their words to reconfigure human experience to the scandal in practice? Pape is not satisfied with Campbell’s attempts at answering this pressing question.
- 182. Sigmon, The Scandal of Having Something to Say 178 Practical Matters Journal According to Pape, there are two key problems with Campbell’s proposal. First, it overcorrects the turn to plot and narrative and so refuses to acknowledge how Jesus’s unique identity is woven into and emerges from the narrative of the Bible. Second, it is unworkable for preachers in real life because poetic linguistic guidelines are needed to bring that scandalous identity of Christ into the sermon where it mingles with the particular plot of those who are in the pews. Part of Pape’s solution is to diverge from Campbell in his use of Frei. Campbell engages late Frei and his cultural-linguistic turn to fund his adaptation of postliberal theology to homiletics. For Pape, Frei’s early focus on the form of biblical narrative as the key the to interpretation of scripture—found in The Identity of Jesus Christ and The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative— is a stronger foundation to fund Campbell’s postliberal homiletic for the practice of preaching. Preaching the identity of Jesus without attention to the narrative plot of scripture or to audience is not necessarily transformative, according to Pape. In other words, Campbell’s sharp turn away from the contextual agenda of the preacher and her people is not necessary to postliberal preaching. It is, in fact, a stumbling block to the preacher, who is the hermeneutical bridge in the encounter between the sacred text and the actual context of the church (116). Preaching the cross of Christ can reconfigure reality in every time and place but the skilled preacher needs to know how to linguistically accomplish this. Thus, Pape adapts the threefold mimesis of Ricoeur’s narrative theology to address the three problems he highlights in Campbell’s appropriation of Frei for homiletics. Ricoeur as a conversation partner creatively opens up the world of the preacher and the people as hermeneutic conversation partners in the sermon process. This book is intended for preachers who take conversations in homiletic theory seriously. It does not offer an easily accessible and applicable method to sermon design from start to finish, though one based on Ricoeur emerges in chapter five. Pape’s concise Ricoeurian preaching method is summed up in three moves: a move from “debt to the actual” (our temporal narrative self-understanding), a move from “debt to the real” (the Word to the church in the biblical text), and a move from “debt to the possible” for the preacher’s context (a reconfiguration of our narratives by the narrative truth of the text) (124ff). Will this book convert skeptics of postliberal preaching? It did not convert me and this is not Pape’s aim anyway. Will this book open up poetic possibilities for adherents to postliberal preaching in a postmodern age? Yes, particularly for those who are faithful to the Barth-Frei-Campbell heritage. It is a thoughtful and cogent reappraisal of this lineage. Pape convincingly engages Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis to rightly wed character (of Jesus) and plot (of scripture and temporality) into a dynamic relationship for congregations today. Thus, the scandal of preaching according to Pape is that the biblical Jesus can today still be plotted in the particular lives of the particular people through intentional sermonic language, so that their identities may be reformed to the scandalous cruciform identity of Jesus Christ. Casey T. Sigmon Vanderbilt University Notes 1 John S. McClure, Preaching Words: 144 Key Terms in Homiletics (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 111.