Christianity as Distinct Practices: A Complicated Relationship 9780567683274, 9780567683298, 9780567683281

Table of contents :
Cover
Halftitle
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
Part I THEORY FOR UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIANITY AS PRACTICE
Chapter 1 RELIGION AS ORIENTATION, TRANSFORMATION, AND LEGITIMIZATION OF HUMAN PRACTICES IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Chapter 2 LIVED RELIGION INSTEAD OF RELIGION AS BELIEF
Chapter 3 PRACTICES OF ORIENTATION AND TRANSFORMATION ARE SOCIAL PRACTICES
Chapter 4 HOW FOCUS ON PRACTICES MAY RESHAPE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Chapter 5 TO ACCESS THE WORLD AS WORLD: SEMIOSIS
Chapter 6 RITUAL PRACTICES AS COGNITIVE PROSTHETICS
Chapter 7 IN CONCLUSION
Part II CHRISTIANITY RECONSTRUCTED: CLUSTERS OF PRACTICES SHAPED BY A STORY
Chapter 8 (HI-)STORY AS RESOURCE FOR ORIENTATION AND TRANSFORMATION
Chapter 9 THE CONTENT OF THE STORY: WHAT JESUS PRACTICED AS THE BASIS FOR (ECCLESIOLOGICAL) PRACTICE
Chapter 10 A MORAL COMMUNITY THAT STEWARDS THE ABUNDANT GIFTS OF GOD
Chapter 11 PRAYER AS MEANS OF TRANSFORMATION AND ORIENTATION: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD’S PRAYER
Chapter 12 A REINTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIPTURES AND THE CONCRETE USE OF SCRIPTURE IN THE CHURCH
Chapter 13 PREACHING AS A CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE: BETWEEN COMMUNICATIVE AND STRATEGIC ACTION
Chapter 14 COMMEMORATION OF JESUS’S PRACTICES: OPENNESS TOWARD BOTH PAST AND FUTURE
Chapter 15 PUZZLES FOR ORIENTATION: SUFFERING, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION
Chapter 16 A THEOLOGICAL CONCLUSION: HOW TO PRACTICE “GOD”?
Chapter 17 IS CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION? ARE BELIEF AND DOCTRINE OPPOSED TO PRACTICE?
Chapter 18 CONCLUSION
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index

Citation preview

CHRISTIANITY AS DISTINCT PRACTICES

Rethinking Theologies: Constructing Alternatives in History and Doctrine Edited by Marion Grau Susannah Cornwall Hyo Dong Lee Steed Davidson Volume 2

CHRISTIANITY AS DISTINCT PRACTICES

A Complicated Relationship

Jan-Olav Henriksen

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain in 2019 Paperback edition first published 2020 Copyright © Jan-Olav Henriksen, 2019 Jan-Olav Henriksen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Terry Woodley Cover image © Hilde Marie Aarflot All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-8327-4 PB: 978-0-5676-9547-5 ePDF: 978-0-5676-8328-1 eBook: 978-0-5676-8331-1 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS Acknowledgments

vii

INTRODUCTION

1

Part I THEORY FOR UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIANITY AS PRACTICE Chapter 1 RELIGION AS ORIENTATION, TRANSFORMATION, AND LEGITIMIZATION OF HUMAN PRACTICES IN EVERYDAY LIFE

19

Chapter 2 LIVED RELIGION INSTEAD OF RELIGION AS BELIEF

23

Chapter 3 PRACTICES OF ORIENTATION AND TRANSFORMATION ARE SOCIAL PRACTICES

33

Chapter 4 HOW FOCUS ON PRACTICES MAY RESHAPE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

39

Chapter 5 TO ACCESS THE WORLD AS WORLD: SEMIOSIS

61

Chapter 6 RITUAL PRACTICES AS COGNITIVE PROSTHETICS

73

Chapter 7 IN CONCLUSION

87

Part II CHRISTIANITY RECONSTRUCTED: CLUSTERS OF PRACTICES SHAPED BY A STORY Chapter 8 (HI-)STORY AS RESOURCE FOR ORIENTATION AND TRANSFORMATION

95

vi

Contents

Chapter 9 THE CONTENT OF THE STORY: WHAT JESUS PRACTICED AS THE BASIS FOR (ECCLESIOLOGICAL) PRACTICE

109

Chapter 10 A MORAL COMMUNITY THAT STEWARDS THE ABUNDANT GIFTS OF GOD

129

Chapter 11 PRAYER AS MEANS OF TRANSFORMATION AND ORIENTATION: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD’S PRAYER

137

Chapter 12 A REINTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIPTURES AND THE CONCRETE USE OF SCRIPTURE IN THE CHURCH

143

Chapter 13 PREACHING AS A CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE: BETWEEN COMMUNICATIVE AND STRATEGIC ACTION

149

Chapter 14 COMMEMORATION OF JESUS’S PRACTICES: OPENNESS TOWARD BOTH PAST AND FUTURE

155

Chapter 15 PUZZLES FOR ORIENTATION: SUFFERING, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION

167

Chapter 16 A THEOLOGICAL CONCLUSION: HOW TO PRACTICE “GOD”?

175

Chapter 17 IS CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION? ARE BELIEF AND DOCTRINE OPPOSED TO PRACTICE?

183

Chapter 18 CONCLUSION

193

Bibliography Name Index Subject Index

197 203 204

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is an attempt to follow up on my previous volume Religion as Orientation and Transformation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), where I presented a generic theory of religion. Here I want to spell out the implications of that theory with reference to a specific religion, namely, Christianity, and develop a more concrete interpretation and reconstruction of Christianity that takes the pragmatic account in the previous book seriously. This task has led me to attend to and develop in more detail some theories about practice, as this aspect remained underdeveloped in the previous volume. The present book could not have been drafted without the generous invitation to be a visiting research fellow at the Protestant Theological University (PThU) in Amsterdam and Groningen in the spring of 2017. My stay there offered opportunities to concentrate on the first draft in an environment well suited for such purposes. I remain immensely grateful to the rector and staff at PThU for their willingness to accommodate me in all possible ways, and for their generosity and hospitality. Furthermore, my sabbatical from my ordinary duties as dean of research at MF Norwegian School of Theology would not have been possible without the understanding and accommodations of the rest of the leadership team back home. They deserve my thanks as well. As usual, Hilde Marie, my wife, discussion partner, CEO, chef, tour guide, and assistant, provided exceptional opportunities for intense scholarly work under the most thriving conditions. I am unable to thank her enough, and she probably knows that all too well. I am grateful to several critical readers for their comments and input: long-term colleague and friend Harald Hegstad, as well as Marion Grau, and the anonymous reviewers for Rethinking Theologies: Constructing Alternatives. All of them helped in clarifying the tasks set before me in the present volume. I am nevertheless the only one responsible for errors, confusions, and mistakes. Once more, Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser, PhD, has helped edit the manuscript to improve the language of a non-native English speaker. I am most grateful. Any oddities that remain are solely mine. Some of the materials presented here have been published previously, although they have been reworked to fit the present context. Wherever this is the case, I provide references in the footnotes. Amsterdam, Oslo, Oxford, 2017–18 Jan-Olav Henriksen

I N T R O DU C T IO N

It is in the very nature of religious understanding that it characteristically stems from practical involvement rather than from intellectual analysis.1

Christianity as Distinct Practices? Defining the Problem We can reconstruct and analyze Christianity as a cluster of practices that taken together manifest a distinct historically and contextually shaped mode of being in the world. This cluster of practices implies, as we will see, a complicated relationship between the tradition in which it originates, the community that emerges from and is constituted by that tradition, and the individuals who appropriate the tradition that these communities mediate through their practices. Hence, to think of Christianity simply in terms of belief is misleading and is a way of thinking that is not able to represent fully its distinct character. The present book, therefore, seeks to redescribe Christianity against the backdrop of these claims. This approach is the result of ongoing work to locate philosophy of religion within a larger, interdisciplinary field that can relate the discipline to other neighboring disciplines such as theology, religious studies, sociology of religion, and psychology of religion. I  am not the only philosopher of religion currently contextualizing the discipline in this way, and much of what other scholars have written recently is echoed in the following pages.2 However, as my contribution aims to redescribe Christianity against the backdrop of relating the philosophy of religion to this interdisciplinary context, I want to do so in a way that is not solely determined by concepts and approaches that have their origin in the Christian tradition. It is my hope that this approach can help us to understand better in what way Christianity can be understood as a specific mode of being in the world—a mode of life—and as a cluster of practices. Among these practices, some may be quite distinct, whereas others may be compared easily to practices found in other 1.  John Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension:  Religion, Philosophy and Human Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 6. 2.  See Kevin Schilbrack, Thomas A. Lewis, and others, who try to overcome the divide between philosophy of religion and religious studies.

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

religions. Traditions or practices of ordinary life not usually identified as religious may also be relevant for this approach. We can illustrate the relevance of a more open approach that implies a broader interdisciplinary and practice-oriented approach in the following example. It is occasionally claimed that Christianity is a religion with a unique, distinct, or very specific character. Its presumed uniqueness or exclusive status among other religious traditions is also often taken for granted, or accepted without argument— at least among Christians. I  think this claim should not go unquestioned and therefore requires further scrutiny. The claim for the distinctiveness of Christianity presupposes (a) that one has a clear idea about what makes Christianity distinct or unique among the religious traditions3 of the world, and (b) that one has sufficient knowledge to compare it with other traditions in order to uphold the claim. Often, these presuppositions are not articulated in such a way that they can become part of a clear argument. Instead, the uniqueness of Christianity becomes part of a faith-claim, that is, a claim not based on empirical knowledge but on the hope that this uniqueness is, in fact, the case, and/or on the experience of one’s own religious identity as different from the identity of select others. To claim that Christianity is specific, distinct, or even unique among religious traditions can be either a bold claim or a rather trivial one. Bold, if it is meant to say something about how unique, distinct, and different this tradition is compared to all other religious traditions in the world. Then, one has to define clearly how this tradition is distinguished from other traditions in such a way that displays that it has no commonalities with other traditions, and how it is not significantly shaped by influences from other religious and cultural currents. The claim is trivial, however, if it is only a claim about differences from other traditions, without any qualification about exactly how much different—it can differ without having to differ significantly. Underlying some of the considerations about the distinct or unique character of Christianity is also the fact that one needs to establish a clear answer to the question “What is Christianity?” in order to argue for the claim. This question is on the title page of many books, and the repetition of this question throughout history in itself suggests that this is not an easy question to answer. Christianity comes in many forms and shapes, and these different “Christianities” may differ considerably if we compare them with each other. Furthermore, Christianity is not an independent variable, unconditioned by historical, political, social, and cultural circumstances—or, for that matter, the circumstances that have to do with its presence alongside and interacting with other religious traditions. Its actual

3. When I use the notion “religious traditions,” it is to avoid the reification of religion and to open up to the processual, dynamic, and empirical dimension of religions. Furthermore, the use of this notion does not indicate in any way that I take such traditions to be coherent or clearly defined, either from an empirical or a philosophical point of view. Even when I use the notion “religion,” this concern should be kept in mind.

Introduction

3

manifestations are a result of the interplay between various components that are related to each other through different practices—and it is this interplay in and through practices that I will address with the subtitle A Complicated Relationship. The fact that there are many “Christianities” poses a problem for the argument of this book. How can we talk about what is distinct about Christianity? Since Christianity always exists in the plural, and is always construed by means and resources acquired from tradition, culture, history, the social world, and the everyday, if we want to determine the distinct character of, or at least some basic features of the traditions that call themselves Christian, there is always the risk of privileging one specific version over others, or operating with an idealized image of Christianity that is disconnected from the actual realities in which it displays itself in people’s lives. Without granting it privilege, and admitting to its limitations, I will in the second part of this book offer a reconstruction of what I take to be the main elements, of Christianity, but without claiming that this is a comprehensive view, given that it is developed in my Western, Northern European, Protestant context. It is nevertheless not to be seen as isolated or restricted or independent of and distinct from other positions. Therefore, I will not ignore other contexts, but when I say something about them, it will, unavoidably, be from my specific point of view. However, to be able to see “Christianity” from different points of view is in itself a gain, as it precludes us from essentializing or reifying it. One of the main theses of the present work is that we cannot understand Christianity unless we see it as a historical process that articulates itself through and by means of different practices. It is due to the awareness of these features that we can also detect the shifting character of Christian practices. Against the backdrop of these considerations, I  will not start out by stating that it is what people believe that is most important for developing an answer to the question “What is Christianity?” Instead, I  will begin by suggesting that Christianity is a composite of different types of practices that may be related to belief. Among these practices, those related to belief are only one element, and are, as I will argue later, conditioned by the presence of other practices, especially those of orientation and transformation. This approach allows us to ask more specific questions that can determine what characterizes Christianity:  how do we do Christianity? Can Christianity be done? What does it take for it to appear and make a difference—and what disappears if Christianity disappears? These are some of the questions that are behind the reflections on the following pages.4 When, against the backdrop of the practice-oriented approach suggested here, we ask how special Christianity really is—as a religion (or better as a composite

4. The theoretical basis for this understanding of religion is presented more extensively, but without a specific focus on Christianity, in Jan-Olav Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation—a Maximalist Theory, Religion in Philosophy and Theology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). The present book may be seen as a continuation of that project, here applied on Christianity. My plan is to follow up the present work with a study that also compares Christianity, as described from this perspective, with other religious traditions.

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

of religious practices that may diverge in different contexts)—there are several reasons for being careful in our choice of words. I have already used the main words that present themselves as candidates: is Christianity special, unique, distinct, or separate as compared to other religious traditions? To ask what is special assumes that there is something special about Christianity as compared to other religious traditions. The same goes for the notion “unique.” Furthermore, if we ask what separates Christianity from other traditions, this approach may overlook, or at least downplay, the fact that there are always some types of exchanges between what we perceive as different religious traditions. So when I ask what may distinguish Christianity from other traditions—if anything at all—it is meant as an open question that does not in any way predetermine a clear and substantial answer. If and—in any given case—how Christianity can be understood to be distinct from other religious traditions, remains to be seen.5 The comparative element that is presupposed as necessary for maintaining claims about the distinctive character of Christianity cannot be developed in the present context. Instead, this book aims to determine the basic and distinct practices that we may identify as Christian practices. Only based on such an enterprise can we, then (and in another book), also compare it with other religious traditions.

On the Specific Approach of This Book This book will argue the following, interrelated theses: 1. By reconstructing Christianity as a cluster of practices, we can articulate the distinct character of the Christian tradition by other means than merely the comparison of doctrine. 2. Against the backdrop of a practice-oriented approach, Christianity can be seen as a distinct way to articulate faith through, conditioned by, and on the basis of everyday practices. 5. Miroslav Volf expresses these problems aptly when he writes, [S]ince Christian beliefs coexist with a host of other beliefs about the world—from claims about the future of the universe to theories about the kind of work neurons do in human brains—the question of the relationship of Christian beliefs to all these other beliefs must also be posed. Theology must pursue the question of truth and must do so in conjunction with, and not in isolation from, other disciplines. In a word, because Christian beliefs relate to everyday practices as a fitted set of beliefs with a claim to express truth about God and God’s relation to the world, theologians must be concerned with more than just how beliefs relate to everyday practices—and must be so concerned precisely for the sake of everyday practices”. (emphasis mine) Volf, “Theology for a Way of Life,” in Practicing Theology:  Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C.  Bass (Grand Rapids, MI:  W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 261f.

Introduction

5

3. These practices, in turn, are not separate from other everyday practices but are closely related to or intertwined with them. 4. Thus, Christianity can be seen as a way to lead our everyday lives that adds something distinct to the other ways we lead our lives. 5. This view may problematize an approach to (Christian) religion that separates it from other spheres of life, and consequently, opens up to a reconsideration of the impact and understanding of secularization. I want to make one point clear from the outset to avoid any misunderstanding: despite the focus on practices, I hope the present work is relevant to more than what is usually put on the shelf under the rubric of practical theology. As should be clear from the previous section, it is an attempt at an approach that builds on studies in systematic theology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies as well. It has emerged not so much out of teaching as out of my continuous reflection on how to think about Christianity and its presence in an increasingly pluralist West. Trained as a philosopher of religion, I  have always seen Christianity from the “outside,” despite being a teacher of systematic theology for almost three decades. This “outsider perspective” can be detected in some of the theoretical tools I  use to develop an answer to the question about what may distinguish Christianity from other traditions. To some extent, what I try to do in this book is part of a development in the philosophy of religion and religious studies that is also articulated in recent work by others. For example, Thomas A. Lewis’s recent work points to how both empirical work and conceptual work in the study of religion “have highlighted the ways in which this focus on belief and faith has marginalized concerns with practices and objects—whether conceived in terms of rituals, spiritual exercises, disciplines of subject formation, or material culture.”6 I agree with Lewis, and with Charles Taylor, that the focus on belief and faith is a result or consequence of the Protestant Reformation’s emphasis on faith as the most important element in Christianity.7 Lewis emphasizes how the awareness of this bias has pushed the recent study of religion “toward greater engagement with the diverse range of human activities affiliated with ‘religion’ as well as with the construction of the category itself.”8 These studies are therefore also an attempt to define religion more independently

6.  Thomas A. Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); 2–3. A similar point is also made by Manuel A. Vásquez, More Than Belief:  A Materialist Theory of Religion (Oxford; New  York:  Oxford University Press, 2011). 7. Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters, 3. Both Lewis and Taylor see this emphasis in relation to the specific formation of the notion of religion as shaped by anti-Catholic polemics, “in which many ritual practices are deemed mere superstition rather than religion.” Furthermore, “this same polemic was frequently deployed in colonial contexts when Europeans encountered native practices” (ibid.). 8. Ibid.

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

of the outlook it has been given in specific strands of Christianity. Thereby, they “have directed attention to the limits of conceiving religion principally in terms of either the doctrines articulated by theological elites or the ecstatic experiences so prominent in the work of figures as different as Rudolf Otto and William James.”9 When focusing on a broader field of phenomena regarding Christianity as a religion, one potential problem is that this wider focus can obscure its distinct character as a religious tradition. Moreover, focusing on a wider field of phenomena regarding Christianity’s distinctiveness opens the door to conceptually and empirically defining Christianity as a religious tradition with a plurality of articulations. Thus, Christianity is in itself an expression of diversity and plurality—and this is so within a wider cultural sphere of religious pluralism. Some of those who advocate the distinct character of Christianity or take its uniqueness for granted sees religious pluralism as a problem or a threat. There are, however, no necessary reasons why Christianity—or any other religion for that matter—should consider religious diversity a threat. Against those who argue that one of the main problems in today’s world is religious pluralism, I will argue that a larger and more serious problem is present in contexts and cultures where religious diversity (also within a given tradition) is not present or recognized as a positive value. There and then, the chances for suppression of differing voices and practices are considerably larger. The only way religious diversity constitutes a threat to society is when religious traditions are considered competitors for power and hegemony. If one learns, instead, to see religious diversity as an expression of the richness of resources from which humans draw when they engage with the world, it becomes possible to see the practices and beliefs of others with curiosity, interest, attentiveness, and a willingness to learn. One argument I want to make is that Christianity, as defined from the practice-oriented theories I  develop in the following pages, is inherently plural in its expressions, and its multifaceted character has relevance for how we understand its diverse expressions within its own “boundaries” as well as in a wider interreligious context. However, one does not learn much about others simply by looking at the texts of their tradition (if there are any), or by looking for answers to the question “what do you believe?” The endless discussions about what the Qur’an says and does not say about Jihad or hijabs, or the questions about the Bible’s position on pacifism, homosexuality, or women’s ordination, suggest that references to the content of texts will not help us much in understanding religious people’s mode of being in the world.10 How texts are used, and why, and not only what they say or how they should be held in regard, has to be the center of attention. My argument is that this pragmatic approach to religion is crucial for understanding how it shapes people’s religious outlook. 9. Ibid., 3–4. 10.  There are harsher ways to make this point. Thomas Lewis comments on Stephen Prothero’s book on religious literacy as mainly oriented toward texts, writing that this position means that “we implicitly take for granted that religion is first and foremost a matter of subscribing to a set of claims contained in a body of texts that are taken to be

Introduction

7

Furthermore, as we increasingly learn from empirical studies, there is just as much diversity within different “religions” as between them. The empirical and historical approaches to religion, which need not begin by identifying differences in doctrine, allow for a more nuanced picture, which, in turn, also allows for comparing more liberal and more conservative or fundamentalist versions of different religious traditions.11 Secularization challenged The strong secularization claim, that is, that religion’s influence on people’s lives is decreasing and that religion is becoming less influential in the public sphere as well, mostly takes its point of departure in ideas about religion as belief. Or, it is based on statistics regarding that which is assumed to be specific religious practices, such as prayer. Such approaches suggest that religion is something in which people are less inclined to engage. Although there is considerable warrant for such an approach, there are other ways of looking at religion in the West that offer a different perspective.12 My main argument in this work relies on the fact that since Christianity (and other religions) are intertwined with everyday practices, religious practices cannot be separated fully from the practices of the everyday and placed in a restricted sphere of their own. We need to see religions as traditions and clusters of practices that draw on experiences and quotidian practices and exist only in relationship with these. Given that this is the case, it becomes clear that the idea emerging out of secularization processes, namely, that religions are distinct from other realms of reality, is, in fact, misleading. Although secularization has been part of the way in which religion appears and is conditioned in Western societies, it is important to question what this means, and to what extent such secularization allows for seeing religion as belonging to a realm separate from other realms of reality.13 One of the “fronts” against which the argument in this book is developed as a response is the normative use of the insight into the processes of secularization. This normative use of the secularization thesis implies that we should see religion uniquely authoritative. That understanding of religion leaves us dramatically unprepared to comprehend the myriad, complex ways that religion functions in people’s lives.” Ibid., 12. 11.  Cf. Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas, Religion in Modern Times:  An Interpretive Anthology, Religion and Modernity (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000). 12. See the contributions in Lisbet Christoffersen, Religion in the 21st Century: Challenges and Transformations (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010). From a theological point of view, Nicholas Lash argues along similar lines in Nicholas Lash, The Beginning and the End of “Religion” (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 13.  Further on this, see Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA:  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), as well as Charles Taylor, Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays (Cambridge, MA:  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011). Furthermore, one can ask, with Bruno Latour, if it is not the case that the idea about “the secular” is a way of dealing with religion, religious practices, and religious resources

8

Christianity as Distinct Practices

as belonging only to the private sphere, and as separated from other realms of life. Undoubtedly, secularization processes, in the West, have led to differentiations in the social order, which in turn make it possible to relegate religion to a distinct sphere of society, often considered “the private” or the “individual.” Moreover, this has occurred primarily for political purposes. Although there are many important gains resulting from these differentiation processes, there is nevertheless a hidden problem, namely, the tacit assumption that religion is only about private matters, and can be fully understood thus. There are good reasons to question this assumption from both an empirical and a normative point of view, and this is part of what I hope to do in this book. In recent writings, Charles Taylor has picked up the notion of the Durkheimian understanding of religion and society to describe the changing conditions for religion in a way that highlights key features that need to be considered more carefully regarding religion as practices instead of focusing merely on belief. Taylor has described secularization in the West as leading to what he calls the post-Durkheimian situation, where religion and the values of society no longer go hand in hand. Durkheim’s point was that there was a close relationship between religious practices and the values that kept a society together. However, according to Taylor, in what he calls the neo-Durkheimian situation, we find ourselves in a state where the individual’s right to a religious choice makes this choice different from when church and society were in principle coexistent, and personal choice did not present itself as an option.14 Thus, religious practices exist in another, and not so clearly defined ecclesial or social context. As conditions change and people increasingly join religious organizations or churches based on their own choice, the overlap of church and society decreases. Then, the “church” becomes a more elusive entity, and the state may take on a more providential role than it did earlier. Furthermore, religious belonging is an element that still is central to political identity, but Taylor emphasizes that the religious dimension figures in what he calls the civilizational identity. This identity is based on “the sense people have that the basic order by which they live, even imperfectly, is good and (usually) is superior to the ways of life of outsiders, be they ‘barbarians,’ ‘savages,’ or (in more polite contemporary language) ‘less developed’ peoples.”15 I think one can assume that in such a situation, it may be even more difficult than in previous times to distinguish between religious practices and other practices that do not fall under this category. As religious coercion under these recent conditions is done away with, individual choice is increasingly emphasized, as is the right to choose in general.

that engenders the idea of some spheres of society as being “freed from” (Taylor) or simply unpolluted by religion. Or, we can say with Ingolf Dalferth: If we have to state that the society is secular, we can be sure that it is not yet the case. Cf. Ingolf U. Dalferth, Transzendenz Und Säkulare Welt: Lebensorientierung an Letzter Gegenwart (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), v. 14. Taylor, Dilemmas and Connections, 240f. 15. See ibid., 235.

Introduction

9

From the point of view of spirituality and the personal search for meaning, the focus is, in Taylor’s own words, “now going to be on what is my spiritual path, thus on what insights come to me in the subtler languages that I find meaningful.” Thus, religious practices become less about society and more about the individual and his or her identity. As Taylor writes, “[A] striking feature of the Western march toward secularity is that it has been interwoven from the start with this drive toward personal religion.”16 However, as a consequence, the question about how to maintain a certain doctrinal or ritual framework that is common to all citizens becomes increasingly hard to answer.17 Religion takes on new roles, less political, but also less transparent. Such transparency is required if religion is not to recede into personal irrationalism and drive forward a sectarianism that threatens the common values on which a society is built. This makes it increasingly more relevant to look at religion as practices in which everyone can see articulated the common values of the society. From my perspective, Taylor’s analysis points to some of the important reasons why we need to address religion from the point of view of practices. It is the absence of socially established common practices for orientation and transformation that makes religion on the contemporary scene less understandable or transparent than was earlier the case. When societies lack common frames of orientation, the contribution of religion becomes less clear, or not obvious at all. The point here is not that diversity as such is a threat, but it is the lack of transparency about what these practices mean and what values they carry that is the threat. It is my hope that we can, by focusing on practices of orientation and transformation in Christianity, make more transparent why people believe and do what they do, and how what they do is related to what they believe. When Taylor furthermore speaks of the present situation and how the sacred has become uncoupled from political allegiances in the West, his description of the post-Durkheimian position seems apt:  in the present age, people do not recognize external demands to conform to a certain religious position. Here, the choice is even more open, and, as Taylor writes, “For many people today, to set aside their own path in order to conform to some external authority just doesn’t seem comprehensible as a form of spiritual life.”18 To be able to conform to external demands, one has to have practices that can enforce such conformity. As these demands are no longer present (or at least no longer operative) and are dependent on people recognizing them, practices also increasingly lose their legitimization in specific doctrines. Earlier, the relations between Christianity and the civic order were strong in countries where the state-church system prevailed, and it contributed to conformity as well. Therefore, although the Durkheimian order is past history, it is nevertheless part of how many immediately think about religion and society,

16. Ibid., 216. 17. Cf. ibid., 241. 18. Ibid., 242.

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

be it in Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, or Germany. This is a challenge for politicians, who want to have a say in what positions the (previous) state church should uphold or adopt, as well as for those who are accustomed to thinking of Christian dominance as something that should still shape aspects of the civil and political order. It is also a challenge for Christians who want to deny secular humanists the same rights as they enjoy, for instance, to establish schools. Hence, the Durkheimian heritage still influences governance, despite the fact that on the individual level we are in a post-Durkheimian situation. Most individuals long ago stopped caring too much about doctrinal or ritual conformity and collectivity.19 Nevertheless, they continue to participate in religious rituals, without sharing or accepting their theological legitimization. The above analysis leads to another point, namely, that in Scandinavia we have a phenomenon called vicarious religion,20 in which people attend church services for crucial rites of passage, and therefore partake in specific practices, even though they might profess profound skepticism about its theology. In this situation, the few (devoted believers) stand in for the many (members with a variety of beliefs and convictions); believers uphold the structure that many make use of, even when they do not subscribe to doctrinal statements or the rationale these doctrines legitimize and express through the different rituals. The interesting thing is that even vicarious religion needs some organizational structure and a minimal amount of collective rituals and symbols. The individualism of the postDurkheimian society allows these structures and rituals to be maintained by an institution and by the few, and on behalf of the many who may not have an everyday commitment to religion but still wish to belong to a religious tradition and institution, without necessarily believing in its doctrinal statements. Attractive as this may seem for many, the problem with this situation is that it does not allow for developing a clear connection between theological discourse and practice. Here, theology is not able to flourish in a way that contributes to deeper understanding and produces changes to actual theological positions or spiritual practices. Theology is no longer instrumental in helping people find adequate expressions of their reasons for engaging in religious practices or for articulating their religious experiences or sentiments. Therefore, it is also harder to achieve the transparency needed for religion to provide meaningful interpretations of human

19.  Nevertheless, there are exceptions:  some smaller groups continue to lament the secularization process and the decline of Christian values. This is a point I will return to in due course below. 20. This notion is developed by Grace Davie, as the result of her analysis of how religion seems to work in the Scandinavian context, with little church attendance, but with support from the national (earlier: state) church system. See Grace Davie, The Sociology of Religion, (Los Angeles:  SAGE, 2007), as well as “Vicarious Religion: A Methodological challenge,” in Everyday Religion:  Observing Modern Religious Lives, ed. Nancy Tatom Ammerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 21ff.

Introduction

11

experience and good reasons and standards for the moral formation and practices of orientation and transformation. Having pointed out this problem, we can address another point related to the previous. On the one hand, new forms of spirituality are emerging that in part express dissatisfaction with contemporary (materialist) culture. Some of these forms may also be able to articulate or express religious experiences that are not so easily accessible in what has become the dominant or hegemonic forms of religious life in post-Reformation Christianity (or Christianities of Reform, to phrase it somewhat more Taylor-like). The search for meaning and orientation, and for alternative ways of living (transformation), thus seems to find its paths in those traditions that present themselves as alternatives to the traditional (Christian) religion. There may be at least three main factors behind this situation:  first, alternative spiritualities play on the existing individualism of Western culture, which has also been furthered by the Reformation mode of shaping religion. Second, these movements can interpret and allow for people’s religious experiences in a way that a secularized Christianity, which has been purified of so-called magic and superstition, and mystical elements, is not (or is no longer to the same degree). And finally, third, individualism and the downplaying (or rejection) of religious experiences and practices as important for salvation have led to a situation in which anything that could make religion more than simply doctrinal belief is placed in the background. There is, therefore, a relation between what Taylor calls Reform and the lack of recognition of the importance of religious experience and practices. In general, this has led to a rather meager understanding of what Christian religion is all about. When practices are not sufficiently attended to in a religious context, or their religious relevance or validity is not recognized as crucial, the search for meaning that many people are engaged in becomes a predominantly intellectual task within the boundaries of Christianity. This development does itself contribute to secularization; therefore, it is interesting to note that the recent focus on practices instead of doctrine presents us with a more nuanced picture. People are increasingly becoming unable to see it as a viable option to use a 2,000-yearold text as the immediate basis for knowledge about God and human behavior without relating it to specific practices and contexts in which it can make sense in their ordinary lives. To find a way out of this predicament, one needs to access these sources for interpreting human life on the basis of a theology that is open to and allows for interpreting contemporary human experience within the frame of different practices. That is the theological concern that shapes this book. A word on theology in the present context As indicated above, I suggest that we see religions primarily through the lens of what people do. People do something when they engage in religious activities, and, in turn, such engagement does something to people. Religious practices orient, transform, and legitimize specific types of human behavior and action. These practices are all symbolically mediated—be it through symbols employed in the

12

Christianity as Distinct Practices

actual practice, or in the symbols used to explain and legitimate them. If one accepts this as a premise for the following treatise, what are the implications for theology? Is doing theology a religious practice? My answer to this question is affirmative. But in what ways can we then think of theology as a religious practice? The following list outlines the main reasons for considering theology a religious practice: 1. Theology relates to and reflects on religious practices by taking into account, discussing, and using symbolic resources that are employed for practices of orientation and transformation. 2. Theology interprets experiences as religiously relevant and does so by means of symbolic resources from a given religious tradition. 3. Theology reflects critically on what symbolic resources to use and not use in relation to such interpretations of experience. 4. The theological interpretations of religious practices and experiences are made to reflect on, justify, legitimize, criticize, explain, articulate reasons for, and make transparent and coherent the actual practices and experiences at hand. This means that theological reasoning, as a reflective practice based in a specific community, actually employs, and thereby, at least to some extent, accepts or takes for granted (at least temporarily) the symbolic resources of a given religious tradition. German theologian Eilert Herms can help us grasp this feature through his notion of Selbststeuerung (Eng:  self-control; originally an idea employed in psychology), which describes some of what I take to be covered by the notion of reflective practices that can lead to orientation. According to this view, theology contributes to self-guidance, or the ability to guide, direct, and evaluate oneself. It adds significantly to the reflective dimension in this self-guidance, and fulfills its task on behalf of, and in critical relation to, the actual community—it offers guidance (orientation).21 Thus, according to Herms, theology has the task of developing normative measures that can orient such abilities for those living Christian lives, in the interaction between the individual and the community.22 It nevertheless has to do so in regard to the specific and concrete challenges that emerge out of the concrete social and religious conditions that manifest themselves in Christian life.23 21.  Herms expresses clearly how theology is rooted in the practices of the Christian community when he writes:  “Der Existenzgrund von Theologie ist die geschichtliche Realität der Christenheit und des christlichen Lebens in ihr. Entfällt diese geschichtliche Realität der Christenheit und des christlichen Lebens in ihr, entfällt auch der Existenzgrund für christliche Theologie. Wo keine Christenheit und kein christliches Leben, da auch keine christliche Theologie.” Eilert Herms, Systematische Theologie:  Das Wesen Des Christentums:  In Wahrheit Und Aus Gnade Leben Band 1 (Tübingen:  Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 16. 22. Cf. ibid., 20. 23. Cf. ibid., 18.

Introduction

13

This does not imply that theological reflection requires actual belief or an uncritical attitude on the part of the theologian. For example, using an analogy from philosophy:  one can employ, reflect on, and probe the way Plato thinks, and consider Plato’s reasoning, without having to be or become a Platonist. It is only when one starts using Plato’s vocabulary and concepts to orient oneself and when one strives for personal or other forms of transformation that one becomes a Platonist—or, analogously, a religious believer. The consequence of these considerations about theology for the present purpose should be obvious: this means that the present book is to be considered a theological treatise. As such, it has a normative, and not only a descriptive or reconstructive dimension. Like Thomas Lewis, I hold that “normativity is pervasive, in history and philosophy as well as religious studies.”24 Therefore, it should not be avoided, but acknowledged and defended. The main point is therefore not to avoid any normativity when it comes to theology, religious studies, and philosophy of religion, but to be willing “to submit all claims to scrutiny and questioning, to insist that no assumptions, doctrines, or authorities are beyond questioning.”25 This is the task of theology as well, and cannot be left only to other academic disciplines. The structure of the book: between phenomenology and normativity The book falls into two main parts. The first part explores different theoretical resources that I identify as relevant for a redescription of Christianity as a cluster of practices. Here I  build on work from other scholars in the field of religious studies, philosophy of religion, and theology, as well as my own recent theory about religion as transformation and orientation. The outcome of this part is, I hope, a detailed apparatus that enables us to address Christianity as such practices. The second part seeks to show in what ways it makes sense to develop such a redescription of Christianity. Without leaving theoretical interests aside, I develop a brief phenomenological analysis of what I  consider the basic practices of Christianity; I want to show how they are, at once, both deeply related to ordinary life and aids for determining the distinct character of the Christian tradition.26 I am aware that some will perceive the two parts of the book to be descriptive and normative, respectively. However, this is not what I  am aiming at. I  think there are clear normative claims in the way I develop the theoretical elements in 24. Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters, 8.  25. Cf. ibid., 7–8. 26. Cf. Elaine L. Graham, Transforming Practice: Pastoral Theology in an Age of Uncertainty (London: Mowbray, 1996), 110–11. Graham formulates this in a way that is in accordance with my argument in this book: “Religion as one form of purposeful practice thus combines many of the elements . . . integral to the generation of human social relations. First, it is a system of symbolic meaning, both in its traditions and teaching and in the images and metaphors by which it depicts truth and safeguards knowledge. Second, it is a sociological, as well as a theological, phenomenon, pointing to the significance of religious institutions

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

the first part of this book, as it has an impact on how we understand religion as practice in general, and Christianity more specifically within the same parameters. Furthermore, my redescription of Christianity in the second part makes clear normative claims about how we should understand Christianity today, and these normative claims rest on the theories in Part I  as well as on my own decisions about what matters in such a redescription. Accordingly, there is a normative element in both parts, even in the more phenomenological account in Part II. I therefore also concur with Thomas A. Lewis when he writes that “[n]ormative claims are inevitable in the study of religion (as in most if not all disciplines). What is important is not to try somehow to exclude normative claims but rather to be willing to offer justification for the norms that we invoke.”27 Furthermore, and most relevant for the present study, Lewis points to how the sharp distinction between theology (as normative) and religious studies (as descriptive) rests on some problematic presuppositions. It is not the case, he argues, that among those writing on religion, only the theologians make normative claims. Moreover, to see normative claims related to religion as fundamentally a matter of faith (faith here understood as juxtaposed to reason) is equally misleading. Lewis, therefore, argues that “discussions about the distinctiveness of the academic study of religion should be recast from debates about religious studies v.  theology or descriptive v. normative work to a focus on normativity and the justification of normative claims.”28 He continues: Too often, we distinguish those who are explicitly doing normative work— ethicists, theologians, and philosophers of religion, for instance—from those who are doing more descriptive work—such as many historians—as engaged in fundamentally different activities. Instead of viewing this distinction as the difference that makes a difference for belonging in the field, I believe we should read it as shorthand for a different kind of distinction: all are making normative judgments; much of what distinguishes them is that the first category are more likely to be reflecting explicitly on the justification for their normative claims, whereas the second is more likely to focus their energy elsewhere.29

When I define theology as the reflective practice that justifies other practices of orientation and transformation, this definition is not only a description of what theology is but of how we should think about it (normatively). As such, this

and organizations for upholding or subverting any given social order. Third, it is a personal belief-system, contributing to phenomenological and existential self-understanding, and therefore critical in the construction of identity and subjectivity. Religion therefore carries implicit values and serves to prescribe, recreate and subvert many different aspects of our cultural practices concerning human nature, knowledge, values and meaning.” 27. Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters, 45–6. 28. Ibid., 45. 29. Ibid., 53.

Introduction

15

definition implies a theological claim (about how the discipline should understand itself) as well as a claim related to religious studies, which are equally normative but works within a different pragmatic context. In conclusion, the normative element is pervasive throughout this book: both the first and the second part imply normativity in how to understand religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as a cluster of practices. One should read the book as a whole as an argument for this normative claim.

Part I T HEORY FOR U NDERSTANDING C HRISTIANITY AS P RACTICE

The purpose of this part is to present theories about practice to help articulate the practice-dimensions in religion, especially in Christianity.

Chapter 1 R E L IG IO N A S O R I E N TAT IO N , T R A N SF O R M AT IO N , A N D L E G I T I M I Z AT IO N O F H UM A N P R AC T IC E S   I N   E V E RY DAY L I F E

An approach to religion that takes into account the meaning of religion is also a pragmatic understanding of religion, that is, an understanding that interprets religion from the point of view of how it is used and related to human activity. Religious practices contribute to our understanding of what matters and what does not, what is important and what is not in life. Convictions about what “matters” are never without consequences for practice. The implication of this approach to religion is that we can interpret religion as providing resources that orient, transform, and legitimize specific types of human practices.1 They do this by providing and mediating symbolic resources for a specific community. These three dimensions (orientation, transformation, legitimization) have to be understood as closely connected, and can only be analytically distinguished from each other. Let us explore further how to understand religion. As beings in the world, humans are constantly in need of orientation. Humans orient themselves when they need to cope with specific challenges and when they have to make decisions. They also need to orient themselves by simply finding out what a situation is. Orientation makes people aware of what is more worthy of attention than something else, and so on. It creates the background against which something appears as more significant than other things. It situates them in a world, makes them familiar with it, and provides direction about what should be given attention. Religion provides important, symbolically mediated resources for this task. By mediating knowledge and values important for such orientation, religion becomes part of the human culture as this culture expresses itself in interaction with the social as well as the biological elements shaping human life. It contains statements about what matters, and what matters may have consequences for practice, for what people do.

1.  For a more extensive presentation of the theory here employed, cf. Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation. There I also discuss the similarities between my own contribution and Thomas Tweed’s. See Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

This approach has two important consequences. First, it allows us to see religion as primarily interwoven with human practices. As a practice, religion is mediated through different types of storytelling, symbols, rituals, and cooperation, but also through different reflective practices. (I will return to several of these elements later.) Thereby, religion may give significance to the everyday in ways that transcend the everyday without leaving it behind. To become religious is to learn how to process interpretations of religious symbols, and to act according to the significance that religious signs and symbols provide, as these open up the experience of the world to more than that which is immediately at hand. Furthermore, the approach suggested here integrates different features of religion into the wider system of orientation that humans employ to convert the chaos of the world into order. The understanding of religion proposed here implies that religions contribute to resources of orientation that make humans feel more at home in the world and find their place in it, and thus religions contribute to the interpretation of human experiences. Religions, then, may also shape the horizon of significance from where one engages in the world in meaningful ways. As a point of departure, religions may help people experience belonging and differentiate between what is familiar and what is not, what is well known and what is strange, alien, or to be avoided. Thus, it also may shape and enable a specific focus for engaging the world. From a pragmatic angle, religions do not only prescribe how to act, but also offer different resources to the individual for both social and personal transformation. This point is most obvious in how many religions focus on conversion and salvation—a transformation from one state to another. The transformative element enhances religious engagement and motivates attempts to change the present situation through different practices. It also expresses itself in the development of a given tradition and its practices. Furthermore, the identification of the transformative dimension suggests that it is hardly appropriate to describe religions simply as worldviews. It is so because there is more implied here than simply how one understands the world. The transformative element has both social and personal relevance, and many New Age practices emphasize this element strongly. But the transformative dimension can also be identified in struggles to achieve more insight into personal life and religious traditions, participation in Ignatian practices, and different techniques related to yoga, healing, and meditation. Moreover, we can identify a focus on social transformation in anything from a shift in religious practices, to an opening for the “green” movement and ecological concerns in ethical teachings, and to religiously motivated struggles for justice and against oppression. In any case, the transformative dimension of religion is also primarily to be understood as a practical matter. Recently, Jürgen Habermas2 has pointed to how this dimension in religion is of vital importance as a critical resource for arguments against modern types of naturalism that focus only on short-term goals

2. Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008).

1. Religion in Everyday Life

21

for human development. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas articulates a Christian awareness of this dimension in an apt formulation that also demonstrates how the symbol “God” is employed in order to address transformation; he writes, “God is the constant possibility of transformation pressing on every occasion, even those that are lost for the lack of human response.”3 What, then, about doctrine and belief? I  suggest that we see doctrine as the reflective practice that aims at legitimizing, justifying, and explaining specific types of religious practices of orientation and transformation over against, or in relation to, alternative practices aiming at similar goals. Such reflective practice may also imply a critique of existing or proposed practices. Reflection on doctrine, therefore, is always related to practices of orientation and transformation. Put more strongly: doctrine and religious reasoning are practices that are constituted by their relation to practices of orientation and transformation. However, due to the effects of the Reformation already indicated in the introduction, doctrines have often appeared as the independent, or even as the constitutive element in religions as conceived by theological reasoning. As a consequence, the uses of religion for orientation and transformation indicated above, recede into the background. The foregrounding of the legitimizing dimension of religion that doctrine contributes to thus shapes the perception of religion as (cognitive) belief. Of course, one cannot avoid using doctrine to legitimize the use of religious resources for orientation and transformation. To do so is nevertheless not the same as making the legitimization aspect of doctrine the main component of religion. Legitimization aims at justifying and regulating practices—a point that also makes it understandable how orthodoxy can be perceived as related to power and discipline. However, from a historical point of view, doctrine and “correct faith” increasingly came into focus as authorities sought to articulate religion. After the Reformation, doctrines become necessary to emphasize differences between denominations, and gradually also for defining doctrine in relation to the growing corpus of science that emerged independent of the church. Most importantly, however, the Reformation de-emphasized religious practice and described it as irrelevant to salvation.4 As a consequence of its focus on faith rather than on experience through practice, the idea that Christianity is not a religion but a call to faith in divine revelation as opposed to religion, emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century and was especially mediated by the work of Karl Barth. Kevin Schilbrack sheds further light on the role of practice as prior to reflection: Granted, one might participate in a practice and not know why it works. In fact, one might participate in a practice and not even wonder why it works. Practitioners typically develop an explicit justification only when a practice fails or is challenged. Justifying one’s practices is then a second order form

3.  Stanley Hauerwas, Hannah’s Child:  A Theologian’s Memoir (London:  SCM Press, 2010), 195 (emphasis in the original). 4. Taylor, A Secular Age.

22

Christianity as Distinct Practices of discourse and reflection. But . . . people have beliefs insofar as they take something as true, and they take something as true as soon as they act in any purposive way. Therefore, even in cases in which a religious community has not developed an explicit ontological account that justifies its practices, identifying practices by their ontology is still appropriate. This is so because agents have a pre-reflective understanding of the world in which they operate. It is precisely this pre-reflective engagement with the world that one seeks to make reflective when one’s practices fail or are challenged. We might be able to find a religion that had not developed an explicit ontological justification for a given practice, but we will not find one that does not have even a pre-reflective understanding of the world, an understanding of the world that makes that practice intelligible. For this reason; we can define religion as normative practices that at least implicitly make ontological claims in terms of which the practical norms are authorized.5

It makes sense to end this chapter with Schilbrack’s observation, since much of what goes on in the name of religion, against this backdrop can be seen as not related to its legitimizing aspect, but are instead expressed in immediate and everyday practices that are relatively independent of doctrine.

5. Kevin Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto, Wiley Blackwell Manifestos (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell), 128–9.

Chapter 2 L I V E D R E L IG IO N I N ST E A D O F R E L IG IO N A S B E L I E F

Putting the Theory to Use: Everyday Religion The recent discourse on everyday religion1 or lived religion2 offers an approach to religion that focuses on individual experience within the social context in a way that expands the theoretical perspectives of the previous chapter. This literature helps us to examine more concretely the purposes for which people use religion. I will argue that a focus on the pragmatic aspects of religion pose further challenges for theological approaches to religion that primarily emphasize belief. As these pragmatic aspects concern the different ways religion is used for orientation, transformation, and the legitimization of specific practices, we need to see religion as a cultural resource,3 or as part of the cultural realm. It is as a dimension of culture that religions contribute to specific practices, which enable both personal and social orientation and transformation. How religions are used to realize such

1.  For example, Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes:  Finding Religion in Everyday Life (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Ammerman, Everyday Religion; William V. D’Antonio, Anthony J. Pogerelc, and Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Voices of the Faithful:  Loyal Catholics Striving for Change (New  York:  Crossroad, 2007); Marja-Liisa Keinänen, Perspectives on Women’s Everyday Religion:  Papers Read at the Conference Religions on the Borders: New Challenges in the Academic Study of Religion, at Södertörn University College, Sweden, April 19–22, 2007, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2010); Susan Sullivan, Living Faith: Everyday Religion and Mothers in Poverty, Morality and Society Series (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 2011); Meredith B. McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Meredith B. McGuire and Debra Kantor, Ritual Healing in Suburban America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988). 2. For an introduction to lived religion, see Robert Orsi’s essay “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion,” in Lived Religion in America:  Toward a History of Practice, ed. David D. Hall (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 3–21. 3.  See Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51, no. 2 (1986).

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orientation and transformation differ, of course. Nevertheless, this approach may have an impact on the theological understanding of religion and challenge prevalent positions that take their point of departure in religion understood as belief. I will substantiate the proposed approach to religion by demonstrating its relevance in a reading of recent studies of everyday religion that highlight the pragmatic dimensions of religion. As already suggested, stressing a pragmatic and practice-oriented approach to religion is important because of the widespread notion that religions are mostly about belief. Theologies that address religion as cognitive propositions often employ this approach. This focus on belief has been influenced by the emphasis on doctrine that has dominated Protestant theology.4 When one understands religion as belief in doctrine, or as a way of stating one’s view on life, this approach downplays the practice element. This development has been further enhanced by how theology, as the hegemonic study of religion up until the late 1960s, has largely centered on the study of doctrinal texts. However, there are substantial and empirical reasons for seeing doctrine and theology as dependent on and related to practices of orientation and transformation, and not as independent systems of thought that condition these practices simply by explaining, legitimizing, and justifying them. Instead, doctrine may be seen as a way to variously legitimize existing practices that condition reflective practices of which doctrine is an important element. Hence, a practice-oriented approach to religion renders it necessary to question the dominance of theology and, more specifically, doctrine when it comes to interpreting the religious situation, simply because theology would benefit from insights gained from other branches of religious studies. In the present chapter, I want to contribute to this approach by sketching an empirically based argument for placing theology as dependent on and constituted by its relation to practice, and thus as derived from it. This approach challenges the idea that theological assumptions are determinative for the content of religion. The motivation for using theories of everyday religion is that they explore religion in a way that is not determined by theology or doctrine. Instead, they take as their point of departure the actual experiences of (religious) persons as opposed

4. Cf. Martin Luther’s statement: “For whoever stands correctly and firmly in the belief that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, that he died and has risen again for us, such a person has all other articles added to him and they firmly stand by him.” Martin Luther et al., Luther’s Works, American edn, vol. 34 (St. Louis, MO; Philadelphia:  Concordia; Fortress Press, 1955), 205. The emphasis on the importance of the truth of dogma as the main focus in religion is also expressed clearly in recent contributions, such as the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. He develops the connection between the notion of the revelation of God and the truth of dogma in a way that emphasizes dogma and the content of scripture more than human experience as a basis for developing knowledge. Dogma is considered, in turn, as constitutive for all church practices. Cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), vol. 1, 18–26, especially 24–6.

2. Lived Religion Instead of Religion as Belief

25

to “the prescribed religion of institutionally defined beliefs and practices.”5 Meredith McGuire’s work is of special importance here in that she expands the understanding of religious practice to more than what is prescribed by institutional authorities. Her approach means that, for instance, interreligious dialogue and the lighting of candles in sites not previously designated as sacred can nevertheless be perceived as types of religious practice. McGuire’s work centers around the notion of “lived religion,” and she holds that religious experience must be understood in a wider context than mere doctrinal convictions, and as more than an individualized phenomenon. She writes, Although lived religion pertains to the individual, it is not merely subjective. Rather, people construct their religious worlds together, often sharing vivid experiences of that intersubjective reality. A  concept of “lived religion” is also more balanced than overly cognitive approaches to individual religion. Individual religiosity is not a mere “mentality” or frame of mind, as too many historians and social scientists have implied.6

Furthermore, as Thomas Lewis points out, “Attention to the notion of ‘lived religion’ is driven in part by the idea that the majority of most people’s actual religious behavior cannot be understood as the application of the teachings or beliefs that are typically taken to define the tradition.”7 The view expressed by McGuire here is in consonance with the basic approach to religion suggested in my analysis of the different practices for which religious resources may be employed. As Manuel Vásquez has argued, albeit with reservations, that scholarship focused on lived religion has contributed significantly to overcoming a textcentered, heavily doctrinal, and cognitive approach to religion. It has opened up to more contextualized, materialized, and dynamic understandings. Lived religion means that one can focus concretely, for example, on how parents try to make the interiority of faith visible and materially sustainable for their children. Furthermore, it enables us to see how religion in the everyday provides existential vocabularies that help people deal with, or articulate, concerns related to health, danger, sexuality, family, future, death, pain, and so on—all of which have material or embodied aspects.8 We can substantiate the reasons for the everyday religion approach by taking a closer look at Nancy Ammerman’s recent work Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes. The distinction between different types of religious practices that I have suggested

5. Cf. McGuire, Lived Religion, 12. 6. Ibid., 12. In the literature it is hard to see any clear distinctions between the notions of everyday religion as used by Ammerman, and lived religion as here described by McGuire. They both seem to employ a combination of ethnographic and sociological methodology in order to study individual experiences as they appear in a wider social context. 7. Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters, 140. 8. Cf. Vásquez, More Than Belief, 253.

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thus far, and that I employ in my exploration of Ammerman’s work as well, is to be understood as an analytical distinction between orientation, transformation, and legitimization. The conclusion drawn from the analytical character of this distinction is that practices can be analyzed as expressing all these dimensions. Hence, for example, engaging in moral practices is about orientation (what is important), transformation (change in behavior), and legitimization (reflection on why you do what you do).9 Ammerman’s study is based on interviews with ordinary Americans who tell stories of their everyday lives, the place religion has in relation to their daily routines, and the things that matter most to them. Ammerman highlights common threads running through descriptions of spirituality across generations. She also points to how their everyday religious life is shaped by religious traditions, organized religious communities (especially Christian and Jewish traditions), and fellow members of the spiritual “tribe” to which they belong. Unlike the oftenemployed focus on “the mind” and the “theological” by theologians and religious scholars, Ammerman focuses instead on practices (and the places they may be found) in everyday lives. Her study, thereby, shows not only how religion has not entirely disappeared from the modern world, but also how people sustain modern religion in their everyday lives. The practical or pragmatic approach in Ammerman’s research is motivated by the material itself. She finds that American church and synagogue attenders state that practice is at the core of their religious faith. Faith is, for them, a way of living, and especially of serving others: “What people name as definitional to their religious identity is rarely a doctrine or even a spiritual experience. What they name is a way of living.”10 Which “way of living” is in focus in her study? This question is hard to answer in a simple way. According to Ammerman, religion perceived as a way of life is more than a belief system, a collective moral community, or transcendental experiences. Therefore, traditional understandings of religion are not able to account fully for how religion and spirituality shape everyday life. Furthermore, it is hard to delineate what religion is simply by looking at what people do, due to the diversity of their practices, which may stretch from intense and rigorous engagement, via open experimentation, to no spiritual practices at all.11 Focusing on what has been traditionally identified as religious is not sufficient, she claims. Instead, she looks at what people do, and not only at what they believe or where they belong. Accordingly, the result of this approach is that she can address spiritual activity as comprising more than what standard definitions of religion usually include.12

9. This analysis of Ammerman has been presented in Henriksen, “Everyday Religion as Orientation and Transformation—A Challenge to Theology,” but with a different scope and within a comparative framework. 10. Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes, 214. 11. Ibid., 289. 12. Ibid., 290.

2. Lived Religion Instead of Religion as Belief

27

The practical approach in Ammerman’s study fits well with the empirical fact that people often find it hard to articulate beliefs about God, with many suggesting that what faith means is to live by the Golden Rule.13 This rule can be seen as a basic point of orientation in the way people report how they use religion. The people in Ammerman’s study emphasize that it is how one lives one’s life, and not what one believes, that matters. Moreover, they downplay the importance of attending religious services. This finding has implications not only for how sociologists and others measure “religion” by measuring attendance numbers, but also highlights the importance of having an approach to religion that needs to focus on religion not as belief, but as practices that exist both inside and outside religious institutions. Ammerman’s focus on practice, and on “practices out of place” (i.e., outside religious institutions), helps us see that people are religious though perhaps not “loyal, dedicated, orthodox believers.”14 Ammerman sees the permeable boundaries of religious institutions as part of a more generic feature that characterizes institutions in modern societies. In such societies, individuals do not restrict the religious conditions for their practices to specific areas or contexts, but allow them to be expressed in different dimensions of life. Hence, her study may also confirm the suggested thesis that secularization does not always work on the individual level as a device to isolate the “religious” or “sacred” from the “secular.” Her analysis of practices as not restricted to institutions and that which can be performed in different areas of life illustrates this: Work and politics are given meaning and direction by conversations over the dinner table, while family caregiving is interlaced over time and space with obligations to jobs and communities. What we do and why and how we do it are questions that cannot be answered with the “institutional logic” of the single place we happen to be at any given moment. The study of modern social life now recognizes the influences that flow back and forth across institutional lines. The simple recognition that all boundaries are porous forces us to ask why we assume that religion is a special case, incapable of escaping the one institution to which it has been consigned.15

The above quotation suggests that the resources offered by religious traditions cannot be understood as fixed. The transition of religious elements from one institutional context or practice to another means negotiating and renegotiating how these resources are used, and, in turn, it is likely to diversify further what can count as religious and not. However, it also means that “religious” elements cannot be consigned to an existence within specific institutional boundaries. In such a pragmatic approach to religion, fixed doctrine is of limited use, as it requires a clear institutional context and clearly delineated practices. The only way doctrine can

13. Ibid., 2. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 6.

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work well in such a context is if it is closely related to the diverse practices people engage in and helps to illuminate, justify, or contribute to how these practices are carried out. Practices thus shape a more dynamic view of religion. This point is confirmed when Ammerman points to how she could identify religion and religious resources in a diversity of social locations. This finding is a testimony to the diversity of human spiritual life, and it is also a strong argument, I would contend (as she does), for the need to expand definitions of what counts as “religious.” Despite the fact that traditional religious institutions and doctrines remain an important factor in many individual lives, this is not the main element in people’s spiritual orientation. Ammerman’s study participants testify to how spiritual realities encompass a much broader range of practices, experiences, beliefs, and affiliations. She comments on this variety by saying that official leaders, who are concerned with doctrines and institutionalized practices, would likely be uncomfortable with the many ways people practice their spirituality. However, her main argument is that everyday religion requires “a more open stance that sees the institutions and the orthodoxies usually counting as religious, as part of a larger picture.”16 In turn, this point supports my plea for approaches to religion that identify pragmatic dimensions in other elements beyond what can be addressed by doctrine and belief. Ammerman also points to how religious resources exist, are used and transmitted, in ways that are only weakly connected to doctrinal systems, and that these practices also make it easier to move from one context to another, bringing these resources with them. She underscores the need to open up the definitions and boundaries of religion and spirituality. She also points to how practice is essential because it is through practices and narrative (which is, in itself, a practice) that people carry religious resources with them across boundaries. Therefore, “tightly argued philosophical systems,” as she calls them, do not seem to have the same bearing on people’s religious and spiritual lives. Hence, the legitimization element in religion, expressed in coherent cognitive content, may be of critical importance to the experts and the religious authorities, but in everyday life, people’s ideas about God and the world are most often expressed in stories and rituals than in such doctrinal systems.17 It is especially interesting that Ammerman underscores how religious ideas are primarily situated in stories and rituals, and that the ideas thus situated enable people to tell or perform these ideas in different contexts, thus practicing these ideas. This approach can, in turn, be interpreted as suggesting that these ideas may appear as relevant, practicable, or meaningful because of the ways they are practiced, rather than because they are linked to tightly argued philosophical or theological systems. I take this to highlight the importance of an approach to religion and spirituality that focuses more on the practical than on the cognitive dimensions.

16. Ibid. 17. Ibid.

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One main argument in Ammerman’s study is that the porous boundaries between different realms of everyday life also make it difficult to uphold the often-used distinction between the spiritual and the religious18 (and not only between the sacred and the secular, as I  would argue). Her findings indicate that people are both spiritual and religious at the same time and that a sharp distinction between the spiritual and the religious is impossible to maintain. For a majority of her interviewees, spirituality is defined as interchangeable with the experiences they have learned to interpret by means of the resources offered by their religious communities. In everyday reflection and practice, the dimensions are intertwined, because their everyday religious lives are articulated in a world that is simultaneously discursive and experiential.19 Ammerman’s description suggests that the experiential dimension is at the forefront of how the interview participants place themselves in relation to religion. She builds on Robert Wuthnow’s understanding of spiritual practices “as serious, deliberate, long lasting, requiring significant energy, and transforming.”20 Her participants relate spiritual practices that “fall somewhere between this intentional transformative ideal and the unconscious enacting of structural prescriptions.”21 She finds that their spiritual practices are not passive habits undertaken without a sense of agency, but often reflect the influence of an institutional context as well. Thus, she finds that the practices they report from their everyday lives display a creative tension between structuring patterns and individual agency.22 I would suggest that this observation points to close ties between the individual, the experiential, the institutional, the social, the cognitive, and the emotional in a way that makes it necessary to take into account that both spirituality and religion are dynamic and diverse. These nuances cannot be articulated exclusively in terms of enacted doctrine, as a theological approach to religious and spiritual practices has traditionally done. Ammerman’s work also suggests that doctrine, as the main part of religion, is not held in high esteem among her study participants. Even when it comes to preaching, it is the moral and spiritual content (related to orientation and

18. See, for example, Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation, 1st edn (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993); Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution:  Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality, Religion and Spirituality in the Modern World (Malden, MA:  Blackwell, 2005); Linda A. Mercadante, Belief without Borders:  Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious (Oxford; New  York:  Oxford University Press, 2014). 19. Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes, 49. 20.  Ibid., 77, with reference to Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1998), 16. 21. Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes, 57. 22. Ibid.

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transformation), and not merely the cognitive content, that comes to the forefront. Most important is the emotional impact of preaching, a point that further emphasizes the importance of experience.23 Moreover, unlike what others may suggest are theological reasons for leaving the faith,24 those who lose their faith do so, Ammerman argues, because “their churches failed to care for them.”25 Again, practice is what matters most. When she addresses transformative practices, Ammerman points to how these can be performed in different ways. These practices consist of anything from practices of healing or meditation, to shared narratives about the ability of divine power to change the world. Such narratives may motivate human action to change, and thereby also change the world. She also points to how stories with spiritual content have this-worldly power. The stories participants offered testified to a consciousness of transcendence and recognition of a sacred dimension in reality beyond the ordinary. This consciousness of transcendence, nevertheless, is not the primary point of my argument here. Most important is the way these stories themselves transcend the circumscribed or clearly delineated realms of experience in ways that make the spiritual present across different parts of everyday life. Ammerman also points to how a consciousness of the spiritual dimension need not be systematized into a set of doctrines, or organized into legally recognized institutions (as has been attempted in the modern world).26 Moreover, she points to how this consciousness is there in all realms of the everyday. As I read it, this means that the resources of religion for being in the world are present everywhere when people are in need of orientation and transformation—given that they have access to them through their social networks, institutions, communities, and so on. Any restriction of the understanding of religion to institutionalized beliefs within clearly delineated boundaries will not be able to adequately capture the dynamism of religion. In conclusion, my reading of Ammerman seems to support the relevance of an approach to religion that concentrates on how it provides practical resources for orientation and transformation, thus rendering belief and doctrine secondary or constituted by their relation to practices. Accordingly, the relevance of such an approach means that to see religion and religious practices simply as expressions of a doctrinal position is inadequate; instead, doctrine and belief emerge from practices related to orientation and transformation, motivating, legitimizing, and justifying them over and against alternatives. The view that doctrine and theology are the most important parts of religion has provided a specific normative view of religion that renders practice secondary and sometimes even as suspect. It reflects a historical situation in which Protestant theological criticism of religious practice has dominated views of religion. Thus, the insistence that belief is primary must be

23. Ibid., 99–100. 24. See Mercadante, Belief without Borders. 25. Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes, 209. 26. Ibid., 293.

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understood against the pragmatic and normative interest in restricting religious practices, and in controlling and justifying them. Due to the detraditionalization processes in the West,27 I believe that such a normatively informed understanding of religion cannot withstand the diversity of empirically detectable religious practices that Ammerman helps to document. They demonstrate how religion is in fact constituted by people’s practices and experiences. How religious authorities use doctrine—in ways that allow for the normative and disciplining dimension in religion—is being pushed into the background. Theology and doctrine can still be seen as attempts to establish restrictions on acceptable experiences and practices, but it also must be seen as dialectically related to actual, existing practices, and not as their fundamental condition. Such practices may also contain far more than is addressed by normative theological content. Theology, accordingly, should recognize and build into its self-understanding that people’s actual religion is shaped more by a wide variety of experiences and practices than by adherence to specific doctrines.

27. Paul Heelas et al., Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996).

Chapter 3 P R AC T IC E S O F O R I E N TAT IO N A N D T R A N SF O R M AT IO N A R E S O C IA L P R AC T IC E S

As already mentioned, the main thesis behind this book is that religions are best understood as composites or clusters of different practices, which, from a more generic and formal point of view, can be described as practices of orientation, transformation, and legitimization. However, to determine more concretely what this implies, we have to establish a clear understanding of the notion of practice. A  well-known and often used definition of practice is presented by Alasdair MacIntyre: By a “practice” I . . . mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.1

There are several important elements to note in this definition. First, when he calls practices coherent and complex, it means that they are units comprised of different parts.2 When something is complex and coherent, the different parts of a practice can be differentiated and mediated, though still part of a unity. This point is important when considering the opposite: when something breaks down as a practice, it is because it no longer constitutes one meaningful unity of action. One example of this is how the practice of indulgences no longer appeared meaningful after the Reformation. Second, MacIntyre describes practices as socially established, which I  take to mean that we cannot see something as a practice unless it is made accessible to us by others through communication and learning. Furthermore, this means that

1.  Alasdair C. MacIntyre, After Virtue:  A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), 187. 2.  These parts can then be seen as connected by what we will identify as Mediation, as this is described by Peirce (see p. 67f.).

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practices do not appear when someone merely does something; practices are prior to the individual who takes part in them, and thereby are also manifestations of the relational character of human engagement with the world. Third, and especially important for my argument in this book, is that practices must be understood as having or realizing internal goods. In relation to the previous section, this is especially important, since this means that the symbols we employ may be part of the reality that is realized.3 One example of this may be how the internal good of baptism is salvation, and the symbol used for this is water. Water in baptism not only points to the reality of salvation, but brings this salvation forth, or manifests it. In this way, neither symbols nor practices can be seen as mere instrumental or exchangeable, since what they do is in a way itself contained within them. Prayer, similarly, is not only a means for communication, but is itself communication. The aims of the practice are not external to the practice. Hence, a mere functionalist or instrumentalist account for practices will not do. Furthermore, and fourth, MacIntyre relates practices to standards of excellence. To what extent this is something that can apply to all religious practices remains to be seen. However, Christian teaching may be assessed according to how well it provides a good means for orientation for students, just as practices of penance may or may not work well to achieve the strived for transformation. Furthermore, religious reflection may be well and thoroughly carried out, or it might remain flawed or superficial. In all these cases, the standard of the practice can be established, and the one who practices it is also doing something with herself—she can become a better teacher, person, or theologian. From the wide variety of practices we identify as Christian, it is nevertheless important to ask if standards of excellence, as MacIntyre understands them, are operative in all types and forms of such practices. No doubt, there is a strong tendency in many parts of Christianity to stress or recognize certain kinds of conduct as more “Christian” than others, or to see someone’s actions as more clearly expressing a Christian attitude than others. However, it is important to note that such standards may take a negative turn if they contribute to the exclusion or marginalization of specific groups. Hence, assessing some practices in terms of standards of excellence implies a critical stance toward how these standards are themselves applied—a point that may in itself point to standards of excellence for how standards of excellence are put to use. From a more generic point of view, it might be possible to see the internal goods of Christian religious practices as constituted by faith, hope, and love. It is in these practices that Christianity may be detected as Christianity. Thus, the very acts in which Christians practice faith, hope, and love are those that make this religious tradition present. From a normative point of view, we can say that Christians do not love for the purpose of achieving something external to the loving relationship. Accordingly, theology has always criticized instrumental

3. For this definition of a symbol, see Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, World Perspectives (New York: Harper, 1957), chapter III.

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approaches to faith, hope, and love, as such approaches destroy their character as religious virtues. One does not believe to get saved, but because one is saved by the grace of God. My faith rests on what God does, not in what my faith can achieve for me in the way of external goods. Likewise, I  hope not to get something for myself, but to participate in the kingdom where justice rules and where goodness flourishes among all creatures. Moreover, I do not love to get something in return, but to participate in a loving relationship, which may also fulfill my internal goal of being the human being I am called to be. We can deepen and expand this idea of the internal goods of practices through which Christianity manifests itself if we add perspectives from social practice theory to MacIntyre’s understanding of practices. Although a practice is socially and culturally conditioned, it cannot be seen as the result of evolutionary mechanisms alone. Thus, from a theological point of view, evolution had to take a specific turn and allow for the emergence of social and cultural capacities that are not reducible to such mechanisms, although it has to build upon and presuppose them. Andreas Reckwitz’s understanding of social practices allows for a profound understanding of participation in a religious tradition that can clarify the above points further. His theory, though not in any way theological, articulates how the social dimension of human life can be seen as constituted by practices. In so doing, he avoids approaches that identify the condition for the social merely in mental qualities, discourse, or interaction. Instead, he sees “social practices” as the smallest unit for understanding the social. Hence, it is crucially important to develop a definition of “practice” that can open up the notion of human participation in the world through religious means. For Reckwitz, “A ‘practice’ (Praktik) is a routinized type of behavior which consists of several elements, interconnected to one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge.”4 Reckwitz’s understanding of practice implies three important elements for the present argument. The first is that every practice is a “block” where different elements are present. Consequently, no practice can be reduced to a single one of these elements, or is constituted by only one of them.5 To a large extent, he seems to adopt a similar position to MacIntyre in referring to practices as “unities” (presented above). Second, Reckwitz sees a practice as a pattern that can be filled with a multitude of single and often unique actions that reproduce the action in question in a variety of ways. Thus, not only do signs that constitute practices have a certain openness, as argued in the previous section, but the practices themselves are not necessary to be carried out in only one way. A good example here is, again, prayer, which can be performed in a multitude of ways.

4. Andreas Reckwitz, “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing,” European Journal of Social Theory 5, no. 2 (2002), 243–63 (249). 5. Ibid., 250.

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Finally, Reckwitz holds that a single individual, as a bodily and mental agent, acts as a “carrier” of the practice and can, in fact, be the carrier of many different practices that do not always need to be coordinated with each other. As he writes, “Thus, she or he is not only a carrier of patterns of bodily behavior, but also of routinized ways of understanding, knowing how, and desiring.”6 However, Reckwitz also claims that these routinized, mental activities are “necessary elements and qualities of a practice in which the individual participates, not qualities of the individual.”7 I  would argue that this means that we can see the individual as someone in whom these elements manifest themselves when he or she participates in the actual practice. Practice is, therefore, more than a mere individual activity, as it relates to more than what the individual intends or does. As we shall see, this has profound consequences for how we may see, for example, the practices of many Christian churches when they baptize infants. I will now try to tease out the implications of this approach for practices and for understanding religion by again taking as an example how people act on the basis of faith, hope, and love.8 The argument rests on the fact that faith, hope, and love only make sense (or are accessible) in relation to practices, or as internal to modes of practice; it makes little or no sense to speak of them as manifesting themselves apart from specific practices, or only as aims for such practices. Therefore, to live in faith, hope, and love is to practice a specific mode of being in the world. As practices, though, they may be seen as related to a community that thinks of itself as having specific obligations, and these obligations emerge out of the story that constitutes the community.9 As for the composite character of practices that precludes their reduction to one or a few components, it is clear that we cannot reduce practices of faith, hope, and love to a single component: they all have motivational, orientational, and practical implications. They also require reflection. We act on faith and hope, as well as on love. All three also imply some bodily activity and emotional component: there is no love that is not related to some bodily activity (even if it is only a gaze or a small gesture), just as there is no hope or faith that does not direct us toward something outside ourselves. However, the irreducible character of such practices to a single component is evidence for the relevance of a practice-oriented interpretation of faith, hope, and love. By participating in such practices, humans also participate

6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. (emphasis mine). 8. This topic is taken up again and developed further in Chapter 10 in Part II. 9. Graham, in Transforming Practice, writes pointedly on this:  “Rather, practice emerges as something which mediates between structure and agency, seeing culture as a human creation which persists over time; and of the norms of practice as in some sense rule-governed institutional but still dependent on individual and collective agency for their maintenance. Such a focus avoids rooting the values of hope and obligation in a metaphysical extra-cultural realm, but rather allows us to plot the dynamics of the ways in which purposeful practices are the implicit bearers of ultimate truth-claims” (97).

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in something that transcends their individual competencies and abilities—as the desires, knowledge, and other elements required for practice have to be acquired by learning from others. Practice opens up to different dimensions of human experience, and to processes of learning that can expand the range and potential of human agency. As contexts for learning, religions can thereby also be seen not only as places where practices take place, but also where one may learn more about how to practice faith, hope, and love. Furthermore, it almost goes without saying that practices of faith, hope, and love can be carried out in a multitude of different ways. How one loves, and what one hopes for, or how one lives one’s faith is not predetermined. Therefore, religions may be seen as providing and expanding learning repertoires for how they may be practiced.10 We can elaborate this point further by referring to how Reckwitz sees the role of bodies in practices. When he refers to practices as routinized bodily activities, he holds that such practices involve specific movements of the body. Such practices are therefore the results of how the body has been trained or still is trained in specific ways. “When we learn a practice, we learn to be bodies in a specific way,” he writes.11 It implies more than a mere instrumental relation to my body; it implies a “performance of the body.”12 The performance character is connected with mental and emotional activities, which makes it hard (not to say impossible) to separate practice from the bodily activity. Thus, practice as a phenomenon is one in which the body–mind divide, which we need to address as problematic, again appears as irrelevant or obsolete.13 Given that a human being can be a carrier of different practices that are not always coordinated with each other, believers may not always be consistent when it comes to the relationship between their faith and other things they practice. Humans are involved in different projects: some are selfish, some are not; some are oriented by faith and love, whereas some are short-sighted and instrumental. The theological implication is that even though one might say that those specific religious convictions are articulated in practices of faith, hope, and love, in total, human practices may still display ambiguity and inconsistency that makes such articulation far from unambiguous. One of the questions that arises from Reckwitz’s understanding of practices is the extent to which Christian religious practices imply things. The most obvious example of things related to Christianity is the use of elements in the sacraments, as well as the uses of Scripture for inspiring and directing faith. Scripture as the material condition for guiding reflective practices cannot be underestimated. However, there are other elements as well, as small pieces of jewelry (crosses, fish) or

10.  Cf. Geir Afdal, Religion Som Bevegelse:  Læring, Kunnskap Og Mediering (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2013). 11. Reckwitz, “Toward a Theory of Social Practices,” 251. 12. Ibid. 13. For more on the importance of the embodiment paradigm for the understanding of practices, see further below, p. 48f.

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stickers on cars can be applied for marking allegiances or making a transformation of one’s faith visible. Moreover, even the practice of reading the Scriptures is a good example of how a practice may have orientational, transformative, and legitimizing aims. It may be performed for the purpose of the reader to orient herself in the world; it may contribute to the transformation of her attitude toward others; or it may provide her with reasons or warrants for doing this or that, and not something else (the last being an example of how there is also a motivational element implied in practices). Examples of other “things” in relation to Christian practices may include anything from clothing for the poor, medicines for the ill, meals for the hungry, rooms and hospitality for the homeless, and so on. All of these examples also point to the embodied character of faith practices. However, because these “things” are not in themselves expressions of faith, hope, and love, it is by being involved in the wider context of their practices that they can serve as such. More important in this connection, however, is that these things can also contribute to the practical manifestation of Christianity in specific practices.

Chapter 4 H OW F O C U S O N P R AC T IC E S M AY R E SHA P E P H I L O S O P H Y O F R E L IG IO N

Overcoming the Restrictions in the Traditional Approach of Philosophy of Religion—and Openness toward Practices I will begin this chapter with a discussion of the recent contribution of Kevin Schilbrack to the development of the discipline of philosophy of religion. His contribution is relevant in the present context because his approach allows for a wider and more nuanced approach to religion than the one traditionally at work in the discipline. His approach, therefore, has a double relevance: it allows for a more multilayered approach to Christianity as a religion in general, but it also opens up, more concretely, to the pragmatic approach for which I argue. Schilbrack argues in Philosophy and the Study of Religions—A Manifesto for an expansion of the discipline of philosophy of religion. He argues that it needs to take in more than what is included in the “traditional” understanding of the discipline. Philosophy of religion, he argues, “ought to evolve from its present primary focus on the rationality of traditional theism to become a fully global form of critical reflection on religions in all their variety and dimensions, in conversation with other branches of philosophy and other disciplines in the academic study of religions.”1 Whereas much of the traditional approach to religion in the discipline has been occupied with what others have called “reason-giving”2—and therefore with what I  call the legitimizing (or delegitimizing) of specific theistic beliefs—Schilbrack sees several problems with such an approach. First, it is too narrow because it is restricted to only a few of the actual religious traditions of the world. Furthermore, this limitation also means that the discipline “does not engage the religious teachings outside a classical conception of God; in fact, it often defines God in such a narrow way that it regularly excludes the theistic views of many who do believe in God.”3 1. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, xi. 2.  For this notion, see Timothy D. Knepper, “The End of Philosophy of Religion?,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82, no. 1 (2014). 3. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, xi.

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So far, however, this criticism targets the attention given to doctrines and beliefs and the arguments for or against them. Schilbrack’s second objection to the way the traditional discipline of philosophy of religion has been practiced implies an attempt to overcome this restriction, however. The narrow approach, in his opinion, gives preference to an intellectualist understanding of religion, “as it engages only the doctrinal dimensions of the religions it does cover.”4 His account of the discipline “makes the interest in developing doctrines only one of many. It thereby gives philosophers of religion a way to imagine a more inclusive task of their discipline.”5 It is from this more inclusive way of thinking about materials for the philosophy of religion that an opening to religions’ pragmatic dimensions can be established. Finally, the third element that Schilbrack criticizes is the insular attitude of the discipline, which does not engage with other disciplines or with other areas of philosophy. It, therefore, seems to overlook several of the different dimensions of religion studied by the other approaches. It is this last point of view that I find most interesting in Schilbrack’s approach with regard to my aims in this book. In addressing the experiential and practice-oriented dimensions of religion, Schilbrack recognizes that these have not been totally overlooked by those practicing the discipline. With respect to the experiential and affective dimension of religion, the focus, however, has typically been on so-called extraordinary religious experiences, or numinous and mystical experiences, and mysterium tremendum events.6 He may be right in pointing out that these experiences have been part of the interest that constitutes the discipline of philosophy of religion. There is, however, one thing worth commenting on about such phenomena: these are assumed to be separate phenomena, “extraordinary” or special in some sense. Thereby, they do not reinforce the assumption that religions deal with something “set apart” from the everyday; they also contribute to the notion that religions and the religious belong to, or could be relegated to, a specific (private) sphere—a basic assumption of the secularization theory. Schilbrack does not take that route, though. He recognizes that “[f]or most religious people, however, religious experiences are everyday events: the religious community promises, for example, a sense of release or forgiveness or equanimity, and the practices of the community provide a path to exactly that.”7 There are two important elements in what he points out here: first, there is a close link between experience and practice; second, practices engender experiences that are part of everyday life, and these are not set apart or disconnected from it. It is against the backdrop of this practical and experiential dimension of religion that Schilbrack also sees the relevance of religious teaching, or what I have called reflective practices. It is the teachings that make it possible to “have and properly

4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., 18. 6. Ibid., 16. 7. Ibid.

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identify the experience that a religious community offers.” Thus, the relevance and impact of teaching always relates to practices that provide opportunities for experience. It is because teachings mediate practices and experiences that “religious communities often teach that having the desired experience requires a process of training in discernment and regulation of desires.”8 I will argue that Schilbrack’s analysis here can be deepened by a pragmatic approach that sees practices as involved in a process of semiosis. To interpret an experience or a practice as something already involves a practice of interpretation that is mediated by and through teaching. We may, therefore, consider religious teachings as a regulated and institutionalized mode of semiosis,9 and as the means by which something given can appear as something to someone. Therefore, it also makes sense to say, with Schilbrack, that “[t]he pursuit of certain religious experiences is therefore inseparable from doctrines and practices.”10 Schilbrack, moreover, points to the fact that not all religious communities are interested in engendering specific types of experience through their practices, or in defending specific doctrines. They may instead “seek to foster in their members . . . what they consider a morally proper life. They hold that, whether or not one is an intellectual who can articulate the religious philosophy and whether or not one experiences certain feelings, one can and ought to live rightly.”11 Other communities may be interested in organizing society rightly.12 In both cases, the aims of the religious community is a practical one. Furthermore, I argue that such aims imply distinct elements of both orientation and transformation: orientation regarding identifying the basic virtues, values, or qualities that one wants to realize, achieve, or uphold; transformation regarding developing the changes necessary to achieve the desired moral or social conditions or qualities. We have already, in the previous chapter on practices, pointed to how such practices imply a certain kind of “openness,” which allows practices to be performed in different ways. Schilbrack underscores the same point when he describes how different religious communities may develop the desired ethical behavior in different ways and by different means. Some do this by stressing “ethical behavior according to a holy law,” stressing “obedience to specific precepts, regulations,

8. Ibid. 9. See the next chapter for a treatment of the semiotic dimension in religious practices. 10. Ibid. This approach also makes it possible to understand the differences and variety in religious or religion-like experience and practices. Schilbrack writes, “And religious experiences will therefore vary from one community to another: the racial pride felt by a Klansman at a cross-burning will differ from the enjoyment felt by an Eckist experiencing soul travel, and both will differ from the grief felt by a Shiite Muslim re-enacting the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali” (16). 11.  Ibid. This point can also be substantiated further than what is done here, with reference to Nancy Ammermann’s idea about “Golden Rule Religion” in Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes, as referred to in the previous chapter. 12. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 17.

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rules, or commandments,” whereas others “identify ethical behavior according to a specific role model and they emphasize the imitation of holy people.” This situation leads to the conclusion that religious ethics cannot be considered as a single type, as it operates by different means and struggles to achieve different goals.13 I want to note, however, that no such development can take place unless one also can recognize the need for transformation. With regard to ethics, a notion that recognizes transformation seems to be indispensable. However, when it comes to organizing society or the community, this may not always be the case. Although religious communities may be interested in organizing society rightly, it may be done on different terms. Some may be interested primarily from a desire to preserve the status quo, whereas others might focus on how to realize social justice in the best way by instigating social transformation. In both cases, people may articulate these aims through political practice. How this is done may, in fact, differ considerably and be articulated on the basis of mainly orientational ideas or transformational visions, respectively. Schilbrack writes:  Many religious communities seek to organize society according to their vision of propriety. Some do this by separating men and women; some regulate the loaning of money or the payment of damages, some build monasteries, some issue definitions of marriage, and some train legal scholars who can make sure that people live according to God’s revealed word. In all these ways, religious communities seek the proper ordering of society.14

In all cases, however, the practices are based on ideas about what is most important for orientation or transformation. Furthermore, Schilbrack’s understanding of the tasks of the discipline of philosophy of religion enables us to see religion as a cluster of practices and approach it from the perspective of the everyday. He therefore also highlights “how deeply and broadly religious communities are invested in aspects of their traditions other than the products of their representative intellectuals.” If one then sees, as he does, religion as a “set of practices in which people engage in order to make their lives better,” it allows for an everyday-oriented approach to religious practices because participating in religious practices may, for instance, provide “participants with rituals that heal, with disciplines that train their children in morality, and with structures for their communal lives that reflect a higher law.” He develops this position further in the following argument: On this view, religious communities take people who see their lives (or are taught to see their lives) as lost or broken or disordered and they promise their members a therapy that leads to wholeness, harmony, and human flourishing.

13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., 17.

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Although religious communities have sometimes developed the most elaborate philosophies, such communities seem pre-eminently interested in practical concerns, not speculative concerns.15

Given that this is the case, we now have to consider what this might imply with regard to the contribution of the philosophy of religion to redescribing Christian practice and its related theology in a way that makes the practice-oriented or pragmatic approach the most convincing way to understand the Christian tradition.

On Practices and Agency All human practices, including those we can identify as religious, presuppose that we can—at least to some extent—understand what people think or believe that they are doing. Given that this is the case, one can never establish a total “outsiderperspective” on religion because religious practice always exists through and by means of human agency. Such agency requires some element of understanding. Religious practices, therefore, cannot be understood by observation alone. When a community practices the Eucharist, we would not know what it was unless we could hear and understand the words accompanying the sharing of the bread and wine. We could identify it as a kind of meal, analogous to meals we have known in other contexts, but the specific character of this meal, and how participants experience it, would be lost to us. To point out this fact is more or less stating the obvious. Nevertheless, it has important bearing on a specific problem that often occurs in religious studies, namely, the insider–outsider problem.16 Religious people sometimes say that one cannot understand the meaning of what they do and believe without also participating in the practices and beliefs they share. Religious studies scholars perceive this position as precluding the critical outsider perspective, which differs from the faith perspective. In a way, both positions are right. However, I will argue that given a point of departure in different practices, the meaning of religious beliefs and practices may not be inaccessible to the religious scholar. Because these beliefs are not meaningful in themselves but get their meaning from specific practices and attitudes toward others and the world, they can be articulated as based on a context that others can understand. The one who cannot say what he is doing does not know what he is doing. The one who participates in the Eucharist can say that he partakes in a communal meal, a meal of remembrance, and has a sensual experience through the symbolic representation of the body of Christ. His agency as partaking in the meal

15. Ibid., 19. 16. Cf. Russell T. McCutcheon, The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Continuum, 2014).

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makes sense against the backdrop of these understandings. Moreover, his agency may be rendered meaningful also by someone who does not herself share in these beliefs. To understand something as meaningful here means that the outsider may understand what the other says and the reasons she offers, even when the observer is herself not able to adopt these reasons and understandings as her own. A pragmatic approach to religion that has its point of departure in concrete practices, therefore, opens up a middle way between an emic and an etic approach to religion. Furthermore, as we have seen earlier, practices cannot be understood unless we have access to some of the reasons or intentions that guide the actions of agents. Reasons that guide actions can be communicated and understood, although they may not require that one actually shares or agrees with them. Nevertheless, they enable the non/believer to understand the meaning these practices might have for the believer. I want to note here that this implies that the religious scholar who observes the Eucharist is not totally external to what is taking place. Also, the nonbeliever can have an experience of community, and through the practice of the meal he can also be included among those who remember Jesus’s last supper. However, as long as this is not a practice that positions his agency regarding orientation or transformation, it will not be identical with that of the believer, who will use this meal for those purposes. For her, the Eucharist is a practice of both orientation (this is the community to which I belong and where I base my faith) and transformation (this is the practice in which my faith is deepened and transformed). In his treatise, Schilbrack argues for the interdisciplinary engagement of philosophy of religion in a way that underscores the relevance of this approach to religiously based agency. Focus on doctrinal beliefs alone does not suffice to understand such agency. Therefore, he argues, Philosophical reflection on the study of religion should interrogate scholarly approaches by looking at the concepts that inform their work. For example, when scholars study ascetic disciplines, marriage, sacrifice, or other religious practices, philosophers of religion might engage this work by critical reflection on the concept of practice. Such an engagement might clarify what it means to say that a person is an agent, that an action is or is not rational, or that an action is performed by a collectivity. It might clarify the relationship between actors’ intentions and other causes of their behavior.17

Schilbrack furthermore argues that this consideration implies philosophers of religion may engage with other philosophical disciplines, like the philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and so on. Thereby, he shows how religious studies can gain from engaging with different branches of philosophy as well. He offers the following examples:

17. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 21.

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[W]hen scholars study teachings about ecstatic states of consciousness, communication with invisible beings, life after death, or other instances of religious beliefs, then philosophers of religion can engage this work by critical reflection on the concept of belief. Such an engagement might clarify the ways in which knowledge depends on embodied habits, the relation of perception and introspection, or the dependence of thought on sociality. It might clarify the relationship between religious language and religious knowledge. In these ways, philosophers connect the study of religion to philosophy of mind. And similarly, when scholars debate whether or not Theravada Buddhism and early Confucianism are properly categorized as religions or whether, given the emergence of the word “religion” in modern Europe, it is appropriate to speak of religion outside the modern west, philosophers of religion might engage this work by critical reflection on the concept of religion. Such an engagement might clarify the concept of “tradition,” the difference between emic and etic labels, or the relation between social construction and reality. In these ways, philosophers connect the study of religion to philosophy of language. Answers to questions like these are presupposed by empirical studies of religions, but I would suggest that they are properly philosophical questions.18

If we focus on how meaning in religion relates to agency and practices, this might open up to a different set of questions as well as answers. We might find, argues Schilbrack, another way of determining what it means to understand religious texts, religious discourse, and religious behavior.19 Furthermore, I have already pointed to how the understanding of these phenomena may depend in some way on the perspective of the practitioners themselves and what they can tell us. However, Schilbrack also lists other questions20 that he thinks might look different if we adopt a more religious studies perspective in the philosophy of religion. I present these questions here and indicate how my analysis in the following chapters can help provide answers. ●

●

What is the relation between the practitioners’ self-understanding and the interpretation or redescription accomplished by the scholar? In what follows, I argue that we have to gain access to the self-understanding of an agent in order to understand his or her actions and practices. Any redescription has to take this as the starting point for further interpretation and explanation of behavior. What does it mean to explain religious beliefs and practices? Does explanation replace understanding? Is explanation reductive? Does explanation assume that the beliefs in question are not true? It follows from the open-endedness of practices (that I argue in favor of) that they can be given a variety of

18. Ibid., 21–2. 19. Cf. ibid., 22. 20. Ibid.

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interpretations and rely on different motivations. This fact does not rule out that they can also be explained with reference to different pragmatic concerns or specific functions. What does it mean to assess, critique, or evaluate religious beliefs and practices? From what sources, if any, do the criteria of assessment come? I argue for how we can see all such processes as internal aspects of religious activity, and that it would be a mistake to see it only as motivated by factors external to religious beliefs and practices, since stewardship of tradition requires critical practice as well. Need the critique of religion be secular? This question is answered in response to Schilbrack’s previous question: no, it need not.

I therefore very much agree with Schilbrack that philosophers of religion, as well as theologians, need to contribute to the discussions about these questions. However, by listing these questions, he also implicitly opens up to another topic related to agency, namely, in what ways our engagement with reality is not only based on objective or scientific knowledge, but is in fact also based on decisions that determine our agency. Agency is based not on knowledge alone, but on handed over know-how that implies basic points of orientation and prospects for guiding transformation; I will now show how Schilbrack’s arguments underscore this point. Critical reflection on the form and content of religious studies needs to take into consideration other topics than the merely philosophical. However, against those who consider the pragmatist approach to religion to be based on a fideist perspective,21 I  will argue with Schilbrack that we need to bring distinctly philosophical topics to the table as well. These topics can contribute to reasoning about religion in a way that overcomes the assumed lack of interest in the content of religious claims (see the next section for more on this). Schilbrack claims, and rightly so in my view, that philosophy also has to consider “the axiological questions about what is valuable, epistemological questions about what is knowable, and ontological questions about what is real.”22 Thereby he argues indirectly for the same position I presented in the introduction about the necessary normative element in religious studies in general. We need to consider such questions concerning every religious tradition, and not only in relation to theist (or Christian) traditions. It is important to take note of this, since the answers to these questions have a profound effect on human agency, and they are crucial for providing a well-reasoned basis for the dimensions of orientation and transformation that are implied in such agency. One cannot leave the critical discussion about these issues in the hands of religious traditions alone, as it needs to be carried out in the academy as well. However, this means that not all activity in the academy can be redescribed as aiming for the development of detached,

21. I will discuss this topic briefly in one of the following sections. See p. 54ff. 22. Ibid., 22.

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objective, scientific knowledge. As with religious traditions, in the academy we need a critical discussion about how to use, consider, and evaluate the knowledge and the practices we are involved in, or which present themselves as opportunities for agency. Therefore, the stewardship of philosophy of religion in the academy, and in relation to religious traditions as well, has to take on a pragmatic character, engaging in investigating and critically discussing the use of the resources of religious traditions. One of the implications of this point is that philosophy of religion must be considered relevant to all aspects of human agency, as long as it allows for a critical discussion of these basic topics. Reinforcing this line of reasoning, Schilbrack writes: But if all human practices involve presuppositions about what is real, what is true, and what is good, then it follows that the educational and scholarly practices that we do in the university—including the study of religions—also involve presuppositions about what is real, what is true, and what is good. What discipline gives us the tools to talk about these things? Many academics like to present their work as scientific or objective. But since our academic work involves presuppositions that what we teach is true and real and valuable, even the most scientific or objective scholarship is nevertheless philosophy-laden, in the sense that it presupposes answers to metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological questions. Scholars of religion, therefore, do not misspeak when we say that we are “devoting” our time and our energy to our academic subjects.23

Philosophy of religion is therefore required to ask what is good or real or true in what religions teach and relate these questions to specific practices as well.24 Thereby, it thematizes basic conditions for human agency (in general) to clarify why people do what they do. Thus, the discipline provides a context for belief that integrates belief and faith in practices and in types of agency that can communicate its reasons, warrants, and values even when one does not agree with them. Thus, it can maintain its role as a discipline that can provide constructive and critical perspectives on practiced religion.

The Embodied Subject and the Practices of Orientation and Transformation There cannot be any practices unless there are bodies, or embodied agents, that have some idea of what they are doing, whether or not it is clear to them. In this subchapter, I want to elaborate on the ways in which theoretical approaches to the body and embodiment open up to a deeper understanding of practices of orientation and transformation. I will draw heavily on Kevin Schilbrack in this section as well.

23. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 23. 24. Cf. ibid.

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The development of what we could call the embodiment paradigm has its roots in phenomenology. This philosophical approach distinguishes between reflective and pre-reflective modes of experience. In the pre-reflective mode, “one’s body is not in the first place simply raw material on which culture operates or writes upon as a text or a sign but rather the seat of one’s active being in the world.” Through the body, one finds oneself invested in a situation. Thus, “the body is the ground from which one perceives and acts in the world.” The body is the means “through which the world becomes present and one’s projects become possible.” It is only by turning to the “reflective mode” that the body appears to the subject as an object among others in the world.25 To adopt this point of view on embodiment implies that it is impossible to separate the subject fully from the object, or the agent from the world in which she acts and with which she engages. Reality is not “external” to the body or “out there,” but is mediated by and through the body. Therefore, we must understand human experience of the world as “a joint creation of our bodies in interface with our environment.”26 Vasquez sums up aptly:  “The body is not something we can reject or bracket in order to have Truth . . . Rather, the body, with all its materiality, positionality, finitude, and contingency, is essential to the production of our life-world.”27 From this perspective, the body is engaged in the world and makes the world appear to us in specific ways, depending on the practices in which we are involved. There is a difference in how we perceive the world or engage in it, depending on if we are eating, singing, or riding a bicycle. From such a perspective, one cannot consider the body a mere passive object under the influence of different discourses. It is already active in processes that interpret the world in a specific way—in semiotic processes linked to specific practices that require skill, knowledge, know-how, and the ability to act with the body in specific ways, elements that resonate well with what Reckwitz defined as part of what constitutes practices, above. Schilbrack points to how the embodiment paradigm also provides a critical perspective on the study of religion: Perhaps it is the influence of Protestant opposition to Catholic sacraments and “works righteousness” or perhaps secularist opposition to superstition that leads scholars of religion to take embodied religious practices as unthinking, and this leads to the assumption that such practices do not involve the kinds of cognitive activity that deserve philosophical attention. The embodiment paradigm is then not a specifically philosophical tool but rather a general outlook that can be shared by those in any discipline who seek an alternative to the approaches that treat the body as solely passive.28

25. Cf. ibid., 34. 26. Cf. Vasquez, More Than Belief, 83. 27. Ibid., 84. 28. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 35.

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Considering the body as the means by which practitioners can investigate the world or engage with it in different ways allows for understanding religious communities as providers of repertoires of activities and practices. Through these embodied activities the “participants gain knowledge-how,” or they are provided with opportunities for cognitive inquiry where they “gain knowledge-that.” Such embodied practices thus enable “religious practitioners to investigate the nature of self, other, and environment.” Schilbrack therefore also sees the embodiment paradigm as one that complements the study of texts.29 Building on this basic understanding of how the body provides opportunities for exploring and relating to the world through different practices, we can now deepen our understanding of religion as orientation and transformation in relation to such practices by showing how the basic conditions for orientation and transformation are given with the body itself. There are two important implications of the embodiment paradigm that are especially relevant for the philosophy of religion. First, the paradigm helps us see that all approaches to the world are in space and time, and therefore are marked by, or presents us with, a situation. There exists no abstract approach to the world, reality, or the self that does not imply a specific situation marked and shaped by possibilities, conditions, limitations, and qualities. Second, to a situation belongs also the genuinely subjective attitude, which implies that I am experiencing myself as the center of and as a partaker in this situation. I am here, and not elsewhere; I  am here now, and not in another time; I  am here with a specific mental and bodily disposition, and not with other dispositions, or none at all. The presence of my presence in the present is thus my unavoidable condition for what may happen, for what I can do, for what may befall me. It is only by acknowledging this presence of mine in the here and now that I  can fully understand what conditions this situation may develop, and develop into something else. To exist in such a present and to be in a situation is thus always also to be embodied. It is as embodied that the self is—and always is—a situated self, one that relates to herself in ways that suggest how well we can be present in a situation—or how much we may want to get out of it.30 Given that our awareness of a situation—even in a pre-reflective mode—is linked to an embodied subjectivity, the initial task that we are challenged with as humans is how we should deal with this situation, how it is to be understood, or how it should be changed. This challenge thus presents us immediately with the need to be involved in practices of orientation and transformation, which are not to be understood as mere cognitive tasks but may involve embodied capacities for movement, speaking, and taking measures to change the situation. My point here, however, is to develop a deeper understanding of how these practices of orientation

29. Ibid. 30.  I have developed this analysis of situation somewhat more in Jan-Olav Henriksen, Finitude and Theological Anthropology:  An Interdisciplinary Exploration into Theological Dimensions of Finitude (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 15–16.

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and transformation in which we may find ourselves involved, already imply that our embodied mode of being in the world has offered us some capacities or conditions for orientation and transformation. We can elaborate these conditions further by looking into Schilbrack’s examination of the theory of conceptual metaphors from cognitive science, which is highly relevant for understanding the practices at the center of religious traditions.31 Furthermore, the following discussion of the relevance of this theory for the philosophy of religion will substantiate my thesis that religious practices and religious experiences cannot be separated from practices and experiences of everyday life, but are deeply intertwined with and conditioned by them. Since the body is the pre-reflective seat of subjectivity, we can, according to this theory, see how “the human abilities to reason are prefigured in and develop out of structures of our embodied activities, such as perception, manipulation of objects, bodily spatial orientation, and movement of our bodies through our environments.” Accordingly, these activities are the means by which humans develop structures of understanding and their sense of self.32 Thus, we can talk about an “embodied realism” where reality is seen as emerging from our ongoing physical-cultural interactions with the environment.33 How these structures contribute to orientation in the world becomes obvious when we list them and elaborate on how they present the individual with a sense of both subjectivity and situation. Concerning our relation to and understanding of the world of objects, we need to develop an understanding of the spatial logic according to which things work, which is crucial for understanding and orientation. Linearity implies that if something moves along the path to an end point, it reaches the end point, but if it moves along another path, it reaches a different end. Containment implies that if something is placed within certain frames (walls, house, box, car), then they are not outside what contains it. However, important conditions for subjectivity and not only for objects are involved in such orientational schemes, as I propose to call them. Related to the awareness of the self mediated by the body is how we learn about balance (if one leans too far from the center of gravity, one falls, and the perception of the world and self is changed). It is similar to the spatial logic of verticality, which implies that when one stands upright, it is possible to see further.34 Schilbrack summarizes the consequences of learning about the logics involved, about both object and subject:

31.  The most important contributions to this theory are found in the seminal works of Lakoff and Johnson. See George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980); George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York:  Basic Books, 1999). Here, however, I follow the presentation by Schilbrack, as this is sufficient for the purposes of my argument. 32. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 36. 33. Cf. Vasquez, More Than Belief, 14, also with reference to Lakoff and Johnson. 34. Cf. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 36–7.

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In all of these cases, the basic unit of meaning is an “image schema” (written in small caps) of how the world works or responds to action in it. It is worth underlining that these image schemas are unreflective and non-propositional. Even before one learns a language, therefore, one has inculcated such patterns or structures of embodied experience, and they are learned—necessarily—though [sic] physical movement and interaction with one’s environment.35

There are especially two elements I want to highlight from this quotation. First, even though schemas are unreflective and nonpropositional, they nevertheless shape basic structures in subjectivity. Hence, we cannot consider subjectivity the effect of conceptual reasoning alone, but it must be seen as the effect of embodied experiences with and in the world. Second, and as a consequence of the first, this approach, similar to the effects of the embodiment paradigm in general, suggests that the idea of the human as totally separated from the world is deeply misleading. Instead, we have to see our experience of self and world as deeply intertwined. This might, in turn, have an effect on how we consider issues in religion. Religion will then, according to this understanding, be an articulation of a specific mode of being in, practicing and experiencing the self–world relationship, and cannot be considered merely on the basis of propositional, doctrinal content. One main claim of the theory of conceptual metaphors is that the basic units of meaning humans develop early on are something they also employ when they need to structure more abstract concepts. Then they may take on a more metaphorical meaning, which makes it possible to understand conceptual categories as containers or mental processes, as movements from one place (or state of mind) toward specific ends. Similar use of metaphors enables us “to speak of getting ‘closer’ to the goal, making ‘progress,’ or getting ‘sidetracked’ even when reaching the goal involves no physical movement.” Furthermore, proximity in the embodied sense can be extended to cover experiences of being close to a goal, or a person, even when we are not so in the concrete sense, just as we can also talk about “drifting apart” without intending a physical meaning.36 Thus, metaphors that originate out of our embodied experiences contribute significantly to how we may understand a situation and how we orient ourselves in the world. When they are put into language, they permeate poetry as well as everyday speech. Schilbrack sums it up nicely thus:  “In this way, reason is dependent upon our embodied engagement in the world and would not be possible without it. ‘Reason’ is therefore a name not for a property that exists independent of embodiment, but rather the name for an emerging and developing capacity, a capacity that emerges through one’s physical interaction with one’s environment.”37

35. Ibid., 37. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid.

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An important element in these schemes is that they are dynamic and situate people in a specific way, in a specific context, and with a given understanding of it. Such schemes also imply expectations that guide our engagement with the world.38 Thus, they point us toward specific options for agency. Accordingly, they are value-laden and affect-rich. Metaphorical patterns may engender “normativitybestowing emotional reactions and this is why metaphors are arguably the primary tool of religious, political, and moral discourse.”39 It is at this point that we see the full relevance of this approach for the philosophical understanding of religious practices. Schilbrack argues that the theory provides us with two benefits for the philosophical study of religious practices. Taking his point of departure in an example that involves the movement or process from a source on a path toward a goal, he sees religious practices as covering both the source and the target domains of this process. Religious practices, being physical activities, can serve as the concrete “source” experiences on which religious thought can then draw: Practices like lighting candles in which illumination spreads can provide the source experiences that then fund and structure religious teachings about insight, discernment, or enlightenment. Practices like prostration in which one makes oneself smaller and lower provide the source experiences that fund and structure religious teachings about humility, submission, and sovereignty. Practices like fasting in which one denies one’s biological cravings inform religious teachings about desire, discipline, and self-sacrifice.40

Schilbrack’s argument thus underscores that “religious teachings about the purpose of life or the nature of true virtue or the source of existence—teachings of the greatest abstraction—are inevitably grounded in and draw their sense from the patterns learned in embodied religious practices.”41 However, in turn, these religious practices are based in ordinary and embodied experiences that have contributed to the perception of and engagement with reality in general. Thus, ordinary experiences condition and shape the contents and structure of religious experience and practices as well. A further way in which Schilbrack’s analysis contributes to the way I propose to structure an understanding of religion is related to how he underscores and affirms the manner in which experiences and practices offering resources for orientation and transformation may be seen as prior to, and the basis of, religious practices of reflection. The conceptual metaphor theory helps us see that when religious practices are based on metaphors about a “target” domain, “then participating

38. Ibid., 37f. 39. Ibid., 38. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid.

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in the practice is itself an exercise in abstract thought.”42 He goes on to illustrate this point: Religious practices can thereby harness bodily experiences of up and down, darkness and light, strength and weakness to develop metaphors for thinking about abstract concepts. In this respect, the physical activities of a religious practice are not simply raw material for later reflection, activities that wait on thinking done elsewhere. Nor are they merely the expression of a myth or a text or theorizing done previously. Religious practices themselves can be examples of (and not simply the products of) imaginative, creative thought.43

Because the conceptual metaphor theory distinguishes between physical experiences that generate patterns of understanding and conceptual metaphors that deploy those patterns to reason about the world, Schilbrack argues that structured religious activities participate in both.44 This argument makes it possible to contend that we can acknowledge religious practices as practices that not only provide the patterns of experience on which religious teachings draw, they can also deploy those patterns to develop and teach one way of life or another. For our purposes in the next part of this book, this point is important since it draws attention to the fact that religious practices are always dependent on metaphors that originate from embodied practice, but which also allow for different understandings of the same originating practice. The previous example I used with the Eucharist is relevant here, and not only because of the different denominational conceptions about what is taking place from a theological point of view. The celebration of the Eucharist is dependent on the bodily experience of having a meal, though it is not an ordinary meal. Furthermore, for the participants, they are not only those present and proximate (this includes those who have “passed away,” which is a notion based on a metaphor). Moreover, wine and bread are more than wine and bread—both take on a metaphorical character in the actual Eucharistic meal, but without leaving behind their fundamental purpose for bodily nourishment, even when considered for spiritual nourishment. Furthermore, the act of kneeling when receiving the elements is a bodily movement dependent on notions of submission and humility. When we analyze Christianity as practices in the next section, this theoretical approach allows us to ask what types of embodied practices are the basis for the use of conceptual metaphors in these practices. Given that this is the case, we may then also see how deeply theological topics are dependent on and prefigured in the interactive structures of movement and manipulation, which may be rooted in ordinary life but also mirrored and articulated in religious practices.

42. Ibid., 39. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid.

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Is the Approach Here Argued for a Fideist Approach? The above analysis of religion—as rooted in practices and offering a specific form of life—may be perceived by some readers to come close to a Wittgensteinian approach to religion, which does not consider religion from a propositional point of view, but more as a way of life that cannot be articulated by propositional content. The underscoring of how pre-subjective experience may originate in a prelinguistic stage of development may enhance such perceptions further. One way to phrase the problem, or the challenge emerging from such a perception of the problem, is to ask in what way and to what extent religions are based on or related to factual elements that can be articulated in propositions. If they are not, then religious positions seem to have no specific content that can be discussed or argued about. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, fideism is defined as a position that sees faith as “in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason . . . [F]ideism holds . . . that reason is unnecessary and inappropriate for the exercise and justification of religious belief.”45 Schilbrack presents some reflections about fideism that are important to discuss in relation to questions about rationality, and which may help us to clarify the position in favor of which I am arguing. He refers to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s observations about religion when he says, “The point [of belief in God] is that if there were evidence, this would, in fact, destroy the whole business. Anything that I  would normally call evidence wouldn’t in the slightest influence me.”46 He continues: From this perspective, what religious communities teach is not a set of opinions or hypotheses or truth claims that can be compared to facts about the world, but rather ways of living and speaking. To agree with the fideists that theistic beliefs are not held on the basis of reasons is not necessarily to consider religion unreasonable. As Wittgenstein says, those who believe in God “don’t treat this as a matter of reasonability.” Fideists, therefore, argue that one misinterprets theistic beliefs if one thinks that they are either warranted or unwarranted, and the task of philosophy of religion for those in this camp is not to assess the warrant or justification for belief in God. The task, instead, is to clarify what it means to live and speak as a believer.47

Schilbrack’s analysis here calls for discussion of several key points. First, the teachings of religious communities, as Schilbrack also recognizes, focuses on ways of living and speaking; therefore, teaching cannot be understood apart from such practices. Clarifying this relationship, and thereby “what it means to live and speak as a believer,” is clearly an important task. 45.  Richard Amesbury, “Fideism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016). 46. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 4. 47. Ibid.

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Having said this, though, one has to ask if there is an element of reasonability involved in religion. I would argue that the reasonability of religious beliefs can be assessed only on the basis of how these beliefs can be recognized as related to forms of practice that are experienced as meaningful for practitioners (i.e., provide a good means for orientation, transformation, or developing strong communities and conditions for human flourishing). Schilbrack’s argument seems to underestimate the importance of this close relationship, and thus, he is unable to address the issue of whether or not beliefs as such are reasonable. I will, however, argue that we can consider beliefs and doctrines to be reasonable since they relate to experience or to practices guided by aims and interests. Finally, when Schilbrack discusses the content of the teachings of religious communities using the fideist approach, he says that these teachings cannot be considered as comparable to hypotheses or claims about the world. In one way, he is right, and in another, his position is in need of a supplement. When religions mediate practices of orientation and transformation by means of teaching, they do not make such claims as such. However, they nevertheless, by implication, presuppose something about the facts of the world, as they offer resources for orientation and transformation. Hence, religious teachings are dependent on assumptions about the world, and we cannot understand them as unrelated to these assumptions. In conclusion, I take this to suggest that what I am arguing here is not a fideist position. We need to see religion as related to and regulated by other types of knowledge that we have about the world. The cluster of practices we find in Christianity is based on historical knowledge as well as on what we can know about the world from other sources. The distinct approach (to be argued) that Christianity teaches about important elements of orientation and transformation needs to be negotiated in light of, and related to, types of knowledge that are found outside its own main sources.

What Is Belief Doing? The Embodied Subject as Believer One problem immediately presents itself if we approach Christianity from the point of view of practice, and especially so in the Western context marked by secularization:  people may take part in Christian rituals and practices without sharing in the beliefs that these rituals or practices are supposed to express and are articulated in doctrinal positions. As Schilbrack says, in a different context, “one’s public words and gestures and one’s beliefs may operate completely independently of each other. What a person says and does may not reflect what that person believes at all.”48 The idea that the “outer” acts represent some specific “inner” mental state is closely related to the “representationalist” understanding of belief. This view,

48. Ibid., 62.

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which is widespread in most philosophy of mind in the Western world, builds on the idea that “beliefs are invisible, ghost-like, and ‘in one’s head.’”49 However, a pragmaticist approach, which sees the meaning of ideas and notions in how they are used, and in relation to specific practices, may provide a different take on representationalism, because representationalism seems to presuppose or perpetuate a mind/body dualism, and it locates religion as a phenomenon primarily in the mind and not in the actual practices of the believer. Given my account of how cognition—including religious cognition—is always also related to embodied practices,50 the representationalist account seems to fall short. If instead we see cognition as conditioned by and internally linked to practical inquiry, the embodied and social character of what we call belief is reshaped. This point notwithstanding, “[t]he idea that beliefs require representations of the world that are somehow stored in the mind may be necessary, and this may be most apparent when we want to understand how people make judgments about realities that are not present,” writes Schilbrack.51 I think this is an important comment, as our understanding of human agency also requires some understanding about the ideas that are behind people’s actual actions. However, a mere representationalist position may not be sufficient to capture what is at stake here. This shortcoming is also one of the reasons why we could consider the so-called dispositionalist position as an alternative better suited for taking into account the pragmaticist intuitions about belief that are not dependent on introspective accounts of belief. Schilbrack defines this position thus: Dispositionalists see believing not as something a mind does but rather as something a person does. They identify a belief not with something private in one’s mind or brain, but rather with a range of dispositions that a person adopts to act, feel, and think in certain ways . . . From the dispositionalist perspective, therefore, it is not right to think of a belief as a concrete “thing” at all. Instead, to have a belief is to have a propensity or a tendency, or a set of them, typically shaped by one’s social context, to interact with the world and with others according to a more or less specifiable pattern. Moreover, given a dispositionalist understanding, it is possible that the believer may not be the best judge of what he himself believes. Recognizing a pattern of dispositions is not always easy, and it is not always obvious or transparent, even to the agent himself.52

Concerning an understanding of human agency, dispositionalism has two advantages: first, it does not reduce belief to a mere observation of actions (“she believes X” is not redescribed as “we see her doing Y”); second, it does not eliminate

49. Ibid. 50. This is an argument also advanced by Vasquez, in More Than Belief, especially 183ff, where he develops this point in relation to recent positions in neurophenomenology. 51. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 62. 52. Ibid., 63.

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the difference between the first-person perspective to one’s own beliefs, and the third-person perspective that allows for access to another’s beliefs. Moreover, dispositionalism makes it possible to identify a belief as something that is not an invisible entity in the mind of a person, but “a pattern of activities at least some of which are public.”53 The crucial element here is “at least some of which are public.” Not all, that is. This qualification is important because it is directly relevant to how we can understand something as “religion” or as “religious.” We cannot base the qualification of something as a religion or as religious on a mere description of them as physical objects. Here we can refer to Peirce’s understanding of the semiotic practice, which I will present in the next chapter. As semiosis is required for determining something as something, and given that religion and the religious are based on quotidian features in life, we need to see religion and the religious as constituted in part by a semiotic process that involves the capacity of the mind to identify it as such. Alternatively, to put it differently, semiotic processes constitute specific forms of life that cannot be understood solely on the basis of physical features but nevertheless need to be understood within the context of one’s lifeworld. Let me develop this argument further. We cannot see, smell, or hear religion as a mere physical object.54 We can see that people build beautiful buildings in which they do not live, speak without someone being present, and eat and drink bread and wine in small and insufficient amounts for nourishment. However, to call these phenomena for churches, prayers, or Eucharist requires a semiotic process that implies more than a characterization of the physical features in front of us. It requires an understanding of the practices involved, and of the reasons and motivations that people have for doing what they do. In this sense, religious practice may have both physical and mental components, but as a practice involving both physical and mental processes, the practice itself is, as embodied, nevertheless one unified process.55 Schilbrack addresses this issue by pointing to Gilbert Ryle’s version of dispositionalism, which helps clarify what is at stake here. According to Ryle, mental language is not about mental objects in the same manner as physical language is

53. Ibid. We can see this point as being in accordance with Reckwitz when he holds that a single individual, as a bodily and mental agent, acts as a “carrier” of the practice in which the individual participates, but expresses more the qualities of the individual (cf. above p. 36). 54.  This point is partly inspired by Graham Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers: Understanding Religion as Everyday Life (New York: Routledge, 2014), 1f. 55.  Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 64. The argument here could also be developed along the lines suggested by J. Searle, who defines institutions as the shared transference of brute facts (X)  to social facts (Y)  in a particular context (C). Religious metaphors are institutions par excellence. In a Christian service (C), for instance, fermented grape juice (X) represents blood of Christ (Y) in a specific institutional context of Church (C). John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).

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about physical objects. Therefore, it is a mistake to think that belief is some entity in addition to the way belief shapes one’s way of living. Rather, belief is something that disposes a person to live in a certain manner. Hence, “[t]o attribute a belief to someone is not to describe an occult object in her head but rather to make a statement about a person’s capacities, tendencies, or propensities over time.” When we attribute a belief to someone, it enables us to predict “how alleged believers will answer questions, how they have acted in the past and will act in the future, and in general to explain their behavior.”56 In other words, belief is something that gives us access to the conditions for determining agency as religious. A further advantage of the dispositional approach is that it allows us to overcome the privatized and subjectivized notion of belief that is behind much of modern thinking about religion and secularization, which relegates religion to the subjective and individual sphere. Because it enables us to see belief as something more than thoughts in the believer’s mind, it opens up the possibility of seeing religious belief as primarily accessible though practice. Accordingly, it would not make sense to say that one believes if it makes no difference to her practices, attitudes, and dispositions as opposed to someone who says that she does not believe. The emphasis on belief as disposition should nevertheless not be taken as support for a religionism. Religionism is the prejudice based on someone’s religious beliefs that implies that if you are a Christian, a Muslim, or a Buddhist, you are bound to do this or that, and if not, you cannot be identified as such. To have a belief is rather to possess some capacities for action that you would not have unless you had this or that belief. Attributions of belief, Schilbrack suggests, allow us to describe a feature of a person from which one can draw expectations about how the person might act under certain circumstances. To attribute a belief is therefore not to describe an invisible “vaporous” something but rather to make a prediction about a relatively indeterminate and open-ended but coherent range of behavior. Attributions of beliefs are then counted as accurate to the extent one’s predictions are satisfied.57 The dispositional understanding of belief implies that beliefs are not always or all the time conscious mental events, but are rather dispositional states of persons. A disposition enables us to be in the world in a specific or distinct manner. This point is important if we consider religions as clusters of practices of orientation and transformation. How is it that we come to orient ourselves in the world in specific ways? How are our orientations formed and shaped? How are they mediated to us? There is not one single answer to these questions. To think that beliefs are the result of conscious decisions, acts of will, or informed, rational judgment is surely not the full answer. The reason why this is not the case is related closely to how beliefs are formed and shaped by practices that are public and not always understood in full once we participate in them. For example:

56. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 63. 57. Ibid., 64.

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As a family, the four of us regularly attended the Eucharist when our children were small. From very early on in their lives, our children wanted to join us in partaking in communion. They saw us going forward to the altar, and made it clear by the way they behaved that they wanted to be part of this as well. But it was only later on that they increasingly came to see the religious significance of what they were taking part in. Obviously, here the actual practice came well ahead of any transparent and religiously based understanding of what took place. However, when they grew older, our children learned more about what they had taken part in and came to a deeper appreciation of it. Nevertheless, their disposition for taking part was socially mediated from very early on, not by conscious teaching and instruction, but by the actual observance of a faith-based practice. Conscious deliberation did not play big role in this practice, initially. But the practice itself gave opportunities for training and teaching later on. The practice itself also manifested the children’s participation in and belonging to the institution we call church. To become involved in practices in this way shapes orientation and might also transform the ways people live and what they do. This shaping is not a result of conscious acts by the individual but results from participating in intersubjectively constituted practices. In turn, such participation gives you access to a repertoire of notions, acts, and symbols that shape and change your experience of and orientation in the world, and thereby, they change the individual self. Hence, it is neither the symbols and metaphors nor the practices that are instrumental or purely functional, but they enable specific modes of being in the world. To put it otherwise: belief is a disposition to live in a specific way or a distinct manner. The question is what this means for the understanding of Christianity? Are there specific dispositions in Christianity that make it possible to identify specific traits in its mode of being in the world that is unique or cannot be found in other traditions? It is the task of the second part of this book to suggest an answer to this question.

Chapter 5 T O A C C E S S T H E W O R L D A S W O R L D :   S E M IO SI S

Religion as Dependent on Social Practices More Than on Facts about the World Religions are the product of human activity constituted by our engagement with experiences in the world. Against the backdrop of this engagement, we need to establish means for orientation and transformation. The flipside of this argument is that unless we partake in the social world and employ signs and words that help us orient ourselves in the world, we do not have religion. Religion does not exist apart from our semiotic and communicative processes and practices. It does not mean that religion exists only in the minds of individual persons. Moreover, this understanding does not set religion as clusters of practices apart from other practices, simply because religion is dependent on the social world that humans share, as are many other features of human life. Similarly, money has no value unless people recognize it as valuable; my use of a credit card is related to the fact that others will accept it as valuable, and is dependent on signals sent to the bank as well as the bank as an institution—none of these elements are simply physical realities. This is also true of religion: social communication and interaction are the foundations of religion. All this is not to say that religion is based only on signs in the social world. As I have argued extensively elsewhere, religions and the religious are related to different realms of human experience. Religion comes to the fore in the physical, the social, and the psychological realms of human experience, and sometimes it is dependent on mystical features as well that cannot be reduced to any of these.1 These realms of experience are intertwined; it belongs to the characteristic human mode of being in the world that we partake in all of these.

1.  See Jan-Olav Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation: A Maximalist Theory, Religion in Philosophy and Theology (Tübingen:  Mohr Siebeck, 2017); JanOlav Henriksen, Life, Love, and Hope:  God and Human Experience (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2014); Jan-Olav Henriksen, Relating God and the Self: Dynamic Interplay (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013).

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Nevertheless, when we approach religion and the religious from the point of view of practices, we may focus on the social dimension for obvious reasons. Religions as socially established clusters of practices do not merely exist in people’s minds. They are epistemically objective, in the sense that these practices exist independent of people’s tastes and preferences. Even scholars of religion who are themselves atheists may admit that religions and religious features of existence exist, although they are dependent on subjectivities that make them possible.2 Most of the realities of human life share in these epistemic features; finances and religion, but also universities, parliaments, and police are based on similar ways of relating to the world. If these institutions are to function, we have to accept that there is something like social facts. As Schilbrack points out, “religion” was used as a term outside of academic circles before it entered into academia. Religion is primarily to be understood as “a social construction, but this social construction is in the first place performed rather than spoken, and as it is performed it transforms bodies.”3 For example, in the Christian context, baptism (transformation) or ordination to the priesthood involves dressing in a different way and undergoing a specific embodied ritual. In both cases, one then enters into a different status due to the practices and the institutional context, and not only because someone “thinks” that it is so. There may be rules performing these practices, and who is subjected to them; these rules are, like the practices themselves, only understandable because there are social realities in which they are recognized as such. Accordingly, a religion is a cluster of practices that includes words, but it cannot be described as only a collection of words or merely a mental state.4 I want to pursue this line of reasoning further by pointing to how we engage the world using words and signs that are part of interpretative practices that cannot be reduced to merely material processes or entities. I argue that the best way to pursue this line is by pointing to how a pragmaticist understanding of semiotic processes helps us overcome the Cartesian divide between the interpreting subject and the objective world. This approach helps us see that we are already involved and partaking in the world even before we can formulate and use language. Anyone who wants to question the idea that religions, including Christianity, are based on practices is therefore well advised to examine pragmatism and semiotics. Religions, namely, are based on semiotic activity and practices of interpretation. This perspective offers us profound access to the idea that religion is dependent on a social construction of reality. In his work on semiotics and religion, Andrew Robinson uses the heading: “The world is perfused with signs.” This statement points to the core of the theoretical perspectives that I present in this chapter. Signs are there for someone, and they entail a reality and open up to our reality, and do so in ways that change and color

2. See, for example, Searle, The Construction of Social Reality. 3. Schilbrack, Philosophy and the Study of Religions, 91. 4. Cf. ibid. The examples are mine.

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the everyday. Signs are related to practices and practitioners. They make it possible to experience the world as meaningful, and to see that what befalls us has a clear and specific significance. If we are to determine what is specific to Christianity as a religion, we, therefore, have to look at the relationship between its repertoire of signs, and the practices in which these signs are employed. In the next section, I will argue more extensively for how this repertoire is constituted by what we may generically identify as the Jesus story.

The Semiotic Character of Religion Generates Practices of Orientation and Transformation Religions are dependent on and rely totally on semiotic activity, that is, activity related to the use of signs. Such activity is partly related to developing specific practices or signs for a specific use and partly to the actual use of such signs for such purposes. It is necessary to observe the distinction between these two aspects of semiotic activity: origin and use, which result in a process in which something functions as a sign for someone. I  emphasize that these two aspects result in a process because nothing can function as a sign or symbol unless there is a practice of interpretation or an employment of the sign in its actual use. This process means that semiotic activity or practices can be determined as having a start and an end— even though this end may not be yet at hand. Furthermore, it is important to note that nothing is a sign unless it is used as a sign for something. Peirce holds that a sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.5 In other words, signs always imply some practice—practices of semiosis, of use, of interpretation. In the second part of this book, I  will argue that the distinct character of Christianity is the result of semiotic processes. Different types of signs are used in Christianity: signs originating from the context of the “universals” of everyday and signs belonging to individual elements in the context of the specific Christian story. Distinguishing these two contexts is not easy, though, as no singular or individual element exists that does not also partake in the universal, just as there are no universals as such that are not related to individual elements. C. S.  Peirce distinguished between different types of signs:  indexes point to something directly through some type of causal connection (e.g., thunder suggests lightning or rain); symbols are established by conventions that determine how this stands for that; and icons, which work as signs in their capacity of resemblance.6 These distinctions do not mean, however, that there cannot be different dimensions of these semiotic types involved in the same sign. For example, on the wall above the desk where I write, I have an icon depicting Christ as Pantocrator. This icon is not Christ but an icon—a picture representing Christ. The icon refers to something not

5. Cf. C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. 2, 228. 6. Ibid., 53–4.

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present, though making it present to me, although the reality it points to or depicts (from an indexical point of view) is not in any way directly accessible. However, to make it present for me, I need to understand this object as something—as an icon, and as an icon of Christ. This understanding requires activating memory of prior knowledge—if I had no recollection of what this was an icon of, I would not know who or what it was. The only way for me to understand the icon is if I can use it as something that stands for or represents something that I know. To function in this way, I have to engage in interpretative practices. Such practices may have different aims: remembrance, reading, devotion, prayer, aesthetic contemplation, and so on. The icon can have no meaning in itself, apart from such practices. Furthermore, the icon on the wall may be more than an icon, that is, an expression of “similarities.” There may be elements in it that have a clear symbolic character based on the conventions for making such artwork. If I  can interpret these symbols, I can take part in these practices of learning and communication. Unless the symbolic meanings of the signs are pointed out to me, I  could not identify them as such. However, the distinction I made above between origin and actual use suggests there is also another activity that has made this icon a sign: the activity that made it an icon in the first place and thus determined it as an icon of Christ. This activity is itself dependent on other semiotic processes, and these depend on established conventions as well: conventions and rules about how to depict Christ in order for the icon to be an icon of Christ, about what colors to apply and how and where to apply them, and so on. All of these elements contribute to the making of the actual icon and its symbolic significance, which I then can use. The icon can be an icon for me and for others, signifying many different layers of meaning since those who look at it can have access to some of the conventionally established meanings that make this into an image of Christ. The resemblance of an icon or image need not be accurate to function well as a sign. Although “an iconic sign is a sign that represents its object by resembling it in some way,”7 icons are useful far beyond their capacity to be aesthetically pleasing. An important function of icons is that they can bring some specific aspect of the object in question to the forefront of attention. When Jesus is identified in Christian theology as the icon of God the Father, it means that Jesus resembles the Father in some way, just as the world’s beauty can be an icon of the beauty of the reality of God.8 Since icons and symbols can both open up our experience to something beyond our experiential present, they allow us to see ourselves and the world within a wider framework and in relation to something more than what is present-at-hand, but we can still experience this “more” as present and contributing to our orientation in the world. Robinson writes, “An icon, then, has the capacity to bring to our attention certain features of the thing represented, often by excluding aspects of the object that are less relevant for the particular

7. Andrew Robinson, Traces of the Trinity: Signs, Sacraments and Sharing God’s Life, 12. 8. Cf. ibid.

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purpose in question. More generally, I think we could say that icons make things, or aspects of things, ‘present’ to us.”9 Accordingly, we can draw several implications from this example. First, no sign functions as a sign unless it is used by someone for that purpose. Second, everything we experience as meaningful has or takes on a semiotic character. This point is important when we problematize secularity, which builds on the premise that we can separate religion and the religious from basic features of ordinary life. Third, as will become apparent, all human activity that is related to meaning has some semiotic character because it presupposes that we can interpret something as something. There are two further considerations that follow from the above analysis, and which I want to make explicit, although they are not in any way surprising. The first is Wittgenstein’s remark about how the meaning of a word (sign) is constituted by how we use it. Hence, he also points to the pragmatically established meaning of words as signs. Words are also signs in a Peircean way. Accordingly, words are not simply defined by reference to the objects they designate, nor by the mental representations humans might associate with them. Instead, the meaning of the word presupposes our ability to use it for specific purposes, and within different contexts or forms of life.10 Wittgenstein thereby also points to the second point I want to highlight, namely, the deeply relational character that is displayed in the way humans make signs: nothing is meaningful in and of itself, but only in relation to something else. My icon is meaningful only in a context of use, and in relation to specific conventions, contexts of use, persons, and patterns that attribute and structure meaning. From this perspective, religions appear to result from specific ways of relating to the world that are mediated by (material or immaterial) signs that are interpreted as religious. There are no religious objects as such—only signs used within contexts that determine something as a religious object. To define what is specific to Christianity, we, therefore, have to determine contexts of use, and the actual use, in relation to the symbols or signs at work. However, the same goes for all that we consider meaningful in the world of human existence—every action and practice is dependent on semiosis. Since all human activity is meaningful because of our semiotic activity alone, religious activity and practice also builds upon and presupposes similar activities. Religion originates from how humans relate to the world in general. This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to determine what religion “is.” Religious practices presuppose, build on, and modify already existing human practices that are related to and articulated within the boundaries of ordinary life. My icon resembles other images I have on other walls in my house, and I may sometimes look at the icon and these images in a similar manner—and sometimes not. What, then, makes the

9. Ibid., 15. 10.  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd edn (New York: Macmillan, 1971).

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icon part of religious practice? Is there a difference in the way I commemorate my mother and Jesus when I look at pictures of them? I will argue that there is, and that we may identify the differences with respect to how such commemoration may provide different types of access to orientation and transformation. Humans are not the only species that are involved in semiotic processes. Peirce points to how all organic beings are involved in these processes because they have to interpret something as something, although not necessarily with the same cognitive effort as we do. Other animals will also react to thunder or smoke in ways that indicate that these phenomena function as indexes that make them aware of danger. They may interpret the sign of fruit as a potential for being fed (and note that this also implies interpreting something as fruit, and thereby as edible). However, when it comes to the specific human mode of being in the world, this mode is not only based on interpretive practices related to orientation, that is, as ways of determining one’s place and direction in a given context, as suggested above. Humans can also in a profound sense relate to a history beyond their own, and to visions that imply transformation on both a social and a personal level in ways that other species are unable to. This capacity has to do with our ability to use language and to engage language in accessing the social world, the inner world, and the world of past and future. In sum, this use of semiotic processes expands the human world and the realms of human experience beyond what is present in the individual’s history. Robinson’s work on Peirce further underscores this point and its implications for religion and theology. He emphasizes how the semiotic dimensions of reality as implied in everyday experience opens up to an approach to the experience of God that “locates” God in what makes humans distinctive from other species. It has to do with how this symbol (God), which is heavily laden with meaning, nevertheless cannot be accessed directly, or outside the context of semiosis. The capacity to relate to the world as signs and symbols allows us to have different perspectives on what the world is. However, it also makes it possible to consider on what conditions the world exists, or what is beyond the world as we experience it. In that respect, our interpretations overcome the limited and finite approach to the world that we would have if we related to the world using only indexical signs. Although the finite character of human understanding and interpretation is not overcome, it is nevertheless radically expanded by our capacity for symbolic thought and for relating to the world by symbolic means. Now, given these basic distinctions about the reality of signs, we can turn to how the semiotic approach to reality also says something distinct about basic features of the human experience of reality as such. These features are what I propose to call transcendental, that is, they are conditions for, though not in themselves the content of, our concrete experiences of the world.11 We can see this point illustrated

11.  This description could be seen as partly parallel to Schilbrack’s use of the notion “super-empirical” in relation to rituals. See p. 81ff.

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already in the very fact that we use signs for specific purposes. Given that a sign is something that stands for something else, Robinson argues that the “something else-ness” of the sign from the object requires, as a minimum condition for the occurrence of signs, that the world can accommodate things that are “other” than other things. “Otherness” is, therefore, one of the elemental grounds of signification. The sign is other than the object. Without Otherness, there could be no representation, no signification because nothing could ever stand for something else.12

Alternatively, “Without Otherness, the world would be a more comfortable place, but it would also be a place without the possibility of direction or change, and without the possibility of one thing standing for another.”13 From my theoretical point of view, Otherness is thus crucial for practices of orientation and transformation. The symbols that we designate as religious mediate our participation in these practices. Thus, Otherness is distinctive to all human experience, and in a multitude of ways. Otherness is fundamental for what makes things matter to us, and to how we can identify something as something specific and separate from other things that are different from the first. In processes and practices that shape and manifest religion, Otherness manifests itself in all the distinctions that are made, not only between the secular and the sacred, but also regarding what makes one meal distinct from another, or one type of liturgy different from liturgy in another context. Otherness is, in this way, crucial for establishing the identity of something. Otherness makes it possible for us to experience the what-ness or the quality of something, a point that I will return to below. First, we need to look closer at the function of the sign with regard to this Otherness. The sign works, in some way, by coming between the object and the interpreter. The sign stands for an object. Therefore, the interpreter does not encounter the object directly. She encounters a sign. “We may, therefore, say that the sign mediates between the object and the interpreter. In that sense, signification depends on the elemental ground of ‘Mediation.’ ”14 Mediation is the second basic (transcendental) feature of our experience of reality as a sign, or of reality as a sign-reality. Signs are signs because they mediate. “A sign can’t mediate between the object and the interpreter without the underlying element of Mediation—the possibility of something joining two ‘others’ together into a new kind of whole.”15

12. Robinson, Traces of the Trinity, 17. 13.  Ibid., 18. I have developed the theme of otherness with more explicit reference to theological themes than I do here in Jan-Olav Henriksen, “Thematizing Otherness,” Studia Theologica—Nordic Journal of Theology 64, no. 2 (2010). 14. Robinson, Traces of the Trinity, 19. 15. Ibid.

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As with Otherness, Mediation can be found in the world even apart from its specific role in the structure of signs. Our experience of instances in the world as something that is mediated suggests that there is a connection between the different elements in the world that is not dependent on their specific signcharacter. “[T]here can be nothing genuinely connected about the world without the operation of Mediation.” Mediation is, of course, also implied in the way we think, and in how we make a link between two thoughts.16 Robinson offers the following example: Similarly, an idea or concept reflects a kind of continuity which, like a continuum of dots, requires Mediation to be in action. For example, a mouse, an elephant, and a dinosaur are all animals. There is nothing, however, that is simply “animal” in the world. Rather, “animal” is a concept that ties together and mediates between all individual instances of things that are animals.17

When Christians talk about the practices that are articulated in their “life or prayer,” it is mediation that allows for the different instances of prayer to be related to each other in something that can be named thus, despite all the different ways and modes of performing a prayer. Mediation is, therefore, a condition for relating all the different elements of a given practice to each other, in a way that makes the practice appear a coherent whole. Moreover, as indicated above, to experience something as something not only implies experiencing it as Other, but as something that has a concrete “whatness” in itself. “The object, considered in itself, manifests the elemental ground I am going to call Quality.”18 Quality is not simply an assessment of something’s value, but a way of identifying its specificity, of saying what it is in itself. Quality is then another transcendental aspect of experience, as we, for example, not only experience something as different from other things contained in or conveyed by our experience, but as something with its distinct character. This point can be illustrated by our experience of the color red: In experiencing the color we are, in part, experiencing its Otherness, in the sense that we experience it as different from the surrounding colors and context. But if we strip away that aspect of the experience, the otherness of whatever we are presented with, and instead allow ourselves to become immersed in the color itself, then we touch on Quality in its fundamental, elemental sense.19

I am now in a position where I can draw some conclusions as to the importance of Robinson’s understanding of signs for the basic features of our relation to reality.

16. Cf. ibid. 17. Ibid., 20. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid.

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We have, on the level of signs, three ways of using them, as index, symbol, or icon. Simultaneously, we have, on the level of experienced reality, the three basic features of otherness, mediation, and quality. These two levels are interconnected by the very fact that we can relate to the world as signs. If we were not in a position to experience the quality of something as distinct from another something’s quality (the capacity for detecting otherness and mediating between different experiences), we would not have the world as we now have it. A basic feature of human experience is thus the experience of the world as signs, and this feature is then fundamental to our shared world with others as well. This shared world is the cultural (sign) and the social (connected) world. How signs constitute the social world which is maintained by our use of signs becomes clear in Robinson’s example from another dimension of experience, that of our inner (personal or psychological) world. What we experience when we experience a feeling or emotion can be given a label if we want to help others know what we are talking about. However, ultimately the feeling or emotion, as experienced, cannot adequately be translated into anything else. It simply is what it is, and, as such, it is a manifestation of Quality.20 The world is not only the signs we use. Although our experience of the world’s different dimensions is conditioned by our use of the signs in the social and cultural world, the world (be it the inner world, the social and cultural world, or the physical world, and even mystical experiences) has its specific quality in the Peirce sense. The quality of every experience is prior to how a sign represents it. The sign thus manifests the Quality as well as the Otherness of the sign from the Quality. “The sign-object relation is grounded in the elemental ground of Otherness. Quality and Otherness are both necessary for something to be represented by something else. A word is an utterance of the heart, and however closely and fully it expresses what is in the heart it is still something that stands, in its Otherness, as separate from the ‘heart.’ ”21 Now, this approach again allows us to think of the human mode of being in the world as one that, due to its evolutionary origin, is distinct from all other modes of being in the world. Furthermore, the above analysis of some of the semiotic structures of the world has allowed us a kind of transcendental deduction that leads to this conclusion:  there are transcendental features involved in all human experience that cannot simply be taken as “facts” along with other “facts of the world.” Moreover, if we ignore this transcendental dimension that is implied in the human use of signs and expressed in otherness, mediation, and quality, we are downplaying the distinctively human mode of being in the world. In turn, we also lose sight of the sources of religion, and the reasons why humans find it necessary to engage the sign or symbol “God” in their relation to the world. To downplay the distinct character of human life and to lack understanding of the language for God and

20. Ibid., 21. 21. Ibid., 26.

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religion thus may be in some way interconnected. (Note this is not intended to be an argument for the necessity of assuming “the existence of ” God.) In conclusion, there are several important implications to be drawn from an approach to religion that sees it as internally constituted by semiotic practices. We can see this more clearly if we recall that “a sign is a sign of something for someone.” First, being a sign of something requires an interpretative context. Since all signs that one employs in semiotic activity are what they are only in relation to the semiotic activity performed by someone, signs both relate to specific contexts and to specific practices, as they would not be signs without these. What a practice (and practice-context) is and what a sign is are conditioned by the other: the sign is related to and given meaning by the practice, and the practice is meaningful due to its character as a sign. Signs would not be without practices and practices would not be without signs. Practices are signs. Second, taking the above point into account, semiotic activity has a certain openness to it: we can perceive and express reality as signs in different ways. What something is a sign of may differ. A cup of wine can take on different meaning according to context and practice. It can be a sign of hospitality in one context, and an element in the Eucharist in another.22 This is relevant to the idea of religions as clusters of practices because it points to the fact that phenomena belonging to quotidian life are “lifted up” or “set apart” and given a religious significance through specific semiotic practices.23 This openness of the sign also relates to what I  have in an earlier chapter described as the openness of a practice: the fact that something can be practiced in different ways. How a baptism is practiced, and what type of symbols are involved in it may differ to some degree, but the different symbols are integrated into a context that makes them all part of baptism. The lighting of a candle may, therefore, mean one thing in one liturgical context and something else in another. However, the ability to transfer meaning from one context to another (mediation!) may contribute to the richness of the symbolic expressions in both. For example, the lighting of candles on Easter morning can serve as a symbol of new life, but it can also refer to the new life initiated by baptism, though it need not do so. Third, because signs always have to be used by someone, this means that for something to be a religious sign, one not only has to know the meaning of the sign,

22.  For the sake of the argument, I ignore here that a cup of wine may not be a cup of wine in all contexts, but may be determined in different ways if one considers it from the point of view of chemistry or physics. This consideration nevertheless also proves my point about the openness of something with regard to how it is a sign and bears significance in a given context. 23. For an understanding of the religious as “set apart,” see further Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered:  A Building Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). Main elements in her work are also presented in Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation.

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but also employ it for such purposes. Only then can it carry religious significance and be used as a means for orientation and/or transformation. To be religious, or to be a believer, is therefore related to the actual employment, use, or engagement of specific signs in ways that shape self-perception, agency, and, thereby, one’s mode of being in the world. I want to note here, though, that this does not mean that a person needs to be cognitively aware of all the symbolic elements and all the semiotic processes that shape a given practice. It is actual involvement in a practice shaped by such processes that constitutes a religious practice, and not a person’s mental capacity or ability to decode it as such. Moreover, this does not mean that every religious person will have to use/ employ the sign in a similar manner. A Calvinist and a Roman Catholic may both see the cup of wine used in the Eucharist as carrying religious significance, but how they perceive this significance may differ considerably (at least in their own opinions). The way they understand the wine may in turn also determine the practices that involve the use of this wine, be it regarding veneration, preservation, and so on. This point underscores that even within “the same” religion, “similar” signs may lead to different practices, or that relatively similar practices may employ seemingly similar signs. The way I formulate this intends to make clear that both practice and sign are not fixed, and that they may not be identical in different confessional contexts, although they might bear a kind of family resemblance. Furthermore, it follows from the previous implication that one has to recognize that there may be reasons for not overestimating the difference between an “outsider” and an “insider” position when it comes to understanding religion—a point I  touched upon earlier. This difference should not be overestimated since there are sufficient reasons to think that someone who does not employ religious signs or engage in religious practices, nevertheless, may be able to understand much of how they shape the way “insiders” experience the world.

Chapter 6 R I T UA L P R AC T IC E S A S C O G N I T I V E P R O S T H E T IC S

“Religions are perhaps most easily observed (seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched) when people ritualize together,” writes Graham Harvey.1 Perhaps it is not so surprising, then, that rituals are a part of religious practices. Rituals, however, are not easily defined, and what they do, how they are done, and how they can be seen as distinct from other types of practices is not easily determined.2 In this chapter, I will approach the elusive and pervasive phenomenon of ritual. Moreover, I will try to show how rituals are at once both an integral part of everyday life and everyday religion, and how they enable us to see more of the relation between the everyday and the specifically Christian.3 I will not go into all the recent scholarship on rituals but will point to some basic features that seem especially important for the overall argument. Ritual is related to two other practice-related elements that have been presented already, namely, semiosis and embodiment. As Amy Hollywood writes, “Given the more immediately bodily nature of ritual and other forms of religious practice . . ., any philosophy of religion attendant to them will be forced to acknowledge and to theorize those differences inscribed in and on bodies.”4 I  argue, however, that it is necessary to see this embodied dimension of rituals 1. Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 199. 2.  For an overview of important elements in ritual, see Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New  York; Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1992); Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2009), as well as Ronald L. Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies, rev. edn, Studies in Comparative Religion (Columbia:  University of South Carolina Press, 1995), who points to the different ways of approaching ritual, the different dimensions of it, and the difficulties of defining it as set apart from other types of human practices. See especially 38–44. 3.  Harvey in Food, Sex and Strangers argues that rituals and teaching practices should not be treated in isolation from everyday life: “Just as life cannot be divided between secular and spiritual phases, religion is diffused throughout everything that people do. It is integral to everyday human encounters in a multispecies material, relational world” (199). 4.  Amy Hollywood, “Practice, Belief, and Feminist Philosophy of Religion,” in Thinking through Rituals. Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Kevin Schilbrack (New  York; London: Routledge, 2004), 53.

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in relation to features of orientation and transformation, and hence, to connect rituals to semiotic processes. One scholar who has pointed in this direction is Michael L. Raposa, who, building on Peirce, holds that “ritual is itself a kind of inquiry, a kind of thinking embodied in action, behavior that can be conceived as a deliberate process of semiosis.”5 Against this backdrop, religious rituals can be understood as “designed for no single purpose, [and they] serve multiple and sometimes widely disparate purposes. Nevertheless, they often consist of practices intended to inculcate, reinforce or transform specific belief and habits, and thereby to shape human conduct in deliberate ways.”6 Furthermore, and consequently, he also argues that “religious ritual is very much about the way that human beings pay attention,” and ritual “organizes and directs the attention of its participants, supplying a distinctive frame of reference for human experience.” Ritual disciplines attention and helps participants to perceive the world in a certain way.7 Ritual both transforms and confirms the human mode of being in the world and is thus a fundamental element of religious practice in general.8

Ritual as Part of Human Prehistory—and What It Can Tell Us about the Present Everyday In an important and extensive contribution to the understanding of religion from evolutionary theory and anthropology, Candace S.  Alcorta and Richard Sosis9 develop a framework for understanding ritual that links it to other everyday practices; this framework concomitantly offers a rationale for seeing religion as interwoven with other types of human practices. Furthermore, contrary to many other recent evolutionary studies that define religion in terms of cognition, and which focus on the beliefs rather than the behaviors of religious systems, they adopt another approach. They argue that “it is participation in ritual that creates believers.” Hence, ritual practice offers religious beliefs emotional salience and motivational force.10 One main element in their reconstruction of religion based on evolutionary theory is that they see neither the content nor the structure of religious belief

5.  Michael L. Raposa, “Ritual Inquiry:  The Pragmatic Logic of Religious Practice,” in Thinking through Rituals:  Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Kevin Schilbrack (New  York; London: Routledge, 2004), 123. 6. Ibid., 113 (italics mine). 7.  Ibid., 115. Raposa refers to Peirce’s ideas about how the strategy of much religious ritual is “to remove us from the forcible intrusion of other thoughts” (119), and increases the intensity or the liveliness of our awareness of a thing (118). 8. Cf. ibid., 119. 9. Candace Alcorta and Richard Sosis, “Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols,” Human Nature 16, no. 4 (2005): 323–59. 10. Cf. ibid., 344.

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systems as supporting the assertion that such beliefs constitute epiphenomenal “by-products” of evolution. Instead, religious beliefs “engage mental modules of agency and intentionality that evolved in response to ‘mundane’ selection pressures,” but in a religious context, “they modify these modules in specific and developmentally patterned ways.”11 Therefore, even those religious components that they describe as “supernatural agents”12 “are integral elements of religious beliefs and they consistently reflect significant socioecological relations within their respective cultures.”13 Already at this point, then, can we see how they identify religion as intertwined with other aspects of human practice. Accordingly, Alcorta and Sosis do not see religion as dependent merely on biological mechanisms. Biology and culture interact. So, even though it can be argued that the human predisposition to believe in supernatural agents is innate, they nevertheless see the development of such beliefs as dependent on cultural transmission. In a religious context, such transmission (a)  engages attention, (b) promotes recall, and (c) insures exclusivity.14 I argue that especially the two first of these features are immediately important for orientational practices, whereas the latter also contributes to orientation, but by providing means for belonging (i.e., an individual experiences herself as part of an exclusive group). I also argue that we can see these functions of rituals in direct relation to rituals as providers of the so-called cognitive prosthetics. What is religion’s most important evolutionary function? Alcorta and Sosis argue that it is its ability to promote cooperation. It is against this backdrop that they develop their understanding of ritual, which is my primary interest in this section. Ritual relates to costs for the individual within a wider context, especially in terms of time and energy. Their argument goes as follows: The costliness of religious ritual bears a direct relationship to the nature of the collective action problems faced. When individual costs are high, but the potential benefits of cooperation are great, costly religious ritual provides a reliable mechanism for minimizing free-riding and maximizing cooperation. We consider the cognitive schema of religious systems to be a fundamental evolved element in ensuring such cooperation.15

11. Ibid., 328. 12.  I have serious philosophical and theological problems with descriptions of religion in terms of such supernatural agents, but I leave those aside for now, as they are not crucial for the argument I want to make on the basis of Alcorta and Sosis’s work. 13. Ibid., 328f. 14. Ibid., 329. Cf. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concept of Pollution and Taboo; with a New Preface by the Author, Routledge Classics (London: Routledge, 2002), 79: “Ritual focusses attention by framing: it enlivens the memory and links the present with the relevant past. In all of this it aids perception.” 15. Alcorta and Sosis, “Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols,” 329.

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If we remember that engaging attention, promoting recall, and insuring exclusivity are the basic features of religious schemes and relate these to cooperation, it becomes clear how the participants’ common frame of reference and sense of exclusivity can provide important motivations for cooperation. The social and relational element in human life—and in a ritual, more specifically—is thereby apparent. Rituals, in other words, may be seen in relation to their function as providing a means for cooperation. From the point of view of evolutionary theory, the formality, patterning, repetition, and rhythm of religious ritual have direct parallels in nonhuman ritualized displays. Nevertheless, as it is only humans that engage religious rituals, the fact that we find rituals also in nonhuman behavior, however, contributes to underscoring the point that the religious elements in human life are based on and must be seen in relation to other everyday features that are apparent in humans, and prefigured in nonhumans as well. As a consequence, “[r]eligious ritual, like nonhuman ritualized displays, is demarcated from ordinary behaviors and is composed of the same structural elements.”16 Furthermore, as just noted, Alcorta and Sosis see formality, patterning, sequencing, and repetition as components of religious ritual. It is important, against the backdrop of Reckwitz’s identification of components in practices described previously, that they see signals of the condition, status, and intent as the factors that constitute “action releasers” that are embedded within the structure of rituals.17 Recall how Reckwitz identified practices (and herein is included ritual) as routinized behavior that implies “bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge.”18 Against the backdrop of my exploration of semiotics in the previous chapter, it is notable that we find that in both human and nonhuman ritual the signaling embodied in ritual conveys information regarding status and intent. Alcorta and Sosis write: Religious ritual also incorporates indexical and iconic signals. Masks, statues, and other “agent” representations are prominent elements in religious ritual across cultures. They engage innate mental modules evolved for mundane functions and potentiate human predispositions to autonomically respond to specific classes of stimuli, including animate agents and angry faces. Incorporation of evocative, grotesque, and dissonant features further intensify such responses. Like the signals of nonhuman ritual, the signals of religious ritual clearly elicit neurophysiological responses in participants and influence the nature of social interaction.19

16. Ibid., 330. 17. Ibid. 18. Reckwitz, “Toward a Theory of Social Practices,” 249. 19. Alcorta and Sosis, “Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols,” 331.

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We note here again the interaction between the mundane or ordinary, on the one hand, and the religious, on the other. Furthermore, the impact that rituals have on social cooperation and neurophysical status also points to how rituals provide means for transformation of the concrete content of experiences and attitudes. Religious rituals are therefore biologically significant events as well. Research shows that ritual participants “demonstrate changes in brain wave patterns, heart and pulse rate, skin conductance, and other autonomic functions.”20 Moreover, religious rituals evoke both positive and negative emotions.21 In opposition to viewing participation as an externalized activity of internally held convictions or as an embodied articulation of mental content, Sosis sees ritual as a practice that generates belief among participants.22 It is possible to identify different psychological mechanisms underlying this process and to explain the interrelationship between emotions, symbols, and the sacred. Thereby, one can also describe the neurological underpinnings of how ritual participation impacts belief.23 Moreover, like other scholars, Alcorta and Sosis also point to how religious rituals are used to define the sacred and to separate it from the profane.24 They stress how this distinction has an emotional impact: From a behavioral perspective, the emotional significance of holy and profane water is quite distinct. Not only is it inappropriate to treat holy water as one treats profane water, it is emotionally repugnant. Although sacred and profane things are cognitively distinguished by adherents, the critical distinction between the sacred and the profane is the emotional charging associated with sacred things. This distinction in emotional valence is created through participation in religious ritual. Sacred symbols have distinct cognitive schema, but their sanctity derives from their emotional meaning.25

The sacred is therefore invested with emotional meaning through participation in ritual. This meaning has implications for how “faith” contributes to orientation and transformation. It is easily visible in religious symbols that evoke “awe” or can be classified as “pure” or “dangerous.”26 Religious symbols that have positive emotional meaning necessarily benefit ritual participants in different ways, be it psychologically or politically. Furthermore, “powerfully valenced symbols that motivate behavioral choices reduce cognitive dissonance, particularly under conditions of socio-ecological stress,” they argue.27 20. Cf. ibid., 336. 21. Cf. ibid., 337f. 22. See Richard Sosis, “Why Aren’t We All Hutterites?,” Human Nature 14, no. 2 (2003). 23. Alcorta and Sosis, “Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols,” 332. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Cf. ibid. 27. Ibid., 339f.

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In sum, Alcorta and Sosis provide us with an account of why and how ritual is important for religion, and with additional arguments in favor of the position I  try to develop in this part of the book, namely, that practices may be seen as prior to actual or cognitively articulated belief. Although they argue from an anthropological and evolutionary point of view, their approach nevertheless supports Reckwitz’s statement that practices are something that people take part in, but which we cannot see as the result of what people do or invent as individuals. From their perspective, the communal is before the individual in this sense as well.

Bell: Ritualization as Orientation Practices From a rather different perspective than Alcorta and Sosis, Catherine Bell argues that we need to remove ritual activities from their isolated position and instead consider them within the context of social activity in general.28 Furthermore, instead of seeing ritual as specific acts that are definable in clear ways, she suggests a process perspective in which ritualization, as a strategy for acting, differentiates specific acts from other practices. From this perspective, to act ritually means to adopt a specific cultural strategy that enables a “differentiation linked to particular social effects and rooted in the interplay of a socialized body and the environment it structures.”29 Bell draws on Roy Rappaport’s work, as do Alcoarta and Sosis, to suggest that ritual may be the basic social act—an act that has a prominent role in securing cultural knowledge.30 In her study, she tries to overcome the dichotomy that has shaped definitions of ritual as “either a distinct and autonomous set of activities or as an aspect of all human activity.”31 We can describe the contrast between these two ways of understanding ritual as the “unique” and the “intertwined” approach, respectively.32 How does the discussion of these different approaches to ritual help us understand it better? The “unique” approach implies that ritual or magical activity is defined in opposition to technical or utilitarian ways of acting. Here, one sees the relationship between means and ends in rituals as rule-governed, routinized, symbolic, or noninstrumental, and contrary to a pragmatic, instrumental, spontaneous, and technical form of activity. The “intertwined” approach, in contrast, sees rituals as an aspect of expressive, symbolical, or communicative action in general, and therefore, in congruity with other forms of human action, just as we saw previously in Alcorta and Sosis. However, as Bell points out, sometimes both

28. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 7. 29. Ibid., 8. 30. Ibid., 54. 31. Ibid., 70. 32.  These descriptions are mine, although I  base the following reconstruction on Bell’s work.

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the expressive and instrumental aspects will be present in the same ritual. Her survey of the problems related to these approaches leads her to the conclusion that rituals cannot always be seen as belonging to a clearly delineated category of social behavior, which makes it possible to separate rituals from what they share with other social activities.33 It is at this stage that Bell’s own suggestion, namely, seeing ritualization as a process, presents itself as useful. This approach allows us to analyze rituals from a point of view that examines how a person or a group gives some activities a privileged status over others. This approach will then have to look at how human activities establish and manipulate their own differentiation and purposes. Against this backdrop, processes of ritualization are social actions that strategically distinguish themselves in relation to other actions. Thus, Bell writes, “ritualization is a way of acting that is designed and orchestrated to distinguish and privilege what is being done in comparison to other, usually more quotidian, activities.”34 In short, this process “sets off ” some activities from others, and in so doing, establishes distinctions that shape the possibility of approaching reality in a specific way.35 I find Bell’s suggestions for how to describe ritualization processes helpful for obvious reasons: we can define ritualization as a very specific way of establishing the means for orientation that can be repeated, ordered, and routinized. This does not mean that rituals need to be separated completely from the practices of everyday life, but they do need to be differentiated in some way. Ritualization takes its point of departure in the ordinary or the everyday. It is from this context that it performs its activities, and in ways that differentiate between the profane and the sacred. The distinction between these two spheres of sacred and profane would then be impossible without the differentiation enabled by ritualization activity—a position which Alcorta and Sosis also hold.36 Bell distinguishes her approach from that of Emile Durkheim in a significant manner: Durkheim defined religion and ritual in relation to the sacred, thereby indicating that these categories are clearly delineated beforehand. By suggesting that it is a particular way of acting that draws distinctions and makes it possible to identify religion or ritual as such, this approach allows her to relativize the boundaries these concepts display regarding their cultural contexts. “The relative

33.  Ibid., 74. Schilbrack exemplifies the distinction that Bell makes here in a different way:  “Take as paradigmatic examples the religious practices of circumcision, pilgrimage, or devotional worship. Some religious rituals like these are practiced explicitly for some instrumental benefit such as healing, divining the future, and protection from disease, bad luck, or enemies. Other rituals are said to be done because they are intrinsically good in themselves: ‘because God requires it’ or ‘because it is right to do.’” Schilbrack, Manifesto, 17. 34. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 74. 35.  This “set off ” or “set apart” practice is closely linked to Ann Taves’ understanding of the activities involved in defining religious experience. Taves is discussed extensively in Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation. 36. Cf. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 91.

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clarity and flexibility of the boundaries, of course, are also a highly strategic matter in a particular cultural community, and are best understood in terms of the concrete situation.”37 The features typically considered to be part of ritual—formality, fixity, and repetition—are from this perspective not intrinsic qualities of ritual. Instead, Bell sees them as strategies for producing ritualizing acts. These features “reveal potential strategies of ritualization because these ways of acting are the means by which one group of activities is set off as distinct and privileged vis-a-vis other activities.”38 The pragmatic dimension of rituals, which I  want to link to orientation and transformation, allows us to see ritualization as “a practical way of dealing with some specific circumstances.”39 Rituals orient us in specific ways, and they cannot be understood as simply a matter of routine, habit, or “dead tradition.”40 Furthermore, the extent to which rituals are differentiated from other forms of practice may differ considerably, and, as Bell argues, may be part of the strategy of the ritualization process and part of the logic and efficacy of the act.41 Bell thus presents us with an approach to rituals that highlights their dynamic and culturally relative character, while simultaneously allowing us to see ritual practice as a specific way of establishing or articulating practices of orientation. Rituals thus appear to be an open-ended form of practice that takes on many different forms. “Ritualization is probably an effective way of acting only under certain cultural circumstance,” she writes.42 Nevertheless, what counts as a ritual is hard to determine, “since ritualized practices constantly play off the field of action in which they emerge, whether the field involves other ritualized activities, ordinary action deemed by the contrast to be spontaneous and practical, or both at the same time.”43 For Bell, ritual practices invoke a series of privileged oppositions, which are acted in time and space in order to structure and nuance the environment.44 The organization of the environment implies that some oppositions “quietly dominate others but all also defer to others in a redundantly circular, and hence nearly infinite, chain of associations.”45 In effect, “the associations contribute to the naturalization of the values that are expressed in the subtle relationship among oppositions.”46

37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 92. 39. Ibid. 40. Cf. ibid. 41. Ibid., 93. 42. Ibid., 141. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., 140. 45. Ibid. 46.  Ibid., 140–1. Note that we can understand these associations in light of my examination of mediation in previous chapters.

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Thereby, the establishment of the ritualized environment also provides to those who engage in the ritual a set of experiences and a specific sense of agency: This environment, constructed and reconstructed by the actions of the social agents within it, provides an experience of the objective reality of the embodied subjective schemes that have created it. Ritualization as a strategic way of acting does not see the social agent’s projection of this environment or his or her reembodiment of sets of schemes constitutive of it. When these schemes are embodied in a cultural sense of reality and possibility, the agent is capable of interpreting and manipulating simply by reclassifying the very relationships understood as constitutive of reality.47

The important notion in this quotation is “scheme.” Schemes create order, and order provides a means for orientation. Through ritualization, one receives the opportunity to master the ritual by internalizing the schemes according to which it operates. In this way, ritual is always linked to power as well. To what extent ritual empowers or disempowers depends on to the extent to which the ritual fits within, or is coherent with, the experienced cosmos of the agent: “This cosmos is experienced as a chain of states or an order of existence that places one securely in a field of action and in alignment with the ultimate goals of all action.”48 Rituals then order and reorder reality. Thereby, they provide orientation by shaping contrasts, distinctions, and schemes on the basis of which one can act and experience some kind of mastery of reality. Furthermore, rituals may both “rest in themselves” and have internal goals, as well as point beyond themselves to a reality beyond that expressed in the ritual itself. Rituals nevertheless cannot exist totally separated from everyday life because they need the contrast to the everyday and the symbolic resources from the everyday on which they can draw.

Rituals as Cognitive Prosthetics for the Superempirical Kevin Schilbrack deepens the analysis of rituals when he argues that “one cannot separate the religious practices that shape an individual’s moral behavior from those political practices that organize society, and one cannot separate those interests from rituals of healing or worship.”49 Furthermore, he argues that it does seem that some or most religious practices aim neither at teaching doctrine nor at having a certain experience. From this assumption, he concludes that “religious practices should not be seen as merely the expressions of doctrines or experiences. They embody religious interests of their own.”50 However, if he is right, we need to

47. Ibid., 141. 48. Ibid., 140. 49. Schilbrack, Manifesto, 17. 50. Ibid.

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address in greater depth how it may be possible to define and clarify how practices can be designated as religious, and to do so without having to ascribe a priori to a way of defining the religious that is shaped by a specific religious tradition. It is in this context that Schilbrack’s understanding of the religious as related to the superempirical conditions for the meaning of specific practices presents itself as useful. By examining his ideas in this regard more closely, we may be able to see how religious rituals can offer concrete help for orientation and transformation, even when not defined as articulations of a specific doctrine or teaching. In this context, there are nevertheless several other advantages to Schilbrack’s approach to practices and ritual, beyond the fact that his approach contributes to develop further the more generic aspects of ritual described with reference to Bell in the previous section. One advantage is that he enables us to see that partaking in rituals implies involvement in learning and exploration. He writes: Some of the things that one learns by participating in ritual will be about oneself. When I engage in this practice, what about me is changed? My original desires? My will? My habits? What in me resists this change and needs to be surrendered? Some of the things one learns will be about those with whom one interacts: who among us is unreliable? Who among us can serve as a role model? And some of the things one learns will be about the world as the context of one’s action: about storms and diseases and about food and music—and ultimately practices can serve as opportunities for inquiry about the superempirical resources that make the practice successful.51

The list of questions in this quotation highlights elements that are important to consider regarding both orientation and transformation, namely, the self, others, and the world or community. However, the quotation also indicates that rituals presuppose and engender a sense for superempirical realities that are experienced as the source for the ritual behavior. These superempirical realities are important for creating visions for orientation as well as for transformation. Schilbrack understands the notion “superempirical” as non-observable facts that are nevertheless necessary to render a practice meaningful. It is not simply an idea in the mind or a product of someone’s imagination, but an assumption about realities that make reality and practices meaningful. In such a framework, the “concept of God is not more superempirical than that of karma or Logos,” he writes. Furthermore, if we understand religions as a set of practices and not simply a matter of superempirical beliefs in the minds of believers (interiority), this approach avoids problems related to privileging interiority, faith, or beliefs as what defines religion.52 Superempirical realities are therefore to be seen in their relation to, and as socially constructed conditions for, ritual as well as other practices.

51. Ibid., 45. 52. Cf. ibid, 136–7.

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Schilbrack sees the employment of superempirical realities as that which distinguishes religious practices from nonreligious ones. He asks, “What superempirical reality sustains the practice or makes it effective?” This question, however, cannot be answered in a theoretical way but has to be seen as closely related to religion as a mode of being in, or engaging with, the world. The reason is that Schilbrack approaches practices as cognitive prosthetics that let practitioners explore questions about how to lead their lives in the best manner possible. As such prosthetics, “religious practices can serve as occasions of thoughtful inquiry when they provide the physically, linguistically, and socially extended cognition that enables participants to ask and answer questions about the features of and the conditions for their normative paths.”53 Thus, religious practices might help to facilitate cognition about invisible beings, but not only that. They may also help in dealing with cognitive problems: For instance, initiation rituals teach participants about adulthood, responsibility, and gender. Pilgrimages teach participants about land, memory, and persistence. Funerals teach participants about the physical body, detachment, and mortality. Other rituals may treat health, pleasure, and reward; still others, dignity, shame, and privacy. There is not one problem that is “the” religious problem.54

To understand rituals as cognitive prosthetics implies that processes of cognition are extended into the physical, linguistic, and social environments. Rituals become the external aids for such extension. Against the backdrop of my earlier discussion of the embodiment paradigm and its implications,55 this understanding of rituals allows us to see the mind either as embedded in or as extended into the physical world. In the first instance, cognitive prosthetics are tools of the mind but are not part of the mind. However, if we see the mind as extended into the world, “we take the boundaries between mind, body, and world as permeable and evolving, and what counts as the mind is seen as open to transformative restructuring by incorporating new cognitive equipment.”56 Nevertheless, in both cases, the physical tools for thinking that are employed in practices are seen as conditions. Against the backdrop of the embedded mind hypothesis, these tools are enabling conditions for cognitive work; against the backdrop of the extended mind hypothesis, they are constitutive conditions.57 Schilbrack himself does not decide which of these theoretical approaches he wants to privilege, and they may not even be mutually exclusive. In both cases, however,

53. Ibid., 45. 54. Ibid. 55. See above, p. 48ff. 56. Schilbrack, Manifesto, 43. 57. Ibid.

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Christianity as Distinct Practices attention to cognitive prosthetics in religious contexts opens a path for the study of religious practice as a cognitive enterprise. On this approach, one can see the religious participants’ interaction with the implements and environment of a ritual not as thoughtless and not as merely expressions of thought done elsewhere, but rather as the enabling or constitutive parts of a cognitive process.58

Ritual material environments are created using architecture, paintings, icons, statues, and other means. These means “help religious practitioners visualize and interact with beings that are not present in the ordinary way, to discriminate between them, and to track one’s interactions with them.”59 However, according to Schilbrack, religious cognition is not limited to interacting with invisible beings. Therefore, “the religious use of cognitive prosthetics goes beyond simply helping participants visualize them.”60 The reason for this is obvious:  religious practices promise a wide variety of benefits for participants. These can be more mundane objects or benefits, such as health, or less concrete objects, like salvation or other outcomes of transition rites. And even less concretely, some religious practices are said to lead to liberation or salvation. It may be that, like work, such religious practices pursue an end outside themselves or it may be that, like play, they are done as an end in themselves. But on either interpretation, they can be seen as opportunities for cognition about health, love, duty, maturity, sovereignty, purpose, or—at the most abstract—the nature of human existence.61

Cognitive prosthetics present in rituals might foster thinking in a wide variety of ways. Some might aid concentration by providing an aim upon which to focus. Other examples Schilbrack highlights include how prayer beads can help a person track progress in a cycle of prayers, and how circumcision can “serve as a sign of the covenant between Yahweh and the descendants of Abraham.” Narratives also serve as important reminders and may even provide opportunities for emotional investment in the narrative depicted, as well as chances for emulation

58.  Ibid. The same point is made with reference to Peirce’s semiotics in Raposa, in Thinking through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives, 115. 59.  The one who has most extensively argued for calling attention to the material dimension of religion in recent scholarship is Vasquez, in More Than Belief. Vasquez’s point of departure is religious studies, as well as his empirical observations of the pragmatic and embodied character of immigrant religion in the United States (cf. 2f.). Like others, he also sees the need for moving away from understanding religion on the basis of texts and theology only. Nevertheless, he argues for a non-reductive approach to religion that highlights “complexity, inter-level connectivity, emergence, situated knowledge and relative indeterminacy”—as opposed to “totalizing explanatory schemes” (5). 60. Schilbrack, Manifesto, 44. 61. Ibid.

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and recognition. Nevertheless, the effect these prosthetics might have remains fairly open and dependent on the practitioner and on the ritual practices’ use of prosthetics. Schilbrack summarizes the contribution of prosthetics thus: [T]here may be a best answer about which scene is most fitting to one’s life, or what interpretation of that scene to draw, but a fair amount of freedom is necessarily left to the ritual participants regarding how to apply the norms represented in images to their own situations. In fact, to render proper behavior visible in this interactive way is also to court multiple interpretations and disagreement. But the point is that the physical representations can be seen as cognitive to the extent that . . . they provide fragmentary prompts that are meant to engage participants to think in a certain way about themselves, others, and the world of which they are a part . . . The ritual environment provides the conditions for making progress on the normative problem as the paper and pencil do for solving the math problems, and religious rituals can be seen as an opportunity for inquiry that merits attention from philosophers of religion.62

Among the important results of my analysis of Schilbrack and the others I have discussed in this chapter is that rituals are not expressions of the mind, or simply externalizations of a message that originates in the mind. Rather, the ritual is, as Ricoeur would have it, an opportunity to reflect and make things clearer and more transparent and real.63 The ritual is a symbol that opens up to the experience of the world in a manner that we would not be able to without it. Alternatively, to say with Mary Douglas:  “There are some things we cannot experience without ritual.”64 Accordingly, it is not difficult to understand the central role that rituals play in the establishment of practices that shape Christian identity, as well as in practical-theological discourse.

62. Ibid., 47. 63.  See Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, trans. David Pellauer (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), 5. 64. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 80.

Chapter 7 I N C O N C LU SIO N

The first part of the book has tried to open up the different perspectives that I find fruitful for redescribing Christianity as (a cluster of) practices. I will not repeat all the points here, but only identify a few important features that I think will be relevant in the following pages. First of all, practices are constituted by the relational and embodied character of human beings. This character means that practices have an unavoidable biological component: they are related to, or even grounded in, the embodied human being’s mode of being in the world. Moreover, the everyday character of human practices is not left behind in religious practices, but is incorporated into (and condition the shape and form of) religious practices as well. Accordingly, a practice approach makes it difficult to see religious practices as something that can be fully separated from other forms of human activity. Therefore, it is increasingly hard to ask people to keep their faith to themselves or to see their religious beliefs as something that can be kept private, separated, or eliminated from the public sphere. To argue for a secular society will, against this backdrop, be to argue for a less manifold or pluralistic society, with fewer opportunities for agency and cultural enrichment. Perhaps the most important insight that has been established here about the understanding of practices is that we cannot see them as mere expressions of an already existing belief. Practices shape beliefs just as much as they are shaped by them. Furthermore, this means that we have to recognize that people are often initially more involved in practices than in just accepting or complying with the given beliefs that explain them. This point challenges an understanding of religion as based primarily on doctrine, and an understanding of practice as something that is merely an expression of someone’s belief as supplying the conditions for agency. Practices cannot be understood as merely instrumental; they shape people just as much as people shape them. Therefore, a pragmaticist approach to religious practices should not be mistaken for one that sees religious practices as interchangeable with other types of practices, somewhat like a more functional device. As argued in the previous chapter, specific religious practices may help us see and experience things that we would not be able to otherwise. It is how these experiences are rooted in specific practices, and what they imply for the understanding of human life, that is the task of the second part of this book.

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Among contemporary theologians, Elaine Graham has tried to make use of recent theories about practice within a theological context. She insists that we see Christian practice as integrated into wider social and cultural contexts. Furthermore, she sees identity and culture as performative, and she links this approach to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which combines structure and action in the construction of culture. His is a valuable addition to the understanding of the complicated relationship between existing traditions and those who are challenged with stewarding them. The stewarding of tradition is always a combination of structure and action. Habitus as knowledge is therefore always oriented toward practical functions, and it is, adds Graham, necessarily embodied. “Social structures are inscribed on bodily activity; embodied action creates tangible institutions.”1 Accordingly, her definition of practice is: “purposeful activity performed by embodied persons in space and time as the subjects of agency and objects of history.”2 Purposeful practices are furthermore bearers of value: cultural norms are reproduced and handed down, but there is also scope for creative re-rendering.3 Graham’s arguments allow me to develop a bridge to the next part of the book, which will be more deliberately theological. She underscores how “the core values of communities or cultures are not to be conceived as transcendent, eternal realities, but as provisional—yet binding—strategies of normative action and community within which shared commitments might be negotiated and put to work. Ethics and politic, therefore, becomes processes and practices, rather than applications of metaphysical ideals.”4 In other words, on these conditions theology as practice can become liberating and critical in relation to given political or social circumstances. The above considerations allow Graham to specify further in what ways she sees a Christian approach to practice as multilayered. She writes: Practice thus emerges as the process by which social relations are generated. As a working definition, we might characterize practice as purposeful activity performed by embodied persons in time and space as both the subjects of agency and the objects of history. Practice is also the bearer of implicit and norms within which certain configurations of privilege and subordination are enshrined. Forms of practice, be they medical, therapeutic, scientific, literary—or even, as I shall argue shortly, religious—create and police boundaries of dominance and subordination, power, and powerlessness, upon which any given social order

1.  Elaine Graham, “Interpreting Situations:  An Inquiry into the Nature of Practi-Cal Theology,” in The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, ed. Stephen Pattison, James Woodward, and John Patton (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 109. 2. Ibid., 110. 3. Ibid. 4. Cf. ibid., 6.

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may be constructed. Practice is constitutive of a way of life, both individual and collective, personal and structural.5

Graham’s remarks here are important because they highlight that practices are in no way neutral but need constant scrutiny and critique. Therefore, they are part of a complicated relationship between tradition/practice, on the one hand, and the need to revise, reform, critique, or alter the given circumstances they contribute to ordering and shaping, on the other. In the next part of the book, I will argue further why this is an integral and necessary part of Christian practices, and how we can see it as originating from basic traits of the story that shapes these practices. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy Bass defines Christian practices in a way that identifies this definitive or determining story further:  Christian practices are patterns of cooperative human activity in and through which life together takes shape over time in response to and in the light of God as known in Jesus Christ. Focusing on practices invites theological reflection on the ordinary, concrete activities of actual people—and also on the knowledge of God that shapes, infuses, and arises from these activities. Focusing on practices demands attentiveness to specific people doing specific things together within a specific frame of shared meaning.6

In other words, the pragmatic context for Christian practice is what helps us gain access to its distinctive character. This context is constituted by and expressed through, and in relation to, what I propose to call the Jesus story. The next part of the book will develop this task further.

5. Ibid., 110. 6. See Volf and Bass, “Introduction,” in Practicing Theology, 3.

Part II C HRISTIANITY R ECONSTRUCTED:  C LUSTERS OF P RACTICES S HAPED BY A S TORY

Introduction: The Main Argument If we interpret Christianity as a cluster of practices, how are we to understand this religious tradition? The main purpose of this part of the book is to spell out an approach to understanding Christianity against the backdrop of, and related to, the complicated relationship between three different but interrelated elements: ● ●

●

the individual, which relies on . . . the community to which the individual belongs, which would not exist apart from . . . the religious tradition that constitutes the community and provides practices through which it lives and articulates itself.

Christianity as a cluster of practices is mediated in and through the interplay between these elements. The individual would not be a religious practitioner without relating to the tradition by taking part in the community (although not necessarily in an uncritical way).1 The community exists because it is constituted by the chain of memory that also constitutes the tradition that individuals relate to as a community.2 Furthermore, the tradition would not exist apart from the community that mediates specific memories, skills, and points of orientation in and through a diversity of practices. Nevertheless, these practices must always be appropriated by the individuals who take part in the tradition, as they need to give it the form and shape that is relevant in their context. The consequence of this

1.  This relation between the individual and the community as a point of departure for theological reflection has recently been articulated comprehensively in Eilert Herms, Systematische Theologie: Das Wesen Des Christentums: In Wahrheit Und Aus Gnade Leben (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 6f. 2. I use the notion “chain of memory” with reference to Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000).

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approach is that it enables us to see that it is concrete practices that mediate the relationship between individual, community, and tradition. The mediation between these three interrelated elements is therefore due to different practices that are conditioned by social, historical, and other contextual features in which the relation between them is expressed. Practices reside in contexts. Furthermore, it is the mediation of the complicated relationship between individual, community, and tradition that makes is possible to identify the main elements that shape the way Jesus and the first Christians practiced their faith. However, we can also identify how they, in turn, became part of a tradition, which later Christians continue to relate to in an equally complicated manner when seeking to practice their beliefs. In so doing, they navigate between contextual concerns, community, tradition, and individual conditions for appropriation. Hence, Christianity understood as practices always mediates itself by and through this complicated relationship, and it does so in the past as well as in the present. The point I  want to make here is that this complicated relationship can be understood as analogous to the case of the relationship between Jesus and his religious tradition, on the one hand, and, in the case of the Christian church, in relation to the Christian tradition/the Bible, on the other. Let me, furthermore, illustrate the relationship with a contemporary example that may shed some light on this description. In June 2017, a woman was “ordained” a priest in Trondheim, Norway. This is a common practice in Norway. However, the context in which it happened was unusual: the event took place within a congregation of Roman Catholic believers, who are opposed to the present stance of that church with regard to the ordination of women to the priesthood (hence the quotation marks around “ordination”). This is a community that opposes—and opposes in practice and by practice—the present theological position of the Roman Catholic Church and the consequences of this practice. Thereby, they illustrate how, in order to establish new practices and other types of theology, this has to be articulated in visible and experiential terms. Moreover, they did not wait for the theological position to be changed, instead, they practiced their theology differently from the wider Roman Catholic Church regarding the equality of women and men. The way the tradition and the Bible are understood by the Roman Catholic Church is therefore challenged by an alternative community establishing alternative interpretations of tradition based on convictions held by individual believers who find it necessary to express their disagreements through an alternative practice. One tradition and one text do not necessarily lead to only one type of interpretation, community, and practice; rather, different communities, practices, and interpretations emerge from a tradition that is under constant negotiation concerning its content and how it should be practiced. In recent times, democratization and feminism have contributed to the development of the Christian understanding of equality and hierarchy. Christianity is thus constituted by a chain of memory that links back to and uses the Jesus story, as this story is mediated to individuals via the Christian community. All that can be related to this chain of memory in a convincing manner contributes to the further development of Christianity in history. Thus,

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practices that mediate the memory of the past simultaneously articulate the implications of the Jesus story for the future. Memory is, in Christian practice, thus not a nostalgic return to the past. It is used actively in different practices to open up the present and the future in a constant negotiation process that expresses its orientation toward the future. The Jesus story thereby is the semiotic reservoir that enables Christians to understand their own lives and practices as distinctly Christian.

Chapter 8 ( H I - ) S T O RY A S R E S OU R C E F O R O R I E N TAT IO N   A N D   T R A N SF O R M AT IO N

There Is a Time and a Place If you search for Christians, where do you look? Here is one answer: every Sunday morning, in almost every part of the world—South Africa, the United Kingdom, Norway, or the United States—you will see well-dressed people walking or driving in the same direction, toward the buildings we call churches. How the people are dressed may differ, as may the outlook of their churches. How early they go, and how long the service lasts, or what is preached, and what they do during their time in church may differ considerably. However, wherever you are, there are, to use Wittgenstein’s notion, family resemblances between what people do and how they act. To understand what people do and why they do it (which is, in fact, two questions not easily separated), one has to move beyond that which is immediately present at hand, however. From an outsider’s perspective, we know that different religious traditions have different days of worship, but this does not answer why Christians worship on Sundays. To understand that, we need to identify the central point of orientation for Christians—the sine qua non—which they may believe in or not, and in different ways, but without which Christianity would not be. This central point of orientation is the resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week. Hence, Christians explain and legitimize their practice of worshipping on Sundays by referring to the resurrection story. My point here is not to initiate a discussion about the historicity of this event. Instead, I want to point out two elements in Christian practice that are constituted by this event: the resurrection made it possible, and reasonable, to set off Sunday as special time and the church (or a similar place) as a specific place of worship. Time and place are not chosen arbitrarily; however, all practices need time and space/place, and Christians are therefore referred to finding reasons for defining their special time and place. They decided early on to use Sunday as the day for their distinct practices; therefore, Sunday is a good starting point for looking for Christians. Several reflections can be made regarding how Christian practices are structured by time and place/space. It is not as if Christians decided to select

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a day or time for worship and celebration to distinguish it from other religious traditions. For example, Christians took over aspects—namely, time—of the Jewish Passover for their celebration of Easter, even though they did not repeat or take over all elements of it. Again, they filled it with content related to the story of Jesus. There is no logic in the selection of times that makes it necessary for Christians to find their own day or to separate themselves off from other religious traditions. Nevertheless, we see, occasionally, that the idea of the unique character of Christianity engenders discussions about its choice of times for celebration. In Norway, it is almost a part of the Christmas ritual for secular humanists to point out how Christmas time (in our part of the world, that is!) occurs during winter solstice, when days begin to get lighter, and which was celebrated long before Christianity came to Europe. The idea behind this repeated quarrel seems to be that since Christianity has taken over these times for its own celebration of the birth of Jesus, then these festivities are not authentically Christian. The fundamental point is, given that all religious traditions exist in time and space, they all contribute to the structuring of the everyday in the ways they develop times for worship and celebration. Furthermore, they do not only engage in semiotic practice when they draw on singular historical elements like the birth of Jesus or his resurrection to determine the content of their practices, but they can combine these singular events with ordinary and repeatable elements of the everyday. Thus, the birth of Jesus (in singular) is combined with the universal experience of the winter solstice. It is the combination of the two that makes this feast distinctively Christian. The semiotic reservoir that the story represents is activated in relation to the features of time and place/space. It is worth considering what this implies for understanding the experience that this semiotic process makes possible. By taking a singular event and relating it to a universal and repetitive experience, the memory of Jesus’s birth is reenacted and integrated into the experience of how the cold winter is overcome and new life is given the chance to appear. Without this combination of the memory of Jesus’s birth with the regular event of the solstice, Christians would have a less structured way of keeping that memory alive (as well as the memory of the Easter events, but related to different, universal features). Moreover, they would not have their experience of the importance of the birth of Jesus reinforced if they were not also relating it to the solstice. To point out the close relation between the universals of the everyday and the singular events in what we, for the present, can call the Christian story is not original. However, the above considerations can enable us to see more clearly how Christian practices relate to the everyday, which in turn shapes Christian practices. The dialectic between shaping and being shaped by the everyday is what concerns me here. This dialectical interaction enables us to speak about the entwinement of everyday practices and distinct Christian practices. Furthermore, if this idea concerning the combination of the distinct (singular) and the universal holds, it means that we cannot speak about the distinctive character of Christianity without analyzing its practices as the result of such a combination. If Christianity’s

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practices contribute to orientation and transformation, it is precisely because of the intertwinement of everyday practices and Christian practices. The above notwithstanding, there is more to say about the Christian character of practices than how they are structured by time and place/space. We now have to explore more concretely how the singular features of the Christian story can be analyzed and given shape in specific practices. We cannot do this, however, unless we define more clearly how the story of Jesus is the basic resource for orientation and transformation in Christianity.

The Use of Story: A Complicated Relationship The Jesus story is the semiotic reservoir for all Christian practice, and what Christians relate to in the semiotic processes they hold that define the specific character of their faith. How this reservoir is employed is nevertheless complicated, and an expression of what I have suggested already is a complicated relationship in itself. In his extensive study of the features of early Christian worship, Larry Hurtado points to how “[t]he key distinguishing feature of the early Christian circles was the prominent place of Jesus Christ in their religious thought and practice.”1 He furthermore points to how there were other groups in the same period that shared important features with early Christianity. Others also had practices that “recruited converts across ethnic lines, offering intimate fellowship, initiation rituals, and sacred meals with a deity,” as well as manifested the presence of “philosophical movements to which the early Christian groups can be likened in their concern to define and promote ethics.”2 What he points to makes it all the more important to ask: what is it that distinguishes Christianity from other movements. My approach to this question is to suggest that we should start from the following question: From where do Christians orient themselves? The tentative answer to this fundamental question is that they orient themselves from their community, and from the Jesus story as they see it. Accordingly, I argue that there is a double answer to the above question, and both parts are necessary to establish to get the full picture. I will develop these elements of the answer in this

1. Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK:  W.B. Eerdmans, 2003), 1. Hurtado also holds that this centrality makes it hard to argue that the Gospels (and Q) are more about the Kingdom of God than about Jesus. See 245f. 2.  Ibid. A few pages later, Hurtado adds the following comment, which is relevant in relation to the present project: “At an astonishingly early point, in at least some Christian groups, there is a clear and programmatic inclusion of Jesus in their devotional life, both in honorific claims and in devotional practices. In addition, Jesus functioned in their ethical ideals and demands, in both interpersonal and wider social spheres” (4). Consequently, one can argue that Jesus functions as a symbol of both orientation and transformation.

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chapter and the next. This is also important to note in order to understand why there are so many different Christianities. In line with the introduction to this part, I  suggest that Christians have their basic point of orientation in what they take to be their community. Their orientation is based on where they think they belong. In other words, orientation is relationally defined. When they want to orient themselves, they ask what they think would be right in the eyes of their (idealized, not necessarily actual) peers.3 It is important to stress that we are talking here about relations to idealized peers—to those that one can think of oneself as recognized by and those oneself is willing to recognize as well.4 Empirically, many Christians have a complicated relation to their actual peers in their community, and this actual relationship therefore may not be the one on which they base their fundamental decisions or perceptions about how to orient themselves. Consequently, we would be well advised not to think that there is a total overlap between actual and idealized peers when it comes to the Christian religion, just as there is most likely not a total overlap when it comes to how we relate to peers in other contexts than those which are relevant to religion.5 This identity-in-tension is, I argue, part of what constitutes the dynamic of the Christian tradition and its development. It is in the recognition of relationship to others, as well as in the capacity to overcome or transcend the perceived, required, or just assumed normative expectations of loyalty, normativity, and conformity, that the Christian tradition and individual Christian identity emerges. Thus, identity emerges from partaking in the practices of the tradition, and it is based on this participation that one gains the knowledge and know-how necessary to perceive shortcomings and defects that are in need of correction within that tradition and community. Thus, participation in the practices of tradition is more often than not a necessary condition for its further development and adjustment. This description might strike some readers as peculiar or even contrary to the common picture of religion in general, including Christianity. Often, one takes for granted that religion requires some element of compliance and obedience. I agree that it often does, from an empirical point of view. Nevertheless, this is only one side of the picture. Despite this often-expressed requirement for compliance, in order for a religious tradition, including Christianity, to grow and develop so that it can provide opportunities for orientation and transformation, it must recognize

3.  The addition in brackets here is to suggest that peers can be of various kinds for humans, but that it would be incomplete to understand the choice of orientational features without having peers in mind. Peers need not be idealized to still have influence, though (e.g., communities with strong relational bonds and concomitant control mechanisms). 4. For the notion of recognition and its reciprocal character, as well as its role in theology, see Risto Saarinen, Recognition and Religion:  A Historical and Systematic Study, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), especially 209ff. 5. This theme is also linked to Grace Davie’s examination of belonging without believing, and vicarious religion. See Davie, The Sociology of Religion.

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the individual component. An individuality that does not imply full loyalty or conformity is a condition for change, growth, and development (transformation). The individual who develops his or her identity based on a relationship with a religious tradition, therefore, always has to take a personal stance about the commitments of his or her peers when committing to something. The psychological dynamics I suggest here have a lot of empirical variances, of course. Some contexts emphasize loyalty and obedience so much that individuality becomes almost impossible to manifest. In such cases, deviation from the accepted path may be considered a threat, and the one who “goes astray” may be ostracized or disciplined. In other contexts, there may be more openings for a distinction between individual preferences and those of immediate peers, with enough slack to allow for differences in commitments and ways of practicing beliefs. How strongly such rules of community are enforced is therefore not only a question of what type of religiosity one practices, but it is also closely related to how the religious group relates to the surrounding environment in general:  is their selfunderstanding based on separation, or on participation in the general culture? My initial remarks about the first way to answer the aforementioned question about the Christian’s initial point of orientation aim to make the following point: when it comes to the relationship between the individual and his/her peers, there is very little difference between the conditions on which religious people act and those on which people act in other contexts. There is always a tacit or explicit negotiation between the individual and the group, be it in the context of a political party, a football club, or a religious community. Furthermore, I  hold that this “negotiation” creates important dynamics in all of these groups and that such dynamics are important because it allows for development and new types of interaction. Conformity alone does not provide sufficient opportunities for renewal. Discussion, controversy, and difference are therefore to be valued, and as necessary for development and growth. I am now closing in on the second part of the answer to the question about from where Christians orient themselves. The second part of the answer is that Christians orient themselves as Christians from the outcome of the community’s discussions about how to understand the Jesus story. To state it metaphorically: you cannot take Jesus out of the equation. This point notwithstanding, the role Jesus plays and how he enters the discussion is all up for discussion. I will return to the centrality of the Jesus story in the next section. Here, we note first that by defining the second part of the answer to the question in this way, a constitutive element of Christian practice is identified: namely, Christian practices in part consist of discussions about the implications of the story of Jesus Christ for human orientation and transformation. Such discussions are never merely academic or theoretical, but are always related to how Christians (or, as some Christians would argue: all humans) ought to live their lives. The relationship between the community and the community’s relation to the Jesus story constitutes the basic conditions for orientation and transformation in a Christian context. We should note here that these three factors are, within a Christian context, inseparable:  there would be no community of (Christian)

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peers if there were not a story that constituted this community. Therefore, the relationship to the Jesus story, which the individual says that he or she has, is always in some way mediated by the relationship between the community and the community’s relation to the story. This last point has a hermeneutical premise and a theological consequence: the hermeneutical point is that the history of the effect (Wirkungsgeschichte) of the Jesus story always shapes the actual understanding of the story.6 The community, its institutions, and the specific interpretative practices (see below) that are employed within their contexts always mediate this Wirkungsgeschichte. However, given that this is the case, we can hardly say that in Protestant Christianity there is no interlocutor between the individual and the God he or she believes in, as is sometimes claimed in Reformation circles. There is always an interlocutor; this interlocutor is the actual community and the resources this community provides for orientation and transformation through its practices.7 As a conclusion so far, I argue that any Christian who relates to the Jesus story has to admit that she has a complicated relationship to this story—not necessarily because of the story’s content, but because of the relational factors that determine her relation to the story. If we do not acknowledge these complications, we miss some of the crucial conditions for determining Christianity as a cluster of practices.

On the Use of the Jesus Story The indisputable starting point of Christianity is the story of Jesus Christ. This story has a historical origin, and this history created a story. I argue that, from a phenomenological point of view, the story is the starting point which structures (and is structured by) the everyday life and practices of Christians. Furthermore, the Jesus story is most likely the best candidate for helping us to define the distinct character of Christianity. Nevertheless, how this is the case, and how we are to understand the role that this story plays in the constitution of what we call the Christian religion, thus, needs to be qualified further. To understand the role of the Jesus story for the Christian community requires that it be recognized as the main source for practices of orientation, transformation, and legitimization. It is also due to this role that Christians attribute to the Bible such an important status since the books of the Bible are the material conditions

6. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 298ff. 7.  The point is well stated in Laurel C. Schneider et  al., Awake to the Moment:  An Introduction to Theology, 1st edn (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 77: “But is the Bible all we need? For some Christians, the notion that the Bible is all we need feels like an attempt at time travel, a naïve desire to bring us into the immediate presence of Jesus and his earliest followers. Because we cannot time-travel. Christians can only access the Christ event—the story and meaning of Jesus—through the resources made available to us and handed on to us through our traditions.”

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for mediating the story. The role that the Bible plays in this regard is central to both reflective theological work, and to the practiced piety of Christians. As a recent contribution by Laurel Schneider states:  “As the earliest written sources attesting to the life, mission, and death of Jesus, the New Testament as Scripture is an authoritative source (in one way or another) for all Christian traditions as they use these writings to continue to tell the story of Jesus in new contexts throughout history and even today.”8 However, against the backdrop of what I  have labeled the complicated relationship, it is not obvious in what ways and for what purposes the Bible is used by Christians. In fact, they use it in a wide variety of ways, and this variety poses problems that should not be underestimated. Therefore, we can agree with the following analysis: Christians find themselves in radical conflict about the meaning of Jesus. Inevitably, given the variety of interpretations, we find that we can neither recognize nor believe some versions of telling the Christian story. Indeed, some retellings appear to be neither loving nor healing. How do we decide that some versions of telling the story are so wrong and violating that they must be ruled out as heretical—as impermissible within the Christian family?9

As the quotation indicates clearly, there are always decisions being made about how to use the story, and these have ethical and moral implications.10 Hence, the status of the Bible is not only determined by doctrines about its alleged status, but it is also conditioned by moral decisions that define what appears as an acceptable use of the text or not. It is, I argue, the actual moral decisions about how this text is used, and not just the actual content of it, that determines to what extent people find this story helpful, healing, or destructive for their lives. In her description of how Christians relate to the use of the story, Kathryn Tanner offers some important points about the differences of interpretation of the story. They need, she writes, “to be taken with utmost seriousness because so

8. Ibid., 76. Referring back to Reckwitz’s understanding of social practices as presented in Part I, we can therefore say that the Bible represents one of the main material points of reference for practices of orientation, transformation, and legitimization alike. 9. Schneider et al., Awake to the Moment, 76. 10.  Cf. the following comment by Kathryn Tanner:  “There is nothing to appropriate before the exercise of human judgment. Which materials are designated ‘tradition’ is a matter of human judgment, a judgment hinging on a contestable claim for their centrality or importance to Christian life. In order to sustain the identity of this tradition, the interpreter is not called so much to approximate the already given shape of those materials as to organize them in a way that makes clear what else might have a place within them.” Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture:  A New Agenda for Theology, Guides to Theological Inquiry (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997), 134.

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much is riding on them,” both practically and with regard to the very meaning of Christian discipleship. At issue is the very question of what it means to be a Christian: What is one to believe and how is one to live in light of one’s Christian commitments? In question is the proper way of being true to God, the proper expression of faithfulness, the meaning of genuine purity of heart. Because so much of both religious and practical importance is riding on the outcomes of interpretation, disagreements tend to become divisive, a threat to the unity or cohesiveness of a Christian way of life.11

Tanner here offers important insights into the profound meaning of practices of discourse and reflection. These practices do not have meaning in themselves, but because they offer a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Christian in all realms of human life. Christianity is polemical within its own borders because Christianity is characterized by an unsatisfied longing to bring the whole of life under religious viewpoint and to do so ever more completely, ever more purely, at every point. Differences of opinion about how this is to be done are always a source of internal contention or potential strife, even schism, among would-be saints who wish their existence to show forth the fact that they live, move, and have their being in God.12

Against the backdrop of her analysis of the importance of theological discourse concerning differences as well as about what matters, Tanner also presents a picture of what I  suggest is a more idealized picture of how these practices are in fact working. Nevertheless, I  think it is important that she offers such a description since it allows for a more critical evaluation of such practices, and it can help identify ways in which things are not working in accordance with the basic conditions for Christian community. She writes: Sins that would disrupt the community of argument—say efforts to undermine the full participation of others by imposing one’s own views coercively or by using a power advantage to dispel criticism—are countered by a structure of argument in which no one’s opinion is exempted from the possibility of salutary admonition and rebuke by one’s fellows. Only on conditions like these would there seem to be a point to continued participation in a way of life that amounts to an extended argument with people with whom one does not agree. The Christian identity of social practices may involve additionally, then, a community of argument with a specific shape—one in which participants

11. Ibid., 123. 12. Ibid.

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have the courage of their convictions to dispute the corruptive effects of sin, yet show an openness to being corrected by others in recognition of their own fallibility and possible corruption, brought together in a common project whose realization, they all know, is ever beyond any Simple identification with what any of them has achieved.13

What is it, then, that holds what I have called “a cluster of practices” together in something that can be identified as the Christian mode of being in the world? Tanner holds that this is the “common reference to the God” to whom all Christians effectively hope to witness. How this witness is actually practiced is nevertheless “not one in any obvious way, because of the fallibility and sin of these human efforts at discipleship and because of the freedom of God to ask the unexpected of people in new times and places.”14 This witness about God is for Christians closely linked to the contents of the Jesus story. Furthermore, we should note from the outset that I am not here talking about the historical Jesus. Although history is the origin of the Jesus story, there is not a 1:1 relationship between them. It is the story that Christians relate to when they speak about Jesus that concerns me here. What I am after, in the first place, is how the story, as it is mediated, understood, transferred, and incorporated into tradition by specific communities contributes to the resources that Christians employ for orientation and transformation. My argument is that how this story is employed for such purposes is not necessarily dependent on the extent to which the story itself can be traced back to what some scholars understand as the historical Jesus. Furthermore, this story is employed, articulated, and used in a wide variety of ways: from being structured around the Lutheran Law-Gospel dichotomy, to being retold as a story about liberation from oppression in liberation theology, to being the starting point for historical research by New Testament and religious studies scholars. We could expand this list indefinitely. An obvious example in favor of the argument is that it is the story and not the history that is the primary focus is found in John 8, the story of the women caught in adultery. This story lacks sufficient basis in the earliest texts, but it is nevertheless used by most Christians—liberals and conservatives alike—to make a point about how humans are not supposed to judge others and appear as selfrighteous themselves. As a result, this text can serve as a strong point of reference both for orientation and for transformation. It may provide the means for orienting oneself in a positive and nonjudgmental mode toward those we might feel tempted to consider ourselves better than, and consequently, we might see this text as an opportunity to transform our perceptions of others and ourselves as well. This example points to a basic fact of how Christians relate to the Jesus story: they see it as concerning themselves and the way they live. It is the actual use of the text in the present-day context that is the point of departure for interpreting the story

13. Ibid., 126. 14. Ibid., 136.

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because it is the present day that makes it possible to consider the story as relevant. However, how it is relevant may be a topic for discussion, as the story’s content is never accessible without also taking contextual conditions into consideration. Thomas Lewis makes an apt description of what I am after here when he speaks about how even the group he calls “pragmatic religious naturalists” relates to a traditional religious source for orientation without leaving tradition behind. What he writes about them is also relevant for other groups: Pragmatic religious naturalists subvert traditional religious metaphysics of ultimate truth and foundational beliefs while holding tight to religious stories, moods, symbols, rhetoric, and moral values because they are links to the past, because they are powerful tools for shaping and envisioning life, and because they can allow for a type of spirituality that emphasizes the fallibility, fragility, and power of the human-made ties that bind us and make us dependent on each other . . . Pragmatic religious naturalists conceive of religion as funding the deepest sources of ourselves, while insisting that those sources get their depth from linguistic and historical webs of meaning.15

There may be vast differences between how pragmatic religious naturalists in the United States and biblicists in western Norway relate to the biblical texts. Moreover, how their contextual conditions are engaged in the use of these texts may also differ considerably. In Jesus’s saying, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” some Christians see a radical challenge that implies taking care of those who are in need, no matter where they are in the world. Others may interpret “neighbor” in a far more restricted sense, as those living next to them—an approach that allows them to ignore many who are in need, and feel no responsibility for them since they are far away. It is possible to find both attitudes among Christians in different parts of the world, or even within the same country.16 This example also has the potential for orientation and transformation as the previous one. It also illustrates how a specific community and their contextual conditions shape and inform their actual reading and implementation of the text in a given context. Thus, we can identify the complicated relationship between the individual, the community, and the Jesus story here as well. Furthermore, this example also provides us with a better basis for seeing how the understanding of a given text is related to, as well as different from, the interpretation that actual peers have of the text. If I read this text as a radical challenge to behave altruistically toward all human beings, I may have to distance myself from my actual peers who have a tradition of interpreting this text in a more restricted sense. This distancing from actual peers may, concomitantly, lead me to identify with imagined or idealized peers that

15. This quotation is actually taken from Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters, 34. 16. Coming out of the first context, I remember my own shock and reaction when I first encountered the latter attitude in a bourgeois context in a country other than my own.

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hold a universal understanding of the text.17 It is worth noting, though, that both interpretations are based on the presumption that what this text offers is a valid point of orientation for how to lead one’s life. It is the actual difference between the two interpretations that allows the dynamic to emerge that keeps open the reflective practices of Christianity. The last point mentioned is therefore of crucial importance for understanding the reflective practices of Christianity in general:  exegesis, systematic theology, doctrine, and liturgy are all the result of the need for deliberation about how to understand and employ the Jesus story. The community and its needs and practices constitute the pragmatic context against which reflective practices can be understood. The above description of practices of legitimization, which is meant to be more phenomenological than theological, further indicates that differences in interpretation are not solved merely by claiming that one group has a more authoritative or adequate understanding of scripture than has another. There can be radically different interpretations of how texts could be used, based on similar attitudes regarding the authority ascribed to a given text. This does not mean, however, that there is no difference between how Christian groups consider the authority of the texts they have received from the past. That is often the case. However, how this authority is established and perceived is itself a question closely related to practice, and to contextual elements that contribute to different uses of the text. Let me illustrate: for most Christians, the basic point of orientation for their faith is, therefore, the Bible as it is interpreted by and in their actual community. The ways believers use the Bible differ, as already noted. A further distinction in this regard can be made, though admittedly a somewhat simplifying distinction, that some read the Bible as a story, and some as history. The latter has to do with the fact that the Bible not only presents universals but also concrete particularities that can be seen as historically contingent. For those who read the Bible as a story, the focus is on how the story contributes to orientation and transformation. It can work in this way no matter what one thinks about the actual historical circumstances that it depicts or not (as in the case of John 8). The authority of the text here actually lies in, or is dependent on, the extent to which the text can be used in concrete practices—either to shape and develop a specific practice, or to legitimize, justify, or criticize a specific practice. The text is taken for granted as providing basic points of orientation, but how it is used is still dependent on the contextual circumstances for interpretation and use. Concerning moral questions, it is, for

17.  A good example of this is given in an interview with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who comments on the widespread appeal in political circles to “Christian values”: “It’s a phrase that’s flung around constantly. The heart of Christian values has something to do with mutuality—a real commitment to and a real investment in the wellbeing of your neighbor, and the confidence that they are invested in your wellbeing. Not everyone shares these values.” Interview, The Guardian, May 22, 2017.

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example, how the text stimulates or ignites already existing moral intuitions that make it a moral source for orientation and/or transformation. When one reads the text with reference to history, with the interpretative efforts going beyond its narrative character, the actual authority of the text may appear in different ways. For a conservative reading, it becomes important to secure the actual historical content of the text because the assumption is that if this text does not refer back to some actual historical event or content, then it cannot be authoritative, primarily because it is not reliable as a source of orientation. A similar approach is mirrored also in more liberal readings, which say, for example, that if we can establish that the idea of a virgin birth is an ancient myth that shaped the biblical authors’ writing, then it is not a crucial part of Christian belief—a suggestion that might make it easier for contemporary Christians to hold on to Christian faith despite its assumed biological impossibilities. It might nevertheless weaken the Bible’s reliability as a historical source. Accordingly, this orientation to history complicates the employment of a text as authoritative. However, this makes it important to ask why interpretative practices need to have a reference to history as part of their approach. The reason is simple: it is because Christians believe that God revealed Godself in history, and more specifically, in the concrete history of the human being Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, the actual historical content of this story is assumed to be authoritative in a special way. This assumption needs to be questioned. It cannot be taken at face value simply because actual historical circumstances as such cannot, indiscriminately, be taken to be authoritative for orientation. What is considered authoritative still has to be subjected to reflection and discussion no matter how one views the historical circumstances. It is, for instance, a historical fact that Jesus was born a male and in Nazareth. To be male is in itself not something that makes an authoritative fact. Albeit provocative to some, it should be fully possible for Christians to think that God incarnated as a woman and revealed Godself thus. Furthermore, Jesus could have been born in a different time and place. Discussions about what elements in the historical circumstances are authoritative are reflected in contemporary theological debates over gender equality, ordination, and other similar issues. We can also see it reflected in relation to the question about to what extent Jesus’s reference to marriage had to be to the type of marriage common in his own time, or if it can have some other meaning today. In any case, such discussions illustrate the point that no historical circumstance as such can be taken as authoritative unless it has been ascribed an authoritative character by those who want to use a text in a specific way. The interest in using a specific text in a certain way is furthermore determined by already existing practices. When one discusses how to interpret a given text in a given way, it is never done without some reference to practice—tacit or explicit. The use of a text, including its interpretation, is therefore related to practice in a double manner: first, the actual interpretation of the text is in itself due to specific procedures or practices that require skill, competence, know-how, motivation, and previously acquired knowledge; second, the way an interpretation is used can

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open up, legitimize or justify, criticize, or create a specific practice. It is in this double engagement of a given text in a given context that the text can appear in a convincing way as authoritative to the user.18 Now, what if one is not able to make use of the text? The decision that a text is “unusable” arises when practices in the community context become so at odds with what the text says, that one has to ignore it. Again, this is a decision made by the community about how to use (or not) the text. Most Christians today do not accept polygamy, although some of the biblical patriarchs practiced it. Furthermore, most (but not all) are opposed to capital punishment because cultural conditions have favored the development of a version of Christian practices where it is rendered as inhuman and un-Christian. However, it is a sociological fact that the more a specific community separates itself off from its environment and the higher the costs for adherence to the group, the easier it is to maintain a preference for practices that are at odds with the rest of society. Given such circumstances, it is important to see that, when actual practices are legitimized by texts, the legitimizations are not only related to the convictions and practices of a specific group, but to how the group relates to its cultural and societal environment. In the next chapter, I  will develop an understanding of how the use of the biblical text for practical purposes are rooted in how the text describes the concrete practices of Jesus. In other words, the biblical text is used as a resource for establishing, inspiring, and/or justifying specific practices. This means that the redescription of Christianity as practices developed in the following chapters determines the normative character of Christian practices against the backdrop of how Jesus’s ministry and practice are interpreted and understood in a given context. Consequently, this also implies that the normative dimension is not rooted in the text as such, but in the interpretation of the practices as these are made possible by the interrelation of text, context, and tradition.

18.  This point is not specifically theological, but is linked to Gadamer’s insight into how three elements are always internally connected in the interpretation of the text: understanding, explanation, and application. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 306f.

Chapter 9 T H E C O N T E N T O F T H E S T O RY:   W HAT J E SU S P R AC T IC E D A S T H E B A SI S F O R ( E C C L E SIO L O G IC A L )   P R AC T IC E

According to the stories about Jesus, not everything that happens to Jesus is the result of his practices. What is told about his birth, his death, and his resurrection cannot be considered, for instance, practices to be emulated by others. However, this does not preclude the fact that there is much in the Jesus story that could be seen as material for practice—either by emulation of what Jesus practiced (as in “What would Jesus do?”), or something that might provide the means for different practices by those who want to orient themselves on the basis of the Jesus story more indirectly, without his own practice as their model. Thus, when Jesus practices his faith in the coming kingdom of God, this faith is itself also a call to practice for those that believe in him: a call to manifest what it means to believe that God is the creator and the one who offers the community of salvation to the world. As Jeannine Hill Fletcher summarizes: The Story of Jesus of Nazareth is the story of a first-century Jew who saw his religious tradition coopted by material concerns and imprisoned by some religious elites. It is the story of transforming and renewing his inherited tradition so that it might continue to speak to people. While necessarily critical of some of the forms of Judaism in his day, Jesus’ ability to assess injustice and the need for transformation was rooted in his profound understanding of God as it had been communicated to him in his Jewish tradition. His understanding of God was shaped by Judaism’s affirmation that God has a special care and concern for humanity, that God’s will is human well-being and God’s presence can be found in the world and in history.1

Read against the backdrop of what I  have developed previously about the “complicated relationship” of individual, tradition, and community, this is a very

1.  Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Monopoly on Salvation? A  Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism (New York: Continuum, 2005), 111.

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good illustration of what is involved in the processes that created and still create Christianity.

The Call to Community: Practicing God in the Everyday Context Can we identify the context within which Jesus practiced his ministry as reflecting the everyday? There are good reasons for considering that question. Jesus’s context was saturated by religious practices: his was not a secular society, but one that was perfused with religious signs, ordered in ways that reflected different religiously legitimized strata of society, shaped by a common belief in the God that had elected the people of Israel. These religious elements nevertheless also shaped the ways in which people lived their quotidian lives—be it under the oppression of the Roman Empire; in terms of poverty and wealth, illness, and health; or in terms of levels of religious standing, and so on. There are many reasons to call the society in which Jesus appeared a traditional society, as opposed to a modern one. A traditional society is engaged in legitimizing the present based on resources handed down from the past. This reference to the past constitutes the community in which the individual finds herself, and this community is also the context from which she defines and understands herself. It relies on authority ascribed to specific individuals due to different qualities, such as belonging to a specific group or having specific skills. The authority of the past, or of individuals, is not usually questioned, but belongs to the order within which everything appears. The more threatened a given order is from the outside, the more it matters to maintain the idea of the traditional order against any disruption. Hence, the relationship between tradition, community, and the individual is especially tight in a traditional context. It is against this backdrop that we can see Jesus’s ministry and reactions to it. When Jesus appears, his ministry challenges the religious and societal order that was established in tradition, as well as the context of repression. It would be misleading, though, to think of Jesus as someone who ignored tradition. Instead, we can see his ministry as relying on the same patterns and elements that were described in the previous chapter as a “complicated relationship.” He related to and interpreted tradition based on the assumption of its authoritative character, but he challenges, simultaneously, some of the ways in which tradition was being interpreted. What was the basis for this challenge and for this reinterpretation of the past? Hurtado suggests in his book on Jesus that part of the reason for Jesus’s readjustment of the tradition must be seen in relation to his own revelatory experiences.2 However, we do not have any direct access to these experiences; accordingly, it is hard to make substantive comments about the influence of such experiences compared to the insights he already possessed from interacting

2. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 68f, with reference to Rodney Stark.

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with and participating in his religious context. Nevertheless, there is something distinctively new in aspects of Jesus’s relation to the practices of his context. Hurtado draws several implications from the work of Rodney Stark that are relevant for understanding the conditions for Jesus’s practices. First of all, he holds that “certain powerful religious experiences themselves can produce significant innovations in religious traditions.” Furthermore, Hurtado agrees with Stark that “such experiences, though shaped by social and cultural contexts, are not merely confirmations of religious ideas otherwise generated and are also not necessarily merely manifestations of psychopathology.” Instead, such revelatory experiences are more likely to happen to “persons of deep religious concerns who perceive shortcomings in the conventional faith(s)”; that persons are more likely to perceive shortcomings in conventional faith(s) during times of increased social crisis, that during such periods there is a greater likelihood of people being willing to accept claims of revelations, and that it is crucial to the success of the revelation that some others accept it as such.3

On a more theological account, Christian theology suggests that the basis for Jesus’s ministry is found in his understanding of God as merciful and loving, and in the concomitant focus on the well-being of the neighbor. However, how this understanding of God is developed in semiotic processes differs: some Christians say that Jesus came to save sinners and they emphasize the sinful condition of believers in need of salvation, whereas others put the emphasis on God’s desire to integrate humanity into a loving community. Thus, semiotic resources that express the contents of the symbol of God are given different levels of preference in theological discourses. In the appropriation of these traits in God, different types of Christianities find their basic point of orientation for interpreting his ministry. In the following section, I will use the first of the above lines of interpretation, about God as merciful and loving, as an example of the ways Christians practice their beliefs. The reasons for this choice are theological, but these reasons are also related to the overall argument of this book. We can identify the basic conditions for semiosis in which the everyday appears as a manifestation of the Kingdom of God (i.e., the place where God rules) in the combination of two features. First, the understanding of God as merciful and loving opens up to human practices that are not dependent on human merit in order to be considered as part of the community; second, it is the actual, concrete well-being of humans when regaining health or being included in a community that makes manifest how God recognizes their dignity and sees them as members of this kingdom.4 Salvation, as understood in the biblical material, is closely linked to the restoration of health and community.

3. Ibid., 69. The quotation in the quotation is from Stark. 4.  Some of the material in the following paragraphs represent a rewriting of points I presented in Desire, Gift, and Recognition: Christology and Postmodern Philosophy (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009).

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It is not to be understood simply as a spiritual status with no practical or empirical content, or as the forgiveness of sins, which is sometimes the main emphasis in sectors of Protestantism.5 Therefore, the well-being of a person might be a quite ordinary way of identifying where the powers of the reign of God are working.6 In the biblical story, Jesus himself practices his understanding of God in the way he preaches the kingdom of God and calls for a new and different community, a community which he both verbalizes and practices. Here, humans are not invited into a new community only, but are also offered restoration or healing in different ways and across the boundaries determined by tradition. When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God—the place where we can detect, experience, or realize what the reality of God means—this reality is described in parables. To speak in parables implies that both the one who makes the parable and those who hear it are engaged in a semiotic process. This semiotic process takes as its point of departure practices and phenomena of the everyday. However, in the integration of the everyday with the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, Jesus manifests how there is no direct access to either God or to an understanding of what the presence of God—manifested in God’s reign—means. To understand something as a manifestation of God’s presence is only possible by interpreting the everyday in a specific way. The parables give those who listen different clues, traces, or indications based on their experiences about who God is.7 Thus, the world, through this semiotic process, reveals God. Accordingly, the content of Jesus’s theology seems meager without considering these parables. Jesus himself underscores that it is difficult to understand the parables about the Kingdom (cf. Mk 4:11-13); hence, they may be difficult to access as points of orientation. Difficulties surrounding understanding might be one of the effects of using parables to understand the world from the point of view of status, reciprocity, or merit. For example, what the parable of the Sower says about God is that God distributes the word and offers possibilities for everyone to respond, regardless of their position and response. It is not only about the response itself, but also about God’s generosity. The combination of these two elements may, in turn, represent a challenge to transform oneself in relation to others and to oneself. Hence, orientation and transformation go hand in hand as the effect of such parables.

5. The complexity of the biblical material on salvation from the point of view of theology is well developed in Reinhard Feldmeier and Hermann Spieckermann, God of the Living: A Biblical Theology (Waco, TX:  Baylor University Press, 2011), 469–94. Especially worth noting among these is how salvation is related to community and social justice. 6.  This phenomenological description may not always be taken as good theology, though. Cf. how Luther’s theology of the cross in the Heidelberg Disputation develops an argument that contradicts it, especially in the explanation of Thesis 21, where well-being or the good as perceived by humans is taken to be negative, and the negative in the cross is identified as positive. 7. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, also points to the importance of experience in the shaping of the understanding of what is revealed in the history of Jesus. See 64ff.

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Their words create a new reality through the semiotic process in which they invite the listener or reader. In Part I, I briefly suggested how it might be possible to see God as manifested and at work in practices of faith, hope, and love. I want to take up this idea again here, as it is crucial for understanding the practice element in the semiotic process in which Jesus engages listeners and readers when he proclaims the content of the kingdom of God by teaching parables. From early on, it is, therefore, possible to claim that despite the centrality of Jesus that follows from his position in Christian worship and memory, “the uniqueness of his status in the various religious convictions of earliest Christians, also demanded, almost unavoidably, a new view of God.”8 The one would not be without the other. Faith in God is practiced through semiotic practices that open up to or enable faith, hope, and love. However, it is important to stress that there can be practices shaped by faith, hope, and love that are not also related to, or grounded in, the God of love, mercy, and compassion. However, it is the specific combination of the two that helps us identify the specific Christian character of such practices. The Christian belief in God has a special function:  it opens up the world in a specific way. Christian attitudes toward life and others presuppose the conviction (and sometimes even a decision) that there is something in life that is beyond human control and unconditioned by human agency and human decisions. This “something” is God, from which practices of faith, hope, and love emerge. The latter may be seen as one of the points when Jesus preaches that the kingdom of God breaks through beyond human control, like a seed growing without us knowing (cf. Mk 4:26-29). It is not surprising, but it underscores, nevertheless, that God can only be God, and God’s kingdom can only be God’s, when God is not controlled or integrated into a reign dominated by human purpose or control.9 That would render God’s kingdom or reign nil. When Jesus points to God’s lack of dependence on others for bringing forth the Kingdom, the breakthrough itself suggests that there is more to life than what can be brought forward by human agency. In this respect, the kingdom appears as a gift and as an expression of how God’s grace is at work in creation. Moreover, the parable of the Mustard Seed (Mk 4:30f.) suggests that God’s presence might go undetected: what brings God’s kingdom forth is not glamorous or spectacular events, but the small everyday events, which later will be seen as the start of what will be experienced as overwhelming. The parable prompts listeners to consider the small as no less important than the spectacular, but it does not say what this small thing is in the Kingdom of God. For humans to recognize God might therefore demand looking elsewhere than in the obvious places or only in

8. Cf. ibid., 650. 9. The relevance of this point for the contemporary world, with all the persistent attempts to hijack Christianity (or other religions, as well) for political or financial purposes, cannot be underscored enough.

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places where religious tradition has identified the presence of God. Hence, the parable challenges the presupposition that God is to be detected in the major events of history only, and not in the everyday. It challenges us to recognize that God is present in what happens in life’s smaller events and moments. By describing the Kingdom in this way, Jesus makes people realize that God is at work in the lives of those not necessarily considered to be of great religious or moral importance. Events or people that appear unimportant might have important consequences on a long-term basis. In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5), Jesus is reported as praising those who direct their longings and desires toward the future of God and show mercy to others, and thereby practice faith, hope, and love. Inherent in the disposition of everyone described as blessed here is a desire for something else: for peace, for righteousness, for a better situation for those who need mercy, for a situation different from the one that leads to mourning. Elsewhere, I have described this as the desire is for the impossible, that is, for something that they cannot achieve or bring about themselves.10 Hence, they have to trust that this will come from the future—God’s future. In this respect, they are blessed because they believe in God as the one for whom all things are possible. The desire for the impossible is therefore coupled to a belief in the one for whom all things are possible. The desire for the kingdom of God is thus a way to practice Christian hope. However, there is more to be said here, as we also have to ask what the content of these impossible desires is. Apart from the last of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5, 10–11, on persecution), all the desires recognized by Jesus as important for being blessed express a longing for a different everyday world where no one mourns, where righteousness and peace rule, where mercy is shown, and so on. These features depict a social world where people positively relate to one another, where conditions for a common life are mutually recognized, and where the kingdom Jesus proclaims is practiced. When Jesus speaks like this, he describes what is to come in the future as the reason for the blessedness of the people in question. They are blessed because they orient themselves from the point of view of hope for God’s future. To be open to that which is not yet, to that which we cannot make happen, is to be open to the reality of God. Jesus links the future to the everyday experiences, desires, and longings of people by bringing a witness to what they can expect and continue to hope for in the future. By proclaiming a kingdom in parables, he confirms the validity of their desires and recognizes them as not in vain. Thereby, he makes it possible for those who are peacemakers, and so on, to identify themselves as part of God’s future. From the described future determined by God, they can recognize themselves and God as directed toward a common future. We could consider what might be the case if the word “God” was not linked to the desired future of people in the everyday:  they would have no chance of recognizing what they strived for as part of God’s world. Hence, they would

10. See Henriksen, Desire, Gift and Recognition, 30, 132.

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also have no chance of understanding the goodness of their desired world as something related to the one who created this world for the good. By naming how their longings and desires will lead them to a full realization of communion with God, Jesus does not merely testify to the relation between them and God. He also suggests that this relation and the community in question have its quality because they are directed toward the good of others, namely, toward those who are in need of mercy, peace, righteousness, and so on. Hence, the three parties are related; this is not only a way of expressing how God and the listeners are related, but it is also a way of expressing how God and the listeners are related when the listeners relate to others. Thereby, the three parties together express the commonality and sociality of the future of God, where no one is excluded or marginalized by injustice, war, suffering, and so on. The Beatitudes thus express the social and inclusive character of the Kingdom of God, and the impossibility of assessing the blessedness of a person as separate from how he or she relates to the Other, and thereby—implicitly or explicitly—to the future of God. Those described as blessed by Jesus already practice and anticipate a community where justice and peace are present. It is against this background and in the semiotic context of the triangle—God as merciful and loving, the Other as my responsibility, Self as recognized by God—that Jesus’s call for wholeheartedness and his radicalization of the Law of his tradition makes sense. Those who can be righteous are those who are open to the future of God and practice the Law according to an openness for the Other. This openness to the other is behind and beyond the concrete commandments of the Law, and cannot be identified with any one of them in particular. Moreover, this semiotic context also makes sense of who it is that Jesus calls to repent: not those who seek him and his company and community, but those who are offended by the fact that he mingles with “sinners.” When Jesus addresses some of his contemporaries as hypocrites, it is because they live within a horizon where the other has no place. Hence, no real fruits result from their piety, and accordingly, no righteousness either. The only way to overcome temptation in a piety based on the Law is to focus on the Other as the recipient of the fruits of one’s works. I find this point well picked up by Elaine Graham when she writes about how the key hermeneutical criterion for Christian practice is “the ‘disclosure’ of alterity.” She explains: In practical terms, such a perspective [on Christian practices] would favor strategies which encourage empathy and solidarity with others, open up enlarged horizons of understanding and commitment and foster pastoral encounters which engender new perspectives on human experience and Divine reality. “Disclosive practice” is, however, more than merely a procedural norm: it speaks not simply of an ecclesial communicative ethic, but serves as a metaphor for an encounter with the very nature of God.11

11.  Elaine Graham, “Practical Theology as Transforming Practice,” in The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, ed. James Woodward and Stephen Pattison

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Although the idea that Christian practices imply something delineated and therefore predictable, this is not always the case: there always has to be an element of surprise, of unpredictability in a practice that opens up to alterity, to that which is not within the usual parameters of calculation and reasonableness. Jesus’s practice is one of excess and subversion of the expected; it entails going two miles instead of one, loaning to anyone who asks, and so on—all this points toward practices that break down patterns of mutuality, reciprocity, and calculation.12 However, it is still possible to claim that such practices open up to the good in a very concrete, experiential, and quotidian manner. They signify that the other is recognized and considered to share in one’s life, and they suggest a social world where goodness is beyond what can be secured by conceptions of merit and mutual accountability. To radicalize the demands of the law to the extent Jesus does also serves to expose the person most concerned in one’s practices: either oneself or the other. Hence, this radicalization contributes to the revelation of hypocrisy. Consequently, hypocrites are disclosed as needing salvation just as much as those standing outside the circles of the social and religious establishment. The social dimension of Jesus’s ministry becomes clearer against this background. Jesus established a community that was not based on merit, and which manifested grace and gift when he dined with sinners.13 Of course, the inclusiveness of his practices offended those who sought to differentiate themselves from a certain kind of company. However, Jesus calls both parties, both those who are marginalized and those who marginalize, into the same community. He thereby indicates that they have something in common, both in terms of the gifts they receive from God

(Oxford:  Blackwell 2000), 104–17 (106). Later in the same essay, she adds diversity and inclusivity to alterity (111). 12.  These practices can also contribute to opposition to practices of repression and exploitation, as pointed out by Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (San Francisco: Harper, 2006), 247ff. 13. It is worth noting how this point is picked up as important in different contributions to contemporary theology, such as Kathryn Tanner, Economy of Grace (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005); and Linn Marie Tonstad, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude (Routledge, 2016). Tonstad expresses concerns similar to mine in the following beautiful passage: “The aim of the trinity’s action in the world is to give human beings a share in the life of God. What such a share in the life of God looks like is best seen in New Testament passages dealing with food and banqueting practices . . . The transformation of human existence is not its translation into a world other than this one. It is, rather, the promise and reality of God’s coming close in love, so that the love of God for humans is made directly available in their sibling relation to Jesus, through which God comes to live among humans as an adoptive parent for the sake of new creation. God comes close in love to transform human difference from its seemingly inevitable, sinful tendency to turn into competition necessitating self-sacrifice into the possibility of table fellowship in friendship with each other and Jesus, as adoptive children of God all seated around the banquet table enjoying the overflow that characterizes the life given by God” (238).

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and in terms of their calling to be God’s image. This God-constituted community is part of Jesus’s call to reconciliation:  he is calling people to reconcile and to overcome diversities and splits that are due to human-based conceptions about who does and does not belong to such a community. In this way, Jesus reveals that the righteous are those who long for community and to participate in a world where the Other has a place. Righteousness is not primarily a question of agency or status, but of relating and relationship. Implicit in the community Jesus opens up is the recognition of the Other as the one with whom I share a common destiny of being called to the future of God. I need to repent if I exclude the other from my conception of that future and see it as something I merit by my work, instead of seeing it as a gift of God. In her work on Christianity as practice, Elaine Graham has some important observations that contribute to the theoretical understanding of the ministry of Jesus. Moreover, it may also shed some light on the practices of believers in a contemporary setting. Graham makes the perceptive observation that “there are no transhistorical essences of gender, but only practices that realize or reinforce difference.”14 However, if we look at Jesus’s ministry, we see that there are no practices that contribute to such reinforcement, just as there are no practices that reiterate other types of culturally or traditionally established differences between different strata of society. Again, Jesus’s practices differ from the tradition from which he came. Gender is simply not part of the repertoire Jesus deploys to shape his practice. This, in turn, enables his practice to have a specific, inclusive shape. Accordingly, this is also what still inspires contemporary inclusive practices of the Christian community to criticize unjust practices concerning gender, color, or sexual orientation.15 To say that Jesus calls marginalized humans into community is not original. It is nevertheless important to recognize what it means. As we become persons by being in a relationship with others and shaped through social interaction, this call to community can have dramatic effects—salvific effects, even—for human life.16 Alastair McFadyen writes: The individuality recreated by Jesus’ call re-orientates the called person in his or her future relations, and it is this which is its essential feature. That it means being at Christ’s disposal rather than at that of “the things of this world,” however, must

14. Graham, “Practical Theology as Transforming Practice,” 109. 15.  The last statement should not be read as an empirical statement about what characterizes the Christian community everywhere. Still, there are many places where this is not recognizable. That empirical fact (or lack) is nevertheless not a reason for considering inclusive and just practices the norm against which Christian practices should be measured, or for recognizing such practices as going back to the practice of Jesus. 16. Cf. Alistair I. McFadyen, The Call to Personhood: A Christian Theory of the Individual in Social Relationships (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), passim, esp. 47ff.

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not be individualistically misunderstood. This transformed individuality is not an ascetic retreat from the world, still less from every reality except the disciples’ own. The transformation propels them either back into the social context from whence they emerged or else into some other.17

In other words, those who follow the call of Jesus to community are depicted as called back into the everyday that they share with others. McFadyen holds that this is saying something about both Jesus and the people he calls. As for Jesus’s personal identity, it was marked by what he calls a “liberatory aspect.” Jesus’s invitation establishes relationships with the others on a different basis from the one in which they have been situated so far. In this way, the recognition he offers also has a strong impact on their self-understanding: In his communication he intended people in a radically different form from others’ intention of them and their own self-intention; different, that is, from the prevailing patterns of co-intention from which their personal identities had been sedimented. He could therefore decisively reject the expectations others had of them and which had been ossified into self-identities appropriate to such a network of expectations. Jesus found broken, closed and communicatively distorted people in distorted and closed relational networks. The Gospel set people free by placing them firmly in an alternative communication context from which a new identity could be sedimented, even though their social situation might remain materially unchanged . . . He pulled the possibilities of future emancipation into the present and thereby established new possibilities of identity with and for them.18

Against this background, the overcoming of marginalization is not only to be understood as “being included in a community,” but also as a new chance for developing future possibilities, including that of identity. This practice, in which Jesus confirms that he is not complacent about present religious or social conditions, could not be manifested unless Jesus had a radically different understanding of himself and the people he met, than that provided by his contemporaries and present in the dominant religious and social context. Rowan Williams aptly describes how Jesus practices the hospitality of God when calling humans into a new community: Jesus’ characteristic hospitality extended to the rejected and marginal, and his acceptance of their hospitality extended to him (see, e.g., Mark 2:5ff, and parallels) is a paradigm instance of “embodied” grace. In word and act, Jesus rejects the world’s rejections, and causes the rejected to become accepted. In his sharing of food with the tax-collectors and sinners, he creates for them a

17. Ibid., 56. 18. Ibid., 117–18.

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new relation with each other and by bringing them into relation with himself. The means by which God is met is a transaction which perceptibly changes the prevailing human state of affairs so that the victims become guests, receivers of gifts. Thus the shared table is the natural and indispensable extension of the “embodiment” of grace in Jesus’ person: embodiment takes effect in the acts of the person.19

So far, we can conclude that Jesus’s practice of calling to community all those on the margins of society is one that roots the practices of his followers as well. He challenges them to be inclusive, to recognize the dignity of all others, to be hospitable and generous, and to struggle for peace and justice. All these elements are closely linked to how he sees God as the source of goodness in the everyday, as the one who opens up new possibilities for community and new ways of life. Thereby, he offers new resources for both orientation and transformation through, and by means of, his concrete ways of practicing belief in God. It is these practices that create faith.20 These chances for renewal also come to the fore in two distinct elements of his ministry: the practices of forgiveness and healing.

Forgiveness According to the gospels, Jesus forgave sins. This practice was to the annoyance of those who believed God was the only one who could do that. Through this practice, Jesus not only indicates that he has a mandate to forgive, but he also suggests that God has given him this mandate. It is, however, important to note that in this practice, as well, Jesus discloses something that believers take to be a revelation of who God is. At least three things in Jesus’s practice of forgiveness reveal God (notice here how these features require an active semiotic process to be identified).21 First, this practice testifies to a forgiving God who is ready to forgive those who turn to God for forgiveness. In this respect, Jesus’s practice reflects the traditional understanding of God present in Israel at the time of his ministry: God is willing to forgive those who repent. We see this understanding of God clearly expressed, for example, in the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9ff. Second, Jesus treats those who turn to him like they had turned to God. Hence, he acts as if he is God’s representative and as if his presence is the presence of God. Thereby, he recognizes their acknowledgment of him as someone sent from God. In this situation, God appears to be the non-present third party who is manifested

19.  Rowan Williams, Resurrection:  Interpreting the Easter Gospel, new and rev. edn (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2002), 99. 20. Cf. the point by Sosis, p. 74. 21. The following points are more extensively elaborated in Henriksen, Desire, Gift, and Recognition, 149f.

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through and in the acts of Jesus, including the act of forgiveness.22 That God is present here as the non-present third party is obvious when we see how people praise God as a response to what Jesus does (cf. Lk. 5:26). Third, the way Jesus acts implies that God gives this mandate to a specific person. Jesus acts as if to grant someone this mandate is among God’s possibilities for action. It is based on the conviction that he has been given this mandate that Jesus acts on God’s behalf. This is the theological implication of Jesus’s practice of forgiving sins. Hence, the forgiving practice of Jesus implies that God is a forgiving God and acts out of mercy. Jesus practices the merciful God. Thus far, we can see how Jesus himself orients his practice based on a distinctive understanding of God as forgiving and merciful. The concrete effect of this practice is that the lives of those who are included in his practice are transformed. However, it is not only individuals’ perceptions of themselves as guilty and unable to fulfill the demands and requirements of the law (as understood and interpreted by his contemporaries) that are changed: when Jesus practices his understanding of the forgiving God, he manifests a new and different basis for the community of believers in general. Thereby, he contributes to the transformation of the social order in which individuals participate. The elements of orientation and transformation that underlie Jesus’s practices have, in turn, effects on the practices of believers. They can use the stories about Jesus and his teachings as a way to ground their practices. The ability to forgive is, from this perspective, not restricted to God. Jesus teaches the disciples to pray “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Thus, he widens the possibility of forgiveness to something that can also be distributed among other people. By confronting a perception of God that suggests only God can forgive sins (a position which in fact helps maintain a sense of guilt), Jesus offers a wider and more concrete view of forgiveness that can foster changes in human relationships and reshape the everyday. By functioning in this way, Jesus—by offering forgiveness—opens up a surplus: an excess or abundance in comparison to the restriction of resources that result when forgiveness for sins does not take place among people, and when guilt, resentment, and division shape communities. In the stories about Jesus’s function as God, he calls those to repent who think that they can make it without God’s mercy and forgiveness. His challenge is therefore not primarily directed against those who know about their shortcomings and moral failures, but toward people who exclude others from the community due to such failures. The call to repent is accordingly rooted in the generosity and openness that shapes his understanding of how a community should be ordered as well. In this way, he confronts the negative functions of obedience to God’s law, as this might make people more concerned about their own righteousness than with the well-being of their neighbor. Moreover, when Jesus warns against judging others, it is interesting to see how this exhortation can be understood

22. Cf. ibid., 138.

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as excessively generous and closely related forgiveness. Again, he thereby reveals what God is like in his eyes: Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. (Lk. 6:37–38)

The one who orients herself based on a belief in God as merciful and generous is likely to practice mercy and generosity. However, the commandment not to judge and not to condemn is important not only for establishing and maintaining the community; it is also important because when someone is condemned, she remains tied to, even chained to, her past, and this past then remains definitive for her relationship with the community. By not judging or condemning, the future of Otherness, of new possibilities, is kept open for her. Letting go of judgment contributes to transformation and liberates her from the past. The pragmatic consequence of forgiveness is therefore that Christians can see themselves as determined by more and other than their past and the conditions therein:  the future is open. This point is also strongly visualized in the healing stories.

Healing If we continue along the lines of the previous sections, the ways Jesus practiced his faith in a God of love and mercy can be seen in his ministry of healing as well. Luke 9:11 states, “He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.” This does not mean, however, that the healings as such were what made his ministry distinctive. Instead, we have to see this part of his practice as one of the ways in which Jesus practiced his belief in God. There was hardly any debate over the fact that part of Jesus’s ministry was related to healing. In the eyes of modern humans this might seem strange, accustomed as we are to the workings of modern medicine. However, it is likely that there are, and have always been, more routes to health than those practiced by modern medicine. Jesus’s capacities for healing contribute to the special character of his ministry and do so because of its relation to his proclamation of the kingdom of God. In Jesus’s healing ministry, it becomes clear that the kingdom of God is not only related to a mental state, but has to do with the embodied character of human beings. Thus, this ministry enables Christians to see their beliefs as related to their embodied mode of being in the world. Arguably, all the realms of human experience—the physical and biological, the social and cultural, and the psychological—are conditioned by our embodied mode of being. The embodied character also goes for experiences of healing. They may involve—in different

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ways—all these realms of experience. It would be a mistake to reduce healing to only one of these realms (say, to interpret it from the point of view of psychology, or only as an effect of specific causal functions). As health and illness afflict most people’s everyday lives at some stage, we can say that experiences of these phenomena provide us with an experiential context in which the message of Jesus as a healer becomes both important and relevant for Christian practice in general. Healings: exceptional or exemplary? In Part I, I argued that it is the intertwinement or interconnection between the ordinary or everyday elements and the specific elements in the Christian story that manifest the distinctive character of Christianity. If we apply this framework of interpretation to the healing ministry of Jesus, we can see immediately how this line of reasoning appears fruitful. In theological discussions, this intertwinement is reflected in two different approaches that interpret his ministry as either exceptional or exemplary.23 To see Jesus as one of several healers (exemplary) allows us to interpret his healing ministry in relation to that of other healers in the past and present who are engaged in similar practices. Then, we can see Jesus as a human being with extraordinary gifts, but these gifts are of a kind that we can understand in relation to the gifts of other healers. In this view, Jesus practices these gifts as an integral part of his personal calling to proclaim the presence of the kingdom of God by witnessing to God’s grace, care, and compassion. The gifts of healing that Jesus possesses are thus used for the sake of the Kingdom of God and the benefit of humanity alike. Consequently, it allows for a practice that helps people to experience God as proclaimed by Jesus, in the concrete features of the everyday. Moreover, because these specific gifts have also been endowed to other humans, the ability to heal may be an indication of what is possible for people who have been given specific capacities to do, in order to alleviate the struggles, pain, and misery of others. When practiced, these gifts contribute to the fuller realization of ordinary life. This line of interpretation does not make it necessary to interpret Jesus’s gifts of healing as an expression of his divine status, although they make it possible to see him as someone who, partly due to these gifts, could fulfill a specific calling from God. An interpretation of Jesus as a healer among many healers will have to make further qualifications about his practicing of such gifts in order to back up claims about his divine status. However, since this interpretation presupposes the widespread presence of healing and healers within different religious traditions (also those outside Christianity), it allows for seeing this practice as extraordinary,

23. The material in this section has been presented in a more extensive form in Jan-Olav Henriksen and Karl Olav Sandnes, Jesus as Healer: A Gospel for the Body (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), but is here reworked with regard to the present argument.

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but not exceptional. This last point is important because it opens up to the realization that the church could itself take part in a healing ministry—something that would be more difficult if this ministry were described as exceptional or exclusive to him. This interpretation of his exemplary and extraordinary character concurs with those who simply see Jesus’s healings as part of his shamanic capacities.24 However, we have to admit that there is no way to decide if the healing powers of Jesus are fully analogous or similar to those who possess the gift of healing today. This fact indicates that we should be cautious about making too many inferences about the context in which the healing practices of Jesus should be interpreted and the kind of significance that should be attributed to them. We find a careful interpretation of Jesus as exceptional in Keith Warrington’s work. He suggests that Jesus is to be viewed more as an exception than as a paradigm for understanding others. Among his reasons for this claim is the biblical report of Jesus as one who healed people instantly, in contrast to many present-day healers who emphasize the process and gradual character of healing. More significant, however, is his interpretation of the biblical materials as “important vehicles presenting invaluable lessons for the followers of Jesus, including lessons about trust and obedience.” For Warrington, the Gospels witness to Jesus’s motivation to heal as derived from “his desire to establish important principles regarding himself and the lifestyle of his followers. His ministry is, first of all, to be understood in the specific context of his Messianic, and therefore unique, mission.”25 Warrington sees these healings as establishing the authority of Jesus and as having a pedagogical function. We can see the interpretative framework Warrington operates within as based on a view of Christianity that emphasizes the spiritual rather than the embodied, and the authority of God rather than the well-being of humans. Therefore, it seems to ignore how the healings reported in the New Testament to a large extent function as events that are valuable in and of themselves and which are for the concrete benefit of those healed. Warrington’s approach is, furthermore, not able to articulate the intertwinement of the ordinary and the individual, or the understanding of God as loving and caring, that guides Jesus’s healing practice and his concern for human well-being. His repetitive emphasis on how such events establish principles for the interpretation of Jesus and the practice of his followers

24.  As seems to be the case, for example, in Pieter F. Craffert, The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2008), 277–8. Craffert nevertheless offers important contributions to the healing activities of Jesus and their interpretations, as he both suggests that present scholarship explicitly or implicitly assumes a biomedical paradigm for these interpretations, and remains “trapped” in this paradigm (251, cf. 260). 25.  Keith Warrington, Jesus the Healer: Paradigm or Unique Phenomenon? (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000), 29.

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can be read as de-emphasizing concretely embodied well-being, and even as an attempt to emphasize the spiritual at the cost of the embodied. This criticism notwithstanding, it is, from a theological point of view, important to see the “generic” features of Jesus’s healing ministry in relation to Jesus’s special calling. His healings functioned within the context of his proclamation of the kingdom of God. It is possible to see the dilemma of exceptional or exemplary as a false one: Jesus is both. Accordingly, we can conclude that the purpose of the healings of Jesus is not only pedagogical in performance, but that they concretely anticipate the reality of the Kingdom, of God’s care, mercy, and compassion for God’s creatures. The implied pragmatic character of belief in Jesus as a healer has been well expressed in the study of Eric Eve. When discussing the question of Jesus’s miracles in general, he claims that these “have less relevance to the question of whether or not he was truly God incarnate than is often supposed.” His argument for this point is historically based. He claims, “It is most unlikely that any of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries would have regarded the ability to perform miracles (however spectacular) as an indication that God was incarnate in the human being performing them (as opposed to simply empowering the performer), and it would be a theological mistake for us to make belief in the incarnation rest on Jesus’ miraculous abilities.”26 Furthermore, in accord with the position that Christianity, like any other religion, is not based on doctrine but on practice, Eve stresses that “Christian faith is not primarily a matter of assenting to abstract theological propositions about Jesus, it is rather a matter of living one’s life in the conviction that God is most fully revealed in Jesus.” In this way, he emphasizes how faith provides people with an orientation and direction when it comes to considering how to live and act in the world.27 If we apply this reflection to the understanding of Jesus as a healer, one implication is that Jesus was called by God to heal, and this is something that God calls all people to, in multiple ways and in every way and mode accessible to them. Against the backdrop of this discussion, then, we lean more toward seeing Jesus as an exemplary healer than as an exceptional one.28 His healings are not only his but are part of what humans still can experience, although, as exceptional, they are not what people should expect to happen. They are, moreover, exceptional in that they also open up to a reality beyond the present and familiar, and as such, may make people open to faith in God. We could say, perhaps, that they represent a faith-opening and not only a faith-based practice.

26.  Eric Eve, The Healer from Nazareth:  Jesus’ Miracles in Historical Context (London: SPCK, 2009), 167. 27. Cf. ibid., 29. 28. Cf. Craffert, The Life of a Galilean Shaman, 277–8, who states that “[a] number of the healings ascribed to Jesus are not only very similar to the list ascribed to folk healers today, but they are also very similar to those ascribed to other ancient healers like Apollonius of Tyana and Hanina ben Dosa.”

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Healing and semiosis We cannot grasp what happens to a body without some form of interpretation. The encounter between healer and the one healed will inevitably be attributed some significance by the parties involved, or by others.29 Hence, although healing can take place in different contexts and be interpreted within different frameworks, for Christian theology, it is important not only to recognize this but also to articulate and explicate the framework that is actualized in, with, and during the healings in Jesus’s ministry. It is only under these conditions that we can access the theological significance that we are trying to articulate here. The reflective practice of Christianity is challenged to explicate and interpret the significance of such events. The recognition of the need for interpretation means that every healing will also have the character of a sign: it will point to something and mean something for someone in some respect or another.30 The sign-character of Jesus’s healings has been explicated differently by theologians throughout history from the time of the New Testament.31 To understand the healing practice of Jesus, and not simply reject it as superstition or wishful thinking, Christians have to see it as a concrete manifestation of what can be experienced, related to, and appreciated as part of our present world. This does not preclude healing practices from pointing to something beyond what we experience here and now, as they re-present a reality that we cannot fully grasp or understand. Without making decisions as to when and how to explain such healings, we can nevertheless affirm that as long as these events point to something beyond the concrete embodied reality for the one healed (or the beholder), the healings may have a revelatory character for believers. In the concrete, actual manifestation of the healing, the reality of God is manifested. It is important to note, however, that this cannot happen unless some form of healing takes place: the healing is not a mere sign of the kingdom, but part of a manifestation of the Kingdom, albeit a finite one. The many testimonies to the practices of Christian healers today, especially to those healers who quietly serve others, can be seen as a continuation of Jesus’s ministry and as a sign of the kingdom. However, the interpretation of the healings as signs suggested here can also be developed as a criticism of those who do not see healing as a broken symbol, but as a manifestation of God’s power in the world in an unqualified manner. Such approaches are likely to cause frustration and 29.  For many good analyses of this point, see McGuire and Kantor, Ritual Healing in Suburban America. 30.  This way of articulating the sign-character implies that there are different levels or dimensions in the process of signification. I need not go deeply into those here. For a fullblown theory of this process within theology, based on the theory of C. S. Peirce, see Andrew Robinson, God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution, and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C.S. Peirce, Philosophical Studies in Science and Religion (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010). 31.  See Amanda Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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disappointment, and they may also lead to loss of faith if people are encouraged to think that healing is “normal” for those who believe in Jesus. To see healing as probable is not the same as seeing it as something that is always possible.32 When people pray for healing in the name of Jesus, this can be seen as a request for a sign of the kingdom that Jesus promised. When healing happens, it is a sign that makes it possible to experience the reality of God concretely in the manifestation of God’s power in the human body. Hence, the sign reveals God as present in a specific manner. The ineffable character of healings nevertheless suggests that the God present, represented, and signified in such experiences cannot be controlled. Thus, the sign-character is itself multilayered; healing is not only a sign of God’s compassion, care, and promise but also of God’s ineffable and infinite character. An interpretation of Jesus’s healings as a sign of the coming Kingdom need not lead to ignorance of their importance or significance in the present world. To link Jesus’s healings to his proclamation of the Kingdom of God implies an affirmation of this Kingdom as one in which God is already present, and where God offers salvation through and by means of specific practices. However, in the Gospels, what salvation means varies. Salvation is not only, as depicted in Protestant theology, the forgiveness of sins, but it may also be deliverance from illness. The Kingdom of God is therefore not only something to be talked about, but it is a reality already present and practiced. Its presence becomes apparent especially in the concrete healing powers of Jesus. “In short, healings and miracles were signs and pointers for the breakthrough of the Kingdom of God in the world. Both healing and forgiveness were parts of the real salvation of God that Jesus proclaimed to the world.”33 Implied in the discussion of Jesus’s healing practice is that this part of his ministry opens up possibilities for the practices of believers. Even though not all Christians have the healing powers that Jesus had, Christians have, against the backdrop of his healing practice, seen it as a calling to care for, and try to heal, the sick and cure illnesses. The whole caritative strand in Christianity cannot be understood as Christian unless it is related to the stories about Jesus as a healer who proclaims the loving care of God for human beings. Thereby healing opens up a framework for interpreting the relationship between the body of Christ and the bodies of the members of the Christian community because healing is interpreted as emerging out of the same powers that were at work in the resurrection of Christ.

32. The position suggested here implies that the present treatise finds the dispensationalist or cessasionist approach to healing unsatisfactory:  healings like those of Jesus were not restricted to the first times of Christianity, but have to a different extent followed the Church throughout history. Accordingly, a rejection of healing as superstition, magic, or false doctrine seems to miss the point that healing practices have been and are an integral part of the reality of Christian faith from its beginning to the present day. 33.  Cf. Stephen Parsons, Helhed Og Helbred (Valby, Kbh.:  Unitas, 1998), 124f (my translation from Danish).

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In this way, healing may have an effect beyond the immediate and point toward the interpretative context of Christian eschatology. As Porterfield notes, Christians throughout history have experienced the vision of eternal life manifested in the resurrection as a vitalizing presence in their present lives.34 Thus, healing practices bind together the acts of God in creation, redemption, and renewal, and in the promised future. Healing is an eschatological event that is anticipated in the present. Rowan Williams offers a helpful summary of healing that supports the interpretation offered here. He sees health as overcoming the restrictions and separations of the different realms of human life, or, as he puts it, health has to do with the bridging “of a gulf between flesh and spirit” and overcoming different forms of alienation, including alienation between God and humanity.35 Furthermore, “God also wants to inhabit the world—he does not only want the world to be inhabited.”36 Williams describes this in a way that allows for fully taking the embodied character of life and health into consideration: God is already inhabiting what has been made, but the task that God undertakes in our human history is, you might say, the harder one of inhabiting the thoughts, the feelings, the reactions, the passions, the grief and the exhilaration of very contingent and messy human beings like you and me. And the pivotal moment is when God fully and unequivocally inhabits that life which is Jesus of Nazareth, that death and the resurrection which belong to Jesus of Nazareth and which make all the difference to your body and mine so that our own inhabitations of the world changes.37

Accordingly, Williams stresses “how important it is to link healing, in what can sometimes seem a rather narrowly focused sense, with everything we want to say about the gospel.” Not only is the world created by God so that we may inhabit it, but God has, through the Gospel and the ministry of Jesus Christ “made it possible for us to inhabit the world more fully, more deeply, more joyfully than we could ever have possibly imagined.”38 Healing thus involves the chance to engage more fully in all realms of human existence. In Jesus and his healing practice all the experiential realms of human life come together, and accordingly, in his healing practice, Christians can see revealed the destiny of this world in the future of God.

34. Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity, 7. 35. Rowan Williams, “A Theology of Health for Today,” in Wounds That Heal: Theology, Imagination and Health, ed. Jonathan Baxter (London:  Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007), 6. 36. Ibid., 10. 37. Ibid., 11. 38. Ibid.

Chapter 10 A M O R A L C OM M U N I T Y T HAT S T EWA R D S T H E A BU N DA N T G I F T S O F G O D

Among ordinary human practices is participation in communal meals. A  meal can be practiced in a variety of ways. We see in the gospels reports of meals that display excess in different ways. The texts report several times how those who followed Jesus are fed in a way that yields abundant leftovers as well. The feeding of large crowds is something that all the evangelists report. In these stories, the point seems to be not only to report how many people are fed but equally how much food was left as a surplus after the meal. Recent work in theology reveals that Christians have unique resources to address the crisis with regard to food and other socio-ecological crises. The practices in which Jesus engages meals and food are part of this. “In this instance, it sorts through and re-envisions Christian traditions to better support food justice. Christian traditions, Scriptures, and practices are replete with references to food. Indeed, the first task God gives humanity is to till the garden and keep it.”1 We can see these meals in which Jesus participates, and which he also initiates, as expressions of a specific practice. He engages in the practice as the one who is in charge of what happens. The reports about these meals are not only about the surplus that is present where the kingdom of God manifests itself. When such excess is at hand, no one is left outside the circle of sharing; everyone can have a part. Thus, these stories testify to the same kind of community as the one indicated above, in which the focus on the other and his or her well-being is the determining factor. When we resist hoarding all the food to ourselves, a different kind of social world becomes possible. However, excess is not the goal; it exists to display the abundance of gifts that God offers humanity. The ways Jesus practiced meals also informed later Christian meal practices. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul argues for the inclusion of everyone in the celebration of

1.  Schneider et  al., Awake to the Moment, 154. Cf. 155:  “The ministry of Jesus often centers on food. Repeatedly, Jesus appears in the Gospels with bread in his hands and wine in his cup. The Gospel writers painstakingly record the meals that Jesus shared: he invites others to share food with him and sometimes even invites himself to dinner (Luke 19:5).”

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the meal adjoining the Eucharist. This inclusive, sharing, and inviting practice of Jesus is emulated in later church practices, to a varied extent.2 The gospels portray Jesus as using meals to relate to and shape a community. He shows that what he considers as valuable differs from that which would be of value in a context where only the price of commodities is in focus. It is the inclusive and accepting practices of Jesus that provokes anger among his adversaries. Mark suggests that there is a close link between how Jesus practiced inclusivity and the final rejection of Jesus. In Mark 10, the question of what is an appropriate use of the costly ointment of nard is framed by narrative elements that lead to the betrayal of Jesus. The woman who pours the ointment on Jesus reveals her desire for a relationship, while those disputing this use of the ointment—calling it a waste—point to its monetary value. The incident discloses something that would be impossible to experience if this gift was simply exchanged for money and given to the poor: money alone cannot testify to Jesus as a king, as the story implicitly suggests. Judas apparently takes offense at this use of resources and is unable to see how apt it is to anoint Jesus as king.3 The practice of the community of the Kingdom seems to disrupt an order or an economy where everything is estimated according to its monetary value. By positively recognizing the excessive use of the ointment by the woman, Jesus directs attention to the fact that there is a different reality than the one shaped by the value of money—and this reality is revealed in the recognition of Jesus as the king. Furthermore, stories like these—and we can include here John’s story of the wine at the wedding at Cana—may be read as signs. They signify a reality of surplus and excess where the affluence in question is not derived from the wealth of the people in possession of it but from the gifts of God. As signs, they point to a reality determined by God, and a reality in which scarcity and poverty do not determine the content of people’s lives. Thus, these stories can create hope and articulate a vision of a different world that is nevertheless rooted in the needs, desires, and experiences of people then as well as today. The signs of excess and surplus are, as indicated, signs of a reality where there is sufficient goods to care for the needs of everyone, and where competition for possessions, accordingly, is rendered unnecessary. In this manner, the way Jesus practices the kingdom in relation to everyday meals may also have an impact on how we critically assess

2.  Again, this is not unambiguously the case and should not be taken as a description based on an idealized view of Christian practices. Admission to the Eucharist was practiced more restrictively later in church history, in order to maintain separation of the worthy from the unworthy, or for purposes of racial segregation, discipline, and manifestation of authority. But it could also be practiced more generously to celebrate the community of all believers on an equal footing. For variations of Eucharistic practice throughout history, see John Baldovin, “Eucharistic Liturgy and Theology,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (2017). 3. Cf. Bruce Chilton, “Friends and Enemies,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, ed. Markus N. A. Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 85.

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how the present world is ordered, and the principles according to which it is governed. It is in the actual practice of the content of these stories that they have their contemporary meaning. The way Jesus uses meals links to a very ordinary experience: Christians, like all other humans, must eat. However, by including the sharing of a meal as part of his practice, Jesus opens up an understanding of the ordinary in the life of the church. However, there is also a critical element in this practice that is as important to address today as it was in Jesus’s time: affirming the sacramental community as the point of departure for how one understands oneself manifests the resources that can counter privatization and individualism—elements that contribute to secularization. The excess displayed in the way Jesus practices meals represents a model for those who see in this practice a normative pattern that shapes Christian morality. I have already suggested that the community Jesus invites us to cannot exist unless it displays moral features that are determined by the well-being of the neighbor. I think it is apt to claim that the formation of a Christian concern for the other is based upon, and has its point of departure in, the concrete practices motivated by Jesus’s practices. It is important to state before continuing that morality, in general, is not based on Christian faith, and also not on specific Christian practices. This is a claim that requires further consideration, but it is in line with the overall argument of the present project. It is by participating in a community, and by learning through the practices of this community, that humans develop the shape of their moral perception, understanding, and intuition. We cannot understand the moral teachings of Jesus apart from his participation in his tradition, as well as his reflections on the concerns and governing principles of the morality with which he was brought up. As indicated earlier, this does not mean that he had to comply in full with the tradition—and his teachings on morality display some of the traits of the “complicated relationship” I referred to at the beginning of Part II. Similarly, Paul and other early Christian theologians use the resources of the ancient world, including the teachings of Stoicism, to develop their thinking on morality and the warrants for their convictions. What I  try to express here is the intertwinement between the specific or individual concerns that come to the fore in Jesus’s practice, and the more common, background practices of everyday morality on which every individual must rely in order to grow in moral perception and reflection. Morality does not start with the individual, but with the community. It is only by affirming that moral formation4 takes place in a community where you are offered something, and where you are not asked to contribute everything to the development of your own continuing

4.  I here adopt the vocabulary of the WCC report on Costly Obedience (1996), printed in Thomas F. Best, Martin Robra, and World Council of Churches, Ecclesiology and Ethics:  Ecumenical Ethical Engagement, Moral Formation and the Nature of the Church (Geneva: WCC, 1997).

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formation, that such formation can endure. On such a basis, it is possible to achieve a personal sense of responsibility that can withstand, for instance, manipulative attempts by those who call for loyalty or obedience, without basing those calls on specific moral concerns. Without such community as its basis, Christian faith lacks the resources for the full expression of its life and practice.5 In this respect, a lesson can be learned from the understanding of ethics in recent communitarian philosophy. Communitarianism is right to see a concrete community of people taking part in the same practices and sharing some of the same values and interests as an important and unavoidable factor in the constitution and development of moral character.6 Furthermore, communitarians consistently remind us that morality does not start with the individual but with the community to which the individual belongs. Moreover, moral agency has its meaning in the shared worldview or beliefs of the community. The “thick” description of the moral self that communitarianism offers seems adequate if we want to reconstruct the moral contribution of the believing community in philosophical terms.7 It is nevertheless important to see this contribution in relation to other elements that shape individual morality, especially those that we find in the individual’s experience and the ways the tradition contributes to the interpretation of this experience. Is the moral meaning of a “Christian” ethos, then, to be interpreted as exclusively directed toward Christians, or as something that also is considered relevant guidance for others? The emphasis on the community could point to the former. However, I would argue that although a community and its practices present us with a necessary basis for moral formation, this does not need to imply that the contents of Christian morality are restricted to the way this is practiced in a given context and legitimized by the reasoning of a specific, contextually conditioned community. Again, we need to point to how some critical distance is needed if the practices of a tradition are to be appropriated in a morally responsible way. This critical attitude also needs to be based on personal experience and take it

5.  “Der Christliche Glaube bedarf des Lebenszusammenhanges einer Gemeinschaft und kann nur im Zusammenhang einer Gemeinschaft sein Leben voll entfalten.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, Ethik Und Ekklesiologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1977), 192. 6. See, for example, Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). I emphasize that this should not be taken as advocacy for a general communitarian approach to Christian ethics (see next note). 7.  Hence, it is the communitarian understanding of the development of moral selfhood that I  find most fruitful. Although I  cannot develop it further here, I  think that in today’s pluralistic world it would be ignorant and perhaps even irresponsible to make communitarianism the sole basis for the ethics of the Christian church. Different perspectives from different contexts and communities are necessary to develop a multifaceted and nuanced moral position on many topics.

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into consideration. When Jesus, as well as his followers through the centuries, develop an understanding of moral practice, it is always against the backdrop of such conditions. Although a specific moral community may be limited in scope, a Christian moral community can regard itself as one of many stewards of the morality that has its basis in the practices of Jesus. This can be done without having to legitimize or emulate every contextual aspect of the practices he was engaged in. I want to point here to how Christian morality is closely linked to what I developed above as a community of excess. In recognition of the abundance of the gifts of God to humanity, there is a basis for practices of sharing and participation that leaves no one outside of the community. In that sense, a Christian community is one that models humanity in general. Wolfhart Pannenberg emphasizes how the sacramental community, which links the individual Christian and Jesus together, is also the basis for solidarity among Christians. Moreover, this bond to Jesus also implies a demand for solidarity with all human beings.8 This has to be a central issue for the Church, as the God of Jesus is the God of all humankind. Because of this, communal life among Christians is to be understood as vicarious for all. Pannenberg writes: The Christian Church has from its origins understood itself as a community which already on behalf of everyone who carries with her a promise of the consummation of all human community, lives a communal life in the spirit of love, freedom, and justice. To put it otherwise: The Christian community fulfills already in its present form of living together the reign of God, which is the future of the world and the whole of humanity.9

Pannenberg’s position here is consonant with more recent formulations of similar concerns. In the book Awake to the Moment, Laurel Schneider and colleagues state:  “While the values enacted by Christians across the centuries have been many, as constructive theologians we stake our claim in a very particular way: We believe that the Christian story must be grounded in the radical egalitarian love disclosed in the life and work of Jesus and his community of followers—love for neighbor, stranger, the poor, the dispossessed, and even the enemy.”10 They see this fact as the motivating force behind prayers for “the courage and power to resist the forces of violence, racism, terror, and oppression—even unto the cross.” This

8.  Pannenberg’s point here can be taken as a minor correction of the WCC Uppsala 1968 report, which spoke of the church as a sign of the future unity of humankind (Uppsala 1968, German ed., 15), without making clear that this unity is based on unity with God—a perspective that is found in Vatican II. According to Pannenberg, this leads to an overemphasis on the ethical, and a corresponding ignorance of the church’s mission to proclaim a faith that is more than ethically relevant. Cf. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, vol. 3, 60. 9. Pannenberg, Ethik Und Ekklesiologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze, 193. 10. Schneider et al., Awake to the Moment, 81.

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motivation also stretches beyond that of humanity as an isolated part of creation, as they state, “We are claimed by an erotic love for the world as God’s beautiful creation and so yearn to save it from ecological degradation. These are norms of love, justice, and flourishing.”11 This contemporary perception of the ethical demands of Jesus can furthermore be seen as rooted in his understanding of the gifts of God as something in which everyone can take part. It is these gifts that provide the moral practice of his followers with a new pragmatic context in which moral agency becomes a manifestation of the Kingdom. Thus, the Kingdom confines the function that the ethical realm has in the life of the Christian. It is not a presupposition for the gift of salvation. Hence, it is not morality that frames the totality of the life of a Christian, but rather what she has received. Because of what she has received, ethics becomes a meaningful enterprise and not an unbearable burden. This point prohibits the practice of Christianity from becoming moralist, and Christianity itself from being just another way of leading an ethical life. Accordingly, more fundamental to church life than ethics is the gift of community. If this is not made clear, churches can be misunderstood as tools for, or institutions of, moralism. Moralism is an approach to life that sees morality and law as the determining and most important frames of life. Hence, it ignores the claim that life is fundamentally something good—and something received. Jesus’s proclamation of the Kingdom of God does not provide radically new ethical insights. However, it provides another framework for moral agency. This framework is of importance for the relationship between the practices of Jesus and later church practices in at least one important way: there is a normative expectation of coherence between the present practice and the stories and parables told by Jesus about the Kingdom. It does not mean that the church should understand itself as the Kingdom of God. There nevertheless has to be some coherence if the church really can be said to participate in the reality to which it points, and from which it derives its life. Without such coherence, its life in witness to and service for the world will not be apparent. Thus, the task of the church is to uphold the practice of Jesus to invite everyone into the community. The church calls all of humankind to participate in the unity of humankind in a way that recognizes that the Other belongs to the same community as oneself, a community with no recognized differences in status, privileges, or rights. The basis of this community is the realization that all humans are equal before the God12 who offers gifts to everyone. Speaking of this “Kingdom of equality” in ethical terms implies the following:

11. Ibid. 12.  This position is also reflected in the following quotation:  “The Church becomes a Sign of the Kingdom of God when relationships within the Christian community are characterized by the recognition of the personal value and worth of each human being.” Church and World: The Unity of the Church and the Renewal of Human Community: A Faith and Order Study Document (Geneva: WCC [Corbaz], 1992), 19.

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All human beings, morally speaking, are on the same level coram Deo. No one is righteous in themselves and everyone is dependent upon God to live and do good—whether they believe or not. It is the relation to God (and subsequently to the neighbor) that makes a person righteous.13 All human beings are equally dependent upon God’s grace. All human beings are equally dependent upon God’s gifts and God’s rule and works in creation, whether they recognize God as Lord or not. God, who sends rain upon the just as well as the unjust (Mt. 5:45), can therefore rightly demand that everyone be recognized as recipients of God’s love and care, and that, in their relationship with the neighbor, people should take the call seriously to realize and symbolize this love and care in the world, even if only in an imperfect and provisional way.14

Moreover, the ways Jesus practices community and instructs his followers needs to be interpreted against the backdrop of his warning against judging others. To judge people only by ethical standards is a common human practice, but it is one that creates divisions among people. Such judgments tend to overlook how the human relationship with God is not determined by moral standards, but by how humans relate to and recognize God and God’s gifts and presence. To judge someone based on ethical standards alone is to ignore that it is something more and other than ethics that ultimately tells us who this human being is. Even though the equality of all human beings is given with creation, this equality is something that is renewed and recalled, recognized and deepened through the salvific work of Christ and his proclamation of a Kingdom for every sinner. This message opens up an understanding of peace and justice as central values that undergird the practices that shape human life and the Kingdom of God. Thus, we see again the intertwinement between the ordinary and the distinctively Christian. Justice implies recognition of the other’s right to the same goods as I have myself, and a willingness to struggle for his/her participation or share in these goods. In a society where equality and justice are recognized, there will also be peace (shalom). Such peace is more than the mere lack of conflict, more than is contained in the Roman pacem. It expresses the qualities necessary for a good life and constitutes this good life. When someone restricts the rights of others and thereby creates unrest instead of peace, he or she is abusing the power that should have been employed to secure the recognition of the other as someone equal to everyone else. When Jesus in the Beatitudes speaks highly of those who seek peace and hunger

13.  Cf. Federation Lutheran World, Church Catholic, and Society Catholic Truth, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (London:  The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society), § 25. 14.  Cf. more concretely on this C. Stephen Layman, The Shape of the Good: Christian Reflections on the Foundation of Ethics (London:  University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 126, where he discusses Gal. 3:28 and Eph. 2:13f. as spelling out the consequences of this understanding.

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for justice, we can identify this as a recognition of the importance of peace and justice for human well-being. In conclusion, we can see that here, as in other places, there is a close link between the conditions and features of the everyday and what is expressed in the practices of Jesus and the church. In this way, his practices provide important resources for orientation and transformation alike—they point to what matters and what is in need of change. Furthermore, we also see how the practices of Jesus open up to a normatively shaped understanding of how the church (as followers of Jesus) is expected to continue these practices. These practices provide a critical perspective on the church’s actual practices and can also lead to visions of how to transform existing practices for the better. Thereby, the church serves as an imperfect sign of the Kingdom of God, without itself being identified with it. Thus, to serve as a sign of the Kingdom is first to make clear that the church is not the Kingdom, and that the final consummation of the Kingdom is God’s work and not the result of some moral achievement on the part of humanity. To be a sign is to bear witness to the coming Kingdom in word and deed. The strong normative element here is given with the critical implication of this statement: if the church is a sign of God’s kingdom as expressed in the practices of Jesus, it must be possible to recognize the stewarding of the abundance of God’s gifts in the way the church practices community. Through its witness in practice and proclamation, it has to make clear that human life in its fullness is more than merely a morally perfect life; rather, human life has to do with reconciliation, forgiveness, generosity, and mutuality. Thus, it can set people free to serve God without ultimately resting their lives on their works, and instead rely on the gift of the promised Kingdom. In this sense, the proclamation of the Kingdom, as not dependent on our works, also fulfills a moral purpose because it makes human life better, and the moral life more modest regarding what it can constitute and symbolize.

Chapter 11 P R AY E R A S M E A N S O F T R A N SF O R M AT IO N A N D O R I E N TAT IO N :   T H E E X A M P L E O F T H E L O R D’ S P R AY E R

The deeply relational character of human existence comes to the fore in the practice of prayer. The one who prays, relates. Furthermore, the one who prays thereby also acknowledges (or, at least, hopes) that there is an Other present—one who listens and receives the prayer. In some cases, the praying person also sees this Other as having a power beyond what she possesses, and thereby, the relation is to powers beyond personal abilities or control. Thus, prayer is a practice that places humans in a specific relation to themselves and the world, as well as to God.1 Among the more interesting instructions Jesus offers for practices in the Gospels is prayer. Here, as well, there is a correspondence between Jesus’s practice and the practice that he recommends to his followers. First, he seems to take it as given that people pray. Thus, prayer is a practice that needs no further motivation. However, his instructions have to do with how to pray as well as the content of prayer. These two elements, regarding content as well as performance, in themselves suggest that people use prayer for specific purposes. Unlike the previous practices, prayer is, in the way Jesus presents it, directly oriented toward God and is not a public performance. Accordingly, the practices that Jesus criticizes are those in which prayer is used as an outward sign of piety, in which the true aim is to show off or establish oneself as better or more pious than others. Here, the intent, as well as the embodied character of prayer, is directed toward other humans rather than toward God. Thus, behind the criticism lies concern over the divisions among those who relate to God. These divisions emerge when some of them are selfidentifying as “better” than others.

1. There is a vast literature on prayer in contemporary philosophy of religion. Examples of recent and notable contributions are Rowan Williams, Being Christian:  Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (New York:  SPCK, 2014); John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida:  Religion without Religion (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 2006); Vincent Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray? A  Philosophical Inquiry (London: SCM, 1984).

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This criticism has clear, embodied consequences: the one who prays should do so in a place where he or she is not visible to others—prayer is something to be done in privacy. The critical concern behind this recommendation is not to privatize or individualize prayer in general, but to place it outside a social sphere oriented by intentions regarding privilege and status. When Jesus leaves his disciples to pray by himself, it is a sign of the consistency of his teaching and practice. This recommendation has one further implication:  prayer is de-placed in Jesus’s recommendations for this practice. By de-placing prayer from public places of worship, he contributes to making prayer more of an everyday practice and a practice that is possible outside the context of formal worship. From a contemporary point of view, this might be obvious, but it is important to note as it sets prayer practices free from a specific religiously defined context. Furthermore, when Jesus instructs his followers on the content of prayer, he draws on existing tradition and practice. Some scholars see his formulation of the so-called Lord’s prayer as a reworking of the Jewish Shemoneh Esrei. The most important element in this prayer is its strong orientation toward God, what God has done and will do. Thus, there is a clear theocentric element in the prayer that Jesus offers to his disciples, and which is carried over from the previous tradition. The theocentric element in Jesus’s recommendations for prayer practice nevertheless achieves a distinct character when he suggests that the disciples should pray to “Abba”—a confident and informal way of addressing one’s father. To approach God in this way implies a specific pragmatics. It does not only mean that one is placed in front of God in an intimate and confident manner, but this is also an expression of the recognition of one’s origin being in God and as being related to God in a way that is not dissolvable. There is more to the pragmatic dimension of the Lord’s prayer in Jesus’s instructions, however. In a profound analysis of some of the pragmatic elements of this way of praying, Rowan Williams claims that when praying like this, one is actually placing oneself in the place of Jesus, and thereby emulating his position in relation to God. When humans pray like this, they stand where Jesus stands. Hence, as Williams writes, in this prayer “it is not a question of putting oneself in the presence of God, but to place oneself where Jesus stands in relation to God— and let Jesus pray in you.”2 In the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples (and which is still practiced in almost every Christian church), the beginning of the prayer—“thy kingdom come”—relates to the coming of the kingdom, a topic I discussed in the previous chapter. This beginning sets the context for the rest of the prayer. For those praying, it directs their expectation toward this kingdom, which in turn provides the context wherein the rest of the prayer has its meaning. The next part—thy will be done—indicates the basic point of orientation for the one praying: it is the will of God. However, this prayer not only reveals the

2. Williams, Being Christian, 62–3.

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basic orientation of the believers to the will of God, but it also recognizes the importance of “tuning into” the will of God, as well as our need to be transformed from an orientation toward our own will to that of the will of God. Furthermore, it is important to see the plural first person here as encompassing the community of those who pray, as well as indicating that Jesus’s instructions were not intended to individualize or privatize prayer. Thus, the prayer offers opportunities for the community to transform the conditions for agency. This tuning in is reinforced further in the distinction between heaven and earth—on earth as it is in heaven— thereby revealing the difference between the place where God already rules, and where everything takes place according to God’s will, and the earth where this reign is still in the process of becoming. This contrast also grounds the praying person in a realism that all is not yet according to the will of God—a point that is relevant for both orientation and transformation. The next part of the prayer focuses on quotidian affairs. In praying “give us today our daily bread,” the basic concerns of the everyday are expressed. However, the very formulation of this prayer transcends its mere everyday character, as it asks God to provide what is necessary. Thereby, the person praying identifies God as the source for the conditions of life and not only the origin of the praying person’s life. Moreover, it provides the believer with a point of orientation:  the basics of life are gifts of God. It can also be argued that this prayer contributes to the transformation of the one praying, as it provides a way of letting go of one’s worries and leaving them to God. This use of prayer to relieve oneself from worry is also echoed in other parts of Jesus’s teaching (cf. Matthew 6, 31) as well as in later Christian teaching, for example, the exhortations in 1 Pet. 5:7. Therefore, the prayer is a practice that opens up to a different engagement with the world in which the praying person partakes. I want to point out here that these parts of the Lord’s prayer are in agreement with my argument in the previous chapter about how everything relies on the gifts of God and the anticipation of the kingdom. God is the principal point of orientation for the believer. The next part of the prayer—forgive us our trespasses—would not be necessary unless there was something in the everyday that was related to God, God’s will, and God’s concerns for creation. It is because God is understood as related to the everyday that this prayer about forgiveness makes sense. This perspective contributes to orientation, and, in asking for forgiveness, there is an implicit acknowledgment of the need for transformation into a way of life where such forgiveness should not be necessary. The adjoined element in the prayer—as we forgive those who trespass against us—can be read in different ways. It could be a statement saying that because God shows humans grace and forgives them, believers are obliged to do the same. It could also be a promise about what oneself will do to the neighbor after one has now asked God for forgiveness. Finally, it could be a factual statement about what the one who is praying actually does. In all these layers of meaning, God and God’s work and forgiveness are the basic points of orientation, which provide motivation for transformation as well.

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The next prayer—lead us not into temptation—also grounds those praying in a realistic attitude about their living conditions, and thereby contributes to orientation. To acknowledge that temptations are a part of everyday life is a precondition for distinguishing between the good and the bad in ordinary life. Something similar goes for the next prayer about deliverance from evil. Both these prayers identify life-conditions that may make participation in the kingdom problematic, because evil does not belong there. Moreover, both these prayers ask God to make sure that temptation and evil do not have an impact on the ordinary lives of believers. The Lord’s prayer ends—thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory—as it starts with a recognition of God as the fundamental point of orientation. By acknowledging that the kingdom, the power, and the glory are God’s, the prayer once more reveals that life has to be based on God’s kingdom, power, and glory, and that none of these three ultimately belongs to any other. So far, we can see the practice of the Lord’s prayer as a practice of both orientation and transformation, and as closely related to everyday life. The prayer links everyday life to belief in God as the source of all gifts, and it does so in a way that also contributes to overcoming human divisions, as is evident in the prayer about forgiveness. Furthermore, it becomes clear from this brief analysis about how to pray and the content of prayer that praying is more than an expression of beliefs held in the mind. It is a way of orienting and transforming oneself through a practice where one uses body, mind, and words to relate to God, and thereby toward the world. Prayer is sometimes described as communication between humans and God. However, from a practice-oriented perspective, we see that more is implied in prayer than mere communication of our requests to God. To pray implies a practice that opens another relation to the world and to the everyday. It is therefore not irrelevant to see prayer as closely linked to practices of meditation. Prayer and meditation are practices that direct attention and shape attitudes in ways that can only be understood as practices of orientation and transformation. Furthermore, they both are (embodied) practices that require that the mind and body be placed in a suitable state for becoming mindful or attentive. These practices frequently involve material props or objects. Thus, prayer and meditation may require repeated practice, know-how, and motivation in order for them to be practices that contribute to the discernment of what matters and what does not. Despite the “outlook” of these practices, which can be perceived as more contemplative and withdrawn, they may have a profound impact on how practitioners engage in their world and with others. From a theological point of view, we can say that prayer and meditation open up to the world because it allows us to relate to God in a more concentrated way. The practice of prayer can therefore also have a profound effect on religious socialization. Children who learn to pray by seeing parents or others they are close to practicing prayer, become more prone to belief, even when they engage in such practices before having a theological understanding of what it means.

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Finally, since prayer as a Christian practice is dynamic, and also because it has been defined from the outset as something that can take place outside of or independent of communal worship and strict ritual, it can be practiced in a variety of different forms. Prayer is an open practice. This does not exclude, however, that prayer often is part of extensive rituals or liturgies with a communal character and a more rigid form. Given this openness or flexibility, to pray requires the skill to do so in different contexts and under different conditions. Prayer can be part of all realms of human experience and can be practiced in situations of joy, sorrow, grief, despair, and gratitude, to mention just a few examples. Given the central character of practices in the development of a distinctively Christian community, it would be wrong not to mention how practices of prayer also lead to practices of reflection that have dogmatic consequences (cf. the lex orandi, lex credendi). Hurtado has expressed this well when he describes the origins of Trinitarian reflection in the actual practices of the church and among believers. The struggle to work out doctrinal formulations that could express in some coherent way this peculiar view of God (as “one” and yet somehow comprising “the Father” and Jesus, thereafter also including the Spirit as the “Third Person” of the Trinity) occupied the best minds in early Christian orthodox/ catholic tradition for the first several centuries. But the doctrinal problem they worked on was not of their making. It was forced upon them by the earnest convictions and devotional practice of believers from the earliest observable years of the Christian movement.3

The dynamic, open, and non-definite character of prayer relates it closely to the everyday and allows prayer to take up the everyday concerns of believers. Prayer can take on a reflective character, but it can also appear as an spontaneous response to a given situation. Hence, it is a practice that can work under different circumstances. In this regard, it meets the conditions that are given in Reckwitz’s definition of practice in Part I. Against the backdrop of its flexible character, and the fact that people may be inclined to pray even when they do not believe in any qualified religious sense, it is tempting to see the impetus to pray as part of the natural human condition. Praying does not appear with the emergence of religion; instead, we could say that prayer (and ritual) allows religion to emerge and that these phenomena give humans food for thought and challenges the need for reflection that is necessary for the formation of more stable forms of religious belief in the long run.

3. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 651.

Chapter 12 A R E I N T E R P R E TAT IO N O F T H E S C R I P T U R E S A N D T H E C O N C R E T E U SE OF S C R I P T U R E I N T H E C H U R C H

If we are to understand the role of the Bible in Christianity, we need to look at the variety of its uses. Again, it will be important to consider specific practices and the perspectives they offer on the relationship between Jesus’s practices and the later practices of his followers. Scriptural reasoning is not a postmodern practice,1 but one that has been part of Christianity since the beginning. Jesus was raised in a culture in which Scripture was a basic resource for orientation. Therefore, it is not surprising that he uses Scripture to reflect on the practices of his contemporaries, and does so in a way that, in part, criticizes their religious practices. The complicated relationship I described in the introduction to Part II thereby comes to the fore. The debates over theological issues that are reported in the New Testament are all, in one way or another, about right practice or the right way to understand oneself and the Scriptures against the backdrop of specific events and incidents. As a point of reference, the Scriptures also explore practices regarding prophetic judgment, prayer through the psalms, or wisdom for life, as in the wisdom literature. Moreover, basic features in the history of the people of Israel are recorded in the Pentateuch, thereby providing the means for orientation in terms of origin, heritage, and the fundamental events that shaped the community of the tribes. All this must be understood as an important background for how Jesus himself develops his understanding of God. Moreover, Jesus uses the scriptures in different ways to substantiate his practices regarding preaching, healing, or his transgression of assumed rules for the Sabbath. In so doing, he justifies and legitimizes his practice. He takes for

1.  On the contemporary scene, though, “Scriptural Reasoning (SR) is a tool for interfaith dialogue whereby people of different faiths come together to read and reflect on their scriptures. Unlike some forms of inter-faith engagement, it is not about seeking agreement but rather exploring the texts and their possible interpretations across faith boundaries, and learning to ‘disagree better.’ The result is often a deeper understanding of others’ and one’s own scriptures, as well as the development of strong bonds across faith communities.” Quotation from http://www.scripturalreasoning.org/ (accessed April 6, 2017).

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granted that the use of the Scriptures in this way is the way they were supposed to be used; therefore, he also provides a model for his followers as to how it can be used. However, it is crucial for his use of Scripture that it reflects three basic concerns, among which two have already been presented, and the third touched upon at least implicitly: ●

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He understands God as a personal power that cares for the well-being of God’s creatures. The caring and loving God is, therefore, the source of the motivation to care for the other. This God is understood by Jesus as the God of all people, and not only the tribes of Israel. This universalist approach is one that begins to come to the fore in the prophets.

Jesus and his immediate followers use the Scriptures to interpret events. In the Gospels, the writers portray how Jesus legitimizes his work, but, by referring to earlier prophecies, they also justify and explain his appearance and practices. Moreover, they use the written tradition to make sense of events that are not part of Jesus’s practices, such as the crucifixion and the resurrection, but rather are consequences of his ministry.2 One feature of Jesus’s practices regarding Scripture can be seen throughout the whole later history of Christianity: the attempt to develop arguments based on Scripture against opponents. This use is typical of Jesus’s polemics against the Pharisees, but we also see it in Paul’s various theological controversies and in how the early church developed an argumentative front against Gnosticism. These theological controversies relate to practices for they are not merely intellectual disputes, but disputes about food, sexuality, the use of tradition, gender inequality, slaves, asceticism, and so on. There were, however, other practical interests in the early church that influenced scriptural reasoning. Some of the most obvious were the church’s need for commemorating the works of Jesus and for interpreting the events that led to his crucifixion. These interests led to the development of the collection of books we call the New Testament, which today is the primary resource for orientation in all parts of the Christian church. This collection of books originates from a variety of contexts, communities, and controversies. However, from a pragmatic point of view that emphasizes use, we need to point to how these books were written with special concerns in mind:  clarification, explanation, interpretation, and justification of the church and its practices and beliefs. The written Scriptures, therefore, are an important material tool for the development of the identity of the church. They are used for identity-formation and for solidifying and justifying specific practices. How this is done, however,

2. More on these consequences in Chapter 15.

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varies throughout history. The church did not just take over the hermeneutical tools practiced in Judaism at the time of Jesus but developed them further. Since Scripture was such an important resource for reflection and legitimization, it soon turned out to be undesirable to have a limited range of interpretative practices.3 The emergence of Quadriga can be seen against the backdrop of the church’s need for employing these sources for more than one purpose. Given the status of the Scriptures during the time of Jesus, it would have been a temptation for the church to appropriate different interpretative practices reflected in these Scriptures and employ them within new frames. However, some of these practices were more based on the Old Testament than on Jesus’s own practice. Cleansing rituals for women who had been in labor are among those where it is hard to see any relation to the central practices of Jesus. It is also a practice that tends to identify some as less clean than others from a ritual point of view, a practice that Jesus actively seems to have opposed.4 More serious was, however, the development of new practices that had no basis whatsoever in the practices of Jesus, nor in Scripture. It was resistance to such practices that led to the movement we call the Reformation. The Reformation cannot be understood apart from its originating concern over the practice of penitence, as well as the practice of selling of indulgences. Both practices laid new burdens upon people, shifting the focus away from the gifts of God to the merits of the individual as the basis for taking part in the community that is living by the gifts of God. It is possible to see a parallel between Jesus’s criticism of the Pharisees regarding the burdens they put on people on the basis of Scripture, and the reformers’ use of Scripture that clarified that the gospel about salvation is a gift and is not related to the individual’s capacity for moral righteousness. The Reformation controversy can thus be interpreted as one in which the central emphasis from a pragmatic point of view is on what grounds and for what purposes the church is justified in using the Scriptures in a theologically responsible way. In other words, the Reformation was not only about doctrine as such, but about what practices the church could identify as legitimate on the basis of doctrine. In the Reformation the processes of semiosis in which the church had been engaged—the Medieval interpretations of Scripture that had given rise to specific customs and practices—were all called into question. It is, therefore, possible to interpret the Reformation movement as one in which other semiotic practices are developed based on different principles of orientation and transformation. The reference point for this re-semiosis was a specific understanding of Jesus as the

3.  For the variety of hermeneutical approaches, see Werner G. Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Significance (New York: Crossroad, 1991); and Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992). 4.  See Thomas Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah:  Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity?, Coniectanea Biblica. New Testament Series; 38 (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 2002).

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center of the biblical message (including that of the Old Testament). Thus, the Reformation required a revision of semiotic engagements with the Scriptures compared to that of the pre-Reformation period. The Reformation, however, also had other consequences with regard to Scripture and scriptural reasoning and interpretation. Since the interpretative framework of Quadriga had been used for a variety of purposes throughout the Middle Ages, reformers called for more sober readings and insisted on a literal reading of the Scripture’s content. This approach led in turn to readings of Scripture that proved challenging for the church in other respects, since biblical scholarship increasingly became aware of the problems surrounding the historicity of the events reported in the books in question. The emergence of historical criticism raised questions about the church’s use of the Scriptures. If it turned out that some texts did report events and practices with historical veracity, then could the church continue to use these Scriptures as a basis for its life and work? Although this problem is perceived in different ways in different parts of the church, it represents a new version of a problem that has followed every type of scriptural reasoning within the Christian tradition. How, and on what grounds, can these scriptures be used as a legitimate resource for orientation and transformation? This discussion is ongoing in Christian churches and is not likely to end. If we look back at the history of Scriptural practices, we see a variety of ways of using, understanding, and interpreting Scripture. It is likely this variety has itself contributed to the diversity of the Christian tradition. This diversity has made it possible for Christians to adapt their use of Scripture to many different contexts; thus, Scripture has contributed to how Christians all over the world have been able to relate to a common resource for orientation, transformation, and legitimization. This may be considered the main reason for the Bible’s strong position in most of the Christian movement and in different types of Christianity.

The Bible in Practices The Bible is profoundly a testimony to how semiotic practices are involved in the practices of Christianity. Its content is not accessible unless one engages in the interpretation of its signs. Today Christians engage in this practice of interpretation as one of the most important ways to create, shape, and nurture faith. Therefore, the material dimension of the use of the Bible, namely, its existence as a printed book, is a condition for engaging people in such practices. Accordingly, printing and distributing the Bible are among the practices that Christians engage in. The material conditions for production, as well as the materialized Bible itself, are of crucial importance. Without these conditions, many everyday practices would not be accessible to Christians. It is, however, also possible to see these features from another angle: the practice of reading is one that many people engage in because it helps them learn, orient

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themselves, understand others, be entertained, relate to the past, commemorate important historical events, and so on. In short, reading is a human practice that can have a variety of goals and contribute different resources and qualities to human life. When Christians read the Bible, it draws on all the features that are implied in other forms of reading as well. Christians will, nevertheless, often add that the reading of the Bible does something more:  it offers them the word of God, and they may read the books of the Bible as if they are conveying a message directly to them. This type of reading requires a different know-how than the ones implied in other forms of reading, and this know-how is usually learned through participating in study groups or listening to sermons (the preaching of Scriptures I will return to below). The emphasis that churches and missionaries have put on teaching literacy is not unrelated to the actual use of the Bible in the church. If reading the Bible creates and sustains faith, it can become the most important material condition for disseminating Christian faith. It thereby also becomes incorporated into the specific mode of living as a Christian: Christians use the Bible in different ways, and it is part of what constitutes their point of reference for how they lead their lives. This does not mean that every Christian reads the Bible every day, or in the same way. However, it means that the Bible—references to it, its uses in study groups, and so on—is a common part of Christian practice, and one that it is likely to assume is present within a Christian community. The Bible is the main medium for mediating between everyday practices and the Jesus story. The material presence of the Bible thus illustrates how its actual use as a resource for orientation and transformation engenders other practices, such as printing and production, teaching literacy, forming study groups for reflection, and creating institutions for distribution, be it publishing houses or Bible societies. All these contexts form and shape practices related to the Bible in different ways, and as such, practices of using the Bible illustrate the open and flexible character of Christian practices. If we look at these contexts and features, we see, however, that the distinct Christian character is not that of publishing, teaching, creating institutions, or everyday elements that we also find elsewhere. The potentially distinct Christian character is the effort to relate the content of the Bible to the everyday and the contemporary situation and context. In this sense, or against this backdrop, the use of the Bible not only creates and sustains faith, but its impact on peoples’ lives is conditioned by how it is experienced as a resource for orientation and transformation. This impact would not be possible unless it was seen as the material and spiritual condition for a personal relationship with God—as this was made possible by the Jesus story. As previously mentioned, the transforming power of the biblical message, which cannot be seen apart from its message about Jesus and his practices, has motivated many Christians to speak of the Bible as the word of God. Some churches therefore also use the Bible as a concrete object of veneration and worship (e.g., in processions during the liturgy). These practices reflect the high status of this book in the Christian context.

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At this point, it is important to offer a critical remark:  even though many people experience the practice of Bible reading as a condition for transformation in their lives, this is not a reason to attribute to this book any divine status. It may lead to the mistaken practice of bibliolatry (G. E.  Lessing). However, Christians do not use the Bible in the same way as Muslims use and venerate the Qu’ran. The reason is simple: it is not the book, but the reality it opens that is important. Moreover, this reason is important because such a determination of the Bible’s status enables its relation to a variety of practices in the everyday, as it need not be confined to strongly ritualized or specified uses. The tendencies in parts of fundamentalist Christianity to approach the Bible in ways similar to how Muslims relate to the Qu’ran relies on a mistaken understanding of its historical and human dimensions.

Chapter 13 P R E AC H I N G A S A C O N T E M P O R A RY P R AC T IC E :   B E T W E E N C OM M U N IC AT I V E A N D S T R AT E G IC A C T IO N

Looking back, the overall argument of Part II’s reconstruction of Christianity as a cluster of practices so far can be seen as follows: Christians develop their practices based on their relationship to the community and its practices, and based on the ways this community interprets the Jesus story and his practices. Because Jesus himself used the Scriptures in his preaching and teaching, this practice was emulated in the church’s relation to the Old Testament and its use of the New Testament, as it develops in the early church. The ways Jesus and the early church used the Scriptures is the main backdrop for the later use of the Bible in the church. Among the most obvious practices when it comes to the use of the Bible in the church is preaching. Preaching is a very open or dynamic practice that may have different goals (see below), but all can be subsumed under the generic headings of orientation and transformation. Preaching may build on many of the same semiotic processes as does a reading of the Bible. It may also imply the use of interpretative tools that have a long history in the Christian tradition. The potential variety of approaches for reading thereby creates a similar potential for variety in preaching. This variety establishes the open-ended dynamic in which references to the past can be employed in different ways to deal with, reason about, or offer advice about the present. All preaching takes, at least tacitly, the story about Jesus as a kind of reference point. This fact does not necessarily mean that a sermon is directed toward conveying historical information. Although preaching may be strongly based on historical circumstances, it also belongs to the openness of preaching practice that it can suspend the historical question and develop themes in ways that need not consider the historical accuracy of the text that is the occasion for the sermon. However, in modern times, such suspension cannot be maintained in principle—a point I will return to below. The overall purpose of all preaching is to build a relationship between the story of Jesus, or of what Christians think God has done in history, and the actual context of the listeners. However, this purpose can be realized in a variety of ways, such as by teaching and conveying information about the past, applying the “point” of

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the story to a particular context, exploring parallel experiences in the text and the listeners’ life, or building the identity of believers by narrating in a way that allows them to use their imagination to partake in events, thereby forming their identities by identification. This list is not exhaustive, and my intention in offering it here is to show that the practice of preaching is not only one thing, but is open-ended and varied and that it therefore can be used to achieve different goals. No matter how preaching is done, it must engage the listener in a process where she can relate in a personal way to the content of what is said. This engagement implies that the sermon is a device for communicative action, in other words, a kind of action where the participants share a common understanding and develop it further to establish a community of common orientational and transformative resources.1 A  sermon is a medium for semiosis that has transformation or orientation as a goal. To see preaching as communicative action also means that it often has a strong identity-shaping function. Preaching always, tacitly or explicitly, presupposes something specific about the identity of the listeners, and it may aim to shape an identity that is different from that. However, it may also merely serve to consolidate an already existing identity of believers by contributing resources that confirm their present status. It is this double function of preaching that enables us to see it as a practice that can have communicative as well as strategic features. The distinction between communicative and strategic action is developed most extensively in recent philosophy by Jürgen Habermas. Habermas’s contribution is relevant here not only because his position is based on recent pragmaticist philosophy, but also because he has applied it to reflections about how the development of modernity impacts religion and the process of secularization.2 Let us first consider his definition of understanding based on communicative rationality and the relevance it may have on the practice of preaching: “The concept of communicative action presupposes the use of language as a medium for a kind of reaching understanding, in the course of which participants, through relating to the world, reciprocally raise validity claims that can be accepted or contested.”3 Thus, practicing language as action is something that Habermas considers crucial for the instantiation of reflective practices. This point is important because these reflective practices in a modern context contribute to two important and closely related elements: one is to question the validity of what is said, the other is to probe (occasionally also question) the authority of the preacher. Both of these features are important for communicative action since they aid in the realization of a community. In this community no one has authority unless it is recognized by the shared means of understanding and communication that the community builds

1. For a far more extensive understanding of communicative action, see Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1984), as well as Jürgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992). 2. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 212 ff. 3. Ibid., vol. 1, 99.

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on and presupposes. It means that the questions about historical veracity cannot be ignored, and the normative authority of moral teaching cannot be presupposed without being called into question. It is exactly this kind of critical reasoning that is enabled by modern, communicative action. Habermas writes: The concept of reaching an understanding suggests a rationally motivated agreement among participants that is measured against criticizable validity claims. The validity claims (propositional truth, normative rightness, and subjective truthfulness) characterize different categories of a knowledge embodied in symbolic expressions.4 Understanding is coming to a common definition of a subject.5

These quotations identify different claims that are implied in preaching, and which are determinative for the community between preacher and listeners. It is important to note that the three claims implied by setting forth validity claims like those identified in the quotation are deeply interconnected in the practice of preaching:  the one who preaches must believe what she is saying (subjective truthfulness), what she says must be true in a factual sense (either as historically based, or as a reliable description of the human condition), and the normative contribution must appear as valid or right to believers. An additional element in the quotation here is therefore how the validity claims can be criticized. A modern version of religious authority cannot rely on unquestioned statements. Habermas thus contributes to understanding the conditions under which preaching as a Christian practice functions in modern conditions, where authority and truth are constantly under scrutiny. One important contribution is that of the idea of communicative action in which “the actors seek to reach an understanding about the action situation and their plans of action to coordinate their actions by way of agreement . . . A type of interaction that is coordinated through speech acts and does not coincide with them.”6 What I argue is that this way of understanding the practice of teaching is very much in line with what I  earlier defined as the conditions for participating in a Christian community:  it is a community in which no one in principle holds privilege over and against any other. Against this backdrop, the following statement is profoundly significant:  “Every consensus rests on an intersubjective recognition of criticizable validity claims; it is thereby presupposed that those acting communicatively are capable of mutual criticism.”7 The critical reader may object that this way of communicating hardly ever occurs within the context of contemporary Christian communities and that my argument presented here, therefore, suffers from the idealization I  warned against in Part I. Depending on one’s perspective, this might be a relevant objection. However,

4. Ibid., 75. 5. Ibid., 139. 6. Ibid., 101. 7. Ibid., 119.

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let me elaborate further as to what I think is at stake here. First of all, I think this account of the conditions for communicative action is an apt description of the community into which Jesus invites us. Second, and because of this, I think this reconstruction of conditions for good communitarian practices is important as a normative measure against religious authority that is not in accordance with such practices or ignores these conditions. Hence, my argument here is more normative than empirical. The relevance of this normative position relates to the fact that sometimes preaching is performed in manipulative ways. In such cases, preaching can be classified as instrumental or strategic communication rather than communication directed toward establishing a community of believers. For example, such preaching aims to make listeners act in ways defined and determined by the preacher, and in such a way that they are not invited to take full and autonomous part in the semiotic and reasoning processes behind what is said, but are engaged instead on a more emotional level. Large-scale preaching rallies with thousands of people in attendance may serve as an object of the critique of such manipulative possibilities. There is one specific reason why I  find it necessary to highlight these considerations here. I stressed in the first chapter of Part II that the “complicated relationship between individual, community, and tradition” is the backdrop against which we need to understand the development of all Christian practices. However, if critical scrutiny and careful probing of existing practices for orientation and transformation is impeded or in some way restricted, be it on the individual or the societal level, it is most likely due to a desire of some to maintain privilege or remain in power, and to exercise this power over others, in one way or another. Preaching and teaching as basic practices of the Christian community, therefore, should encourage probing of what is said. To question the relevance of the content presented, as well as its validity concerning how it helps people to orient themselves or transform in ways that are experienced as liberating, may be a way to empower further their participation in the Christian community, or in society in general. Such probing cannot take place unless the content of preaching is understood against the backdrop of the listener’s life-world. It is, therefore, no surprise that a sermon often is evaluated on the basis of what it offers for everyday life. In Part I, I referred to how Ammerman’s interview subjects said they often were unable to make much use of what they heard in church, and that they were much more concerned with practice. Such experiences are not uncommon, and I suggest they have to do with the fact that the sermon’s link to the everyday is not developed enough, or is developed in ways that are perceived as irrelevant for everyday practices. If this problem is to be solved, those engaged in preaching and teaching in the church need to recognize that the Scriptures are not the only resource at their disposal. Because it is everyday life, with its quotidian practices and knowledge, that is the context from which the sermon emerges and into which it is directed,

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ignoring this context and the knowledge and know-how therein can prove fatal to the perception of the relevance of the sermon. To enhance this point even further, I  argue that the content of Christian teaching and preaching needs to be developed with consideration for what in the tradition and in the Scriptures and church practices can provide members of the community with adequate resources for orientation and transformation. It is important to stress that both orientation and transformation need to be taken into consideration. Historical information can provide a basis for orientation and what matters, but it cannot by itself offer the critical resources to challenge existing practices or values in a given society, and to provide motivation for transformation into something better. Contextual knowledge de facto determines the truth conditions of any propositional statement, including that which is expressed in teaching and preaching; furthermore, the meaning of a statement is incomplete without background—a point that underscores the relevance of attending to the pragmatic context. The reconstruction of preaching I  have offered here suggests that it, when performed according to the standards indicated, also mirrors the conditions for a good society in general. No one person can articulate everything, all the time. Representatives of the community have a special responsibility for making sure that communication takes place according to the ideals of transparency, argumentation, and probing. It is the community itself which must safeguard this responsibility. From a Lutheran point of view, this last point is of vital importance, since the office of the pastor or the preacher is something that is derived from the “soil” of the community and its mandate. The way the church is organized is, therefore, related to the fact that the Gospel is preached clearly and the Sacraments distributed in the right way by the clergy, as Article VII in the Augsburg Confession says. In other words, the way preaching is conducted in accordance with these standards as the responsible explication of the Gospel in a given context and for contemporary purposes is the basis for the development of the church as an institution. The church is thus constituted by specific practices that together make it what it is. It is, therefore, slightly misleading to say that the church is simply a congregation of believers, if this is understood as a gathering of people with similar beliefs only. However, if it is understood as a congregation of people who partake in a variety of different practices that shape and form beliefs as well as presuppose belief, this description may still be adequate. Rhetorically, hermeneutically, and content-wise, there may be overlaps between Christian practices of preaching and teaching, and those we find in other contexts of the everyday. People may also relate to preaching in ways that may be similar to how they relate to communication practices that do not have a distinctively Christian character. Although there are similarities here between this way of understanding the practice of preaching and other practices (especially those which establish normative discourses), there are nevertheless basic features in this type of practice that reveal its distinctly Christian character. Preaching aims to place the listener within a history that

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is determined by and interpreted from the specific occurrence in history that is recorded in the story of Jesus. It is against the backdrop of this story that recognition of a practice as Christian is possible. We can summarize one version of the argument so far in this way: Christianity draws on everyday practices and reshapes practices that we find in the everyday to explicate the relevance of the story about Jesus Christ in different contexts, in different ways, and by different means. This it can do because Christianity is not an other-worldly oriented religion, rather, it emerges out of historical events that also can be described as parts of the everyday. Therefore, its pragmatic function always lies in providing resources for orientation and transformation in the everyday. This does not mean that there are no supra-empirical elements in Christianity. There are, indeed. Among these are the understanding of God as loving and caring, the notion of humans as created in the image of God, and the vision of a human community in which all are given equal opportunities for participation. It is worth noticing, though, that none of these elements, or symbols, if we may call them that, have any meaning or relevance unless they are practiced. It is the context of the ordinary, everyday world that allows them to appear as part of a new vision about the world that is different from the one in which people now experience. It is the empowering function of these symbols that make them useful and relevant.

Chapter 14 C OM M E M O R AT I O N O F J E SU S’ S P R AC T IC E S :   O P E N N E S S T OWA R D B O T H P A ST   A N D F U T U R E

In this chapter, I want to reflect on how the practicing of sacraments contribute to and deepen the insights from the former chapters. I will draw heavily on the recent work of Andrew Robinson but will integrate his insights into my overall framework. Thereby, I hope to offer insight into the significance of practices for understanding the content of Christianity and its distinct character, namely, its relation to the Jesus story. Practices establish community, and they link members of the community to each other, including to those who have gone before. These features become visible in the well-established markers of the church, that of practicing the sacraments. The practices of baptism and the Eucharist are rites or rituals that manifest belonging and identity: the one who is baptized is initiated into the community of believers; the one who receives the Eucharist partakes in a community with other believers. This community is not merely something imagined:  to participate in the Eucharist is a real event, and it means taking part in a real community with others. It has some similarities with taking part in a soccer match: the match is real, it is played according to some rules, and you are a member of a team. Similarly, when you start school, you are welcomed and become a member of a class, and from then on you are recognized as a student of the school, with all the privileges and expectations that follow. What I  want to show by these simple analogies is that with regard to the sacraments, the actual practices of the church are not completely set apart from what happens in other everyday practices. To put it in another way, what happens during a sacramental act is no less real than what takes place within, or in relation to, other human institutions. Just as a game of soccer depends on the recognition of a real event of play, so the reality of the Eucharist depends on the believers’ engagement in a semiotic process that establishes it as something more than an ordinary meal. Without a semiotic process, nothing is what it is. However, because there is a semiotic process, something is what it is. The semiotic processes that initiated baptism and the Eucharist are found in the New Testament. In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, Jesus is reported as interpreting the

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meal in a way that determines how his followers later will practice the Eucharist. Hence, the normative element that guides the practice can be traced back to Jesus. In this sense, the past determines the future. We should note, however, that similar to other Christian practices, these are also fairly open-ended: Christians practice baptism and the Eucharist in different ways, and they may also have different doctrinal interpretations of what happens during the ritual. This point notwithstanding, the reference to the past is constitutive for the practice.1 Accordingly, it is the practice itself that links present and past. In this way, the rituals serve commemoration purposes. Whenever someone is baptized, or whenever a celebration of the Last Supper takes place, the participants are engaged in a process that entails an interpretation of signs (semiosis) and a commemoration of the past. However, the semiotic process is richer, as it also opens up the future for the participants. In baptism, the newborn is grafted into the gracious life of God and is recognized as a member of the community of believers from that time onward. In the Eucharist, there is a reference not only to participation in the meal with all the saints past and present, but also to the future banquet of God when all that is will be consummated. Robinson develops this point in a way that can be related to the former understanding of the Kingdom of God as community: “In the case of the Eucharist, the meal signifies . . . the heavenly banquet. However, it also actualizes the heavenly banquet in the sense that the kind of loving, forgiving, fellowship involved in the formation of the Eucharistic sign is precisely an actualization of the Kingdom.”2 Thus, the sacraments place participants in a larger narrative that is more than an imagined story: they link believers to the past and provide them with a vision of the future—a future that implies hope. Therefore, the sacraments are practices that contribute to both orientation (where do we come from? what is important?

1.  Cf. the apt comment about how this open-endedness does not preclude unity or solidarity among Christians: “Far from threatening the stability of a Christian way of life, the fact that Christians do not agree in their interpretation of matters of common concern is the very thing that enables social solidarity among them. Solidarity on the grounds of such a formal or weak consensus is a prerequisite for any way of life with the diverse membership of Christianity, a way of life that seeks to include all people everywhere and at all times, whatever their differences of race, sex, national origin, or outlook. Social solidarity in such cases can only be ensured through common concern for very vague, or one might say, very condensed, symbolic forms and acts. Just to the extent they remain ambiguous, amenable to a variety of interpretations, are they able to unify a diverse membership, to coordinate their activities together in the relatively nonconflictual way necessary for a viable way of life. Thus, everyone can participate in an orderly fashion in the baptismal ritual of a church service without bothering about the fact that none of them has quite the same understanding of the whats and whys of the practice.” Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, 122. 2. Robinson, Traces of the Trinity, 83.

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whom do we belong to?) and transformation (what does Jesus enable us to hope for in the future that we would not be able to otherwise?). After the Reformation, one of the main theological discussions about the sacraments has been if these practices are “merely symbols” or if there is something more at stake in them, namely, if the reality of God is somehow “present” in the acts themselves. However, if we adopt a semiotic perspective, we can move beyond this discussion, because no symbol is merely a symbol, but involved in a larger network of significance. Semiotic theory thereby allows us to address traditional theological discussions about the sacraments from an angle that provides new tools for understanding what they mean and that there is a reality implied in these practices that is real but not accessible unless some conditions are fulfilled. Andrew Robinson reinterprets the traditional definition of a sacrament as a visible sign of an invisible grace. He argues that from a semiotic perspective a sacrament actualizes what it signifies. By using the verb “actualize,” he emphasizes that a sacrament causes to become actual the thing that it signifies. His analysis implies that there are in fact several elements actualized in the formation and interpretation of a sign: the first is “whatever the sign is in itself. The second is whatever interpretative response is made to it.”3 He explains the point as follows: Various kinds of sign and interpretative response might actualize what they signify, and not all are called sacraments. For example, a kiss can signify the love between two people. The love is represented by the kiss. But the kiss is also an actualization, an embodiment, of that love. A sacrament, then, may indeed be a form of signification that follows this pattern of causing what it signifies to become actual, but it must presumably be something more (unless we want to call kisses sacraments, which perhaps in a sense they are). The something more is that a sacrament is a sign that actualizes what it signifies, where what it signifies is the gift of participation in the divine life. In other words, we may say that a sacrament is something (a sign) that incorporates its makers or interpreters into the life of God. And since the makers of the sacramental sign are also its (primary) interpreters, these two aspects (making and interpreting the sacramental sign) tend to converge.4

Robinson’s analogy between the kiss and the sacrament is particularly pertinent to my overall argument since it helps to bring out that the reality of a sign is related to what it realizes, and that this is also the case with other features of the everyday. What is specific with sacraments in this regard is only that they link these practices to the concrete history of Jesus, and to his initiation of them. Thus, again we can see how elements of the everyday are taken up into and given a new meaning by becoming related to this story.

3. Ibid., 71. 4. Ibid.

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While most Christians recognize and take part in the sacraments, how these sacraments are interpreted is more complicated. Indeed, the complicated relationship that is always present in tradition is also there with the sacraments. However, it is worth noting that discussions about the sacraments are not so much about if there should be sacraments (practices), as it is about in what ways these should be practiced and for what purpose. Theological discussions about the doctrines are, largely, related to questions about what elements are to be used in the Eucharist and who should receive them. Can infants be baptized, and why do we do it? What does the Eucharist signify regarding sacrifice? And so on. The relation of the sacraments to everyday events should come as no surprise to anyone. Christians have to eat. Moreover, they, too, have children for which they are grateful and want to introduce to their peers. To eat and to celebrate new life are both practices that take on new meanings when related to the Jesus story.5 Because Christians want to relate their lives to the Jesus story, sacraments are obvious tools for that purpose. Birth is a given for all human life. Everyone that lives has once been born. There is a universality to this experience that cannot go unnoticed. Similarly, everyone needs food, and without it, we would perish. When these common and unavoidable elements of human life are related to the Jesus story, they nevertheless reveal a larger semiotic potential: they actualize a larger horizon of meaning and significance than they would have without this relation. Now, returning to Robinson’s analysis, he points to how the obvious reference of the sign of baptism is to new birth: “The candidate is immersed in water, just as the baby is immersed in amniotic fluid. He or she then emerges, born afresh into the world to begin a new kind of life.”6 Robinson nevertheless finds the traditional accounts of baptism as a sacrament puzzling. The problem is that these accounts do not explain how baptism actualizes what it signifies if it is the Kingdom of God that is actualized. One attempt to explain what happens is by way of analogy. The point is that the new birth that is signified in baptism is actualized as the candidate’s entry into a new family, the church. Robinson, however, does not think that this is sufficient: But in what sense is this entry into membership of the community of faith actualized by the enactment of this re-birth? Perhaps entry into the community is understood as being actualized in the sense that this is the rite of passage that is necessary to obtain membership. But this does not seem to give us the same kind of intrinsic relation between the sign and the thing actualized as in the case of the Eucharist.7

5.  A. Robinson makes the point clearly: “The Eucharist is the everyday sacrament that keeps the church functioning, just as regularly sitting down at a table for a meal can help keep a family functioning.” Ibid., 85. 6. Ibid., 83. 7. Ibid.

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The crucial point here is the possibility of an intrinsic relation between the sign and what it actualizes. This problem becomes obvious in the comparison between baptism and Eucharist:  the Eucharist, “a meal which, in its everyday form, is capable of actualizing and maintaining certain kinds of relationship between the participants, becomes a way of actualizing the forms of relationship that constitute the Kingdom of God.”8 Robinson argues that it is “not clear in what sense baptism actually causes a new situation to come into effect, beyond being a marker of entry into membership of the church.”9 He continues: Why wouldn’t some other ritual, preferably with an element of scriptural allusion, be just as suitable? To answer that baptizing people is what Jesus instructed us to do does not solve the problem, because without an account of how the sacrament of baptism actualizes what it signifies—namely, the Kingdom of God—Jesus’ instruction would appear arbitrary. Baptism would then be a sign of entry into the family of the church only in the superficial sense that it offers the badge of membership, rather than any deep sense that the sacrament causes that membership to become real.10

Robinson’s solution to the problem he identifies is worth considering for my present argument because of two main contributions: first, it places the ritual of baptism more firmly in the context of the community. It defines the act of baptism as an act of the community, before considering it from the point of view of the candidate. Second, he thereby opens up a more everyday interpretation of the sacramental significance of this event, which allows for a stronger connection between the event and what it signifies. This stronger link is conditioned by everyday elements, and would not be possible without a quotidian reference that made it possible. The basic experiences that serves as clues for Robinson are witnessing a birth, or “at least [the experience] of being changed by the arrival of a new life in the world.”11 Baptism is a sign that actualizes what it signifies not primarily in the candidate but in the witnesses. “Just as the witnesses to an ordinary birth (or those closely affected by the birth) may be transformed by the event, so the church is transformed by witnessing the birth of a new member into its midst.”12 Witnesses have to consider what kind of care and nurturing new members of their community may need in order to actualize the purposes that God has for these new members. “In enacting such care and nurturing (both individually and in the overall structure and dynamic of the community),” Robinson sees the actualization of the Kingdom of God.13 8. Ibid., 84. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid.

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Robinson’s reinterpretation of the semiotic character of baptism also makes it possible to develop in a clearer way how baptism can be a process that implies the transformation of the whole community. It changes the status of the baptismal candidate as he or she becomes a new member of the church. He holds that at the sacrament of baptism, the church is offered a chance to “review, renew and if necessary reform its habits of fellowship and discipleship. This renewal and reformation is an interpretative response to the sign of new birth.”14 He writes: The transformation that is brought about in the witnesses to a baptism is essentially the same kind of transformation that may occur in response to an ordinary birth. But this transformation is, beyond this, an actualization of the Kingdom because (like the Eucharist) baptism is itself an interpretative response to the Word. Specifically, it is an interpretative response to the Word’s call to us to be formed into a new kind of family in a new kind of world. During baptism (whether of a child or an adult) we re-enact a birth in such a way that the family that is thereby constituted, or reconstituted, is the family of the church, the community that is committed to actualizing the Kingdom, which was proclaimed and inaugurated by the incarnate Word.15

This quotation is, despite its heavily theological character, worth analyzing from a philosophical point of view. First, the transformation that follows the parallels of birth and baptism links baptism to everyday experience. Second, this “doubling” that makes it more than an ordinary event is due to the link with the Jesus story and the community that Jesus initiated. This link to the “new family” constitutes the present community of believers, and it does so in the act of baptism itself. It is also worth noting here that Robinson underscores that Jesus (the incarnate Word) was the one who “proclaimed and inaugurated” this kingdom. Thereby, the reference to the past in the actual performance of the rite is made in a way that connects the event to the lives of the community that is witnessing the baptism. Robinson thus stresses how the church is transformed by witnessing the birth, and how this witnessing is what makes baptism a sacrament: “a sign that signifies and actualizes the commitment of the church to form an environment in which others may receive the grace of God.” He replies to an anticipated critique of this understanding by claiming that what he argues “must have been implicitly so for as long as we have been baptizing infants. For, whatever other justifications for infant baptism may be produced, a key consequence of baptizing young children is to make baptism a (relatively) passive act from the candidate’s point of view and an active transformative act for the witnesses.”16 A further advantage of Robinson’s strong semiotic approach to the sacraments is that, against the backdrop of this understanding of baptism, he is also able

14. Ibid., 85. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid.

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to make a stronger and clearer connection between baptism and the Eucharist. They complement each other, and, when viewed in relation to the everyday, they are deeply intertwined. Just as a family is shaped by the births of children and can share common meals, so the Eucharist is an event in which the belonging of members is closely linked to their baptism. “Our children are always welcome at the family table precisely because they are the ones who transformed our lives by being born into the family. And, conversely, we allowed these children to turn our lives upside down when they were born precisely because we knew that these were the ones who would always have a place at our table.”17 Against this backdrop, we can see baptism and the Eucharist as practices that work against social marginalization. By its very character of welcoming new members who transform us by adding to the community, we could say that these practices open up to Otherness. In this regard, Elaine Graham’s definition of Christian practices is especially apt:  “The process of going beyond the situated and concrete towards the encounter with the Other may also serve as a metaphor for the human experience of the transcendent. It speaks of authentic faith at the very point of loss of certainty and self-possession: divine activity and presence are offered in the mystery of alterity.”18 The birth of a new member of humanity, as well as the inclusion of this person into the community of believers, implies continuity and disruption simultaneously. It implies continuity with regard to the continuing process of adding new members, and thereby also new opportunities for meeting God in the presence of the other (as the image of God). This continuity is important for maintaining the community and proclaiming the Gospel. It is also important because the adoption of new members is the only chance the church has for continuing and safeguarding its tradition. A new child, as any new member of the church, nevertheless also means disruption, opening up to the unknown, and being confronted with something new. It means being faced with genuine otherness. This is the reason why we may see, with Robinson, baptism and the Eucharist as transformative practices. The inclusion of others may mean that there are new opportunities to develop, challenge, or alter the tradition. Hence, what emerges from this understanding of sacramental practice is that the orientational and transformative elements are manifested in the sacramental practices. These practices are, so to speak, the sites where these functions manifest themselves as the reality from which members of the church orient themselves. It is impossible to be a merely passive witness to a baptism—it involves a semiotic process. Robinson, therefore, writes, The process acknowledged, stimulated and actualized by bearing witness to a baptism is the process of continually working out our understanding of what it is to image God and to respond to images of God. The community of the

17. Ibid., 86. 18. Graham, Transforming Practice, 206–7.

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church should be perpetually challenged, renewed and redirected by engaging in this process. It is the sacrament of baptism that should concretely entrain this process within the life of the church.19

The manifestation of community and its challenges regarding stewardship of the tradition and its practices is not the only element that is present in the sacraments, however. Self-articulation or self-recognition is always potentially present and implied in sacramental practice. First of all, in relation to baptism, the witness can commemorate her own baptism in the baptism of the infant. This is not only a reminder of what once happened to her, but it is also a testimony to the condition she was in when this happened: it was by the practice of the community, and not by her own agency, that she was brought in and adopted as a new member. From a theological point of view, this is important because it places emphasis on the sacrament as a gift that is not earned, and it places the baptized in a condition of passivity and reception. Robinson does not bring up this point, but I think it could contribute further to the actualization of what exactly takes place or is realized in baptism. Something similar may be occurring in the Eucharist when the ritual reveals the concrete community, of which the participant is a member. Eucharistic practice is a manifestation and reminder of which community she belongs to, and how she belongs to this community without having to earn or merit membership. The fact that bread and wine are offered, not to mention that the elements are described as gifts from Jesus, contributes again to the condition of passivity that is a fundamental characteristic of participation. Although I  stress the element of passivity in these sacramental practices, it does not mean that there is no action on the part of the participant. As will have been obvious from the above, to witness, as well as to engage in semiotic processes of interpretation, requires something from participants. However, the active dimension in sacramental practice is not only immediately present at hand. It also represents a continuous challenge to growth and development. Here both sacraments provide opportunities for orientation and transformation. Robinson writes: “If the only sacrament we had was the Eucharist, the church would be in danger of thinking that all that is needed for the actualization of the Kingdom of God is faithful adherence to existing practices and understandings. Baptism ensures that the dynamic of the church is one of active learning and growth, not passive repetition.”20

Explicating Further the Semiotic Character of the Sacraments The water, bread, and wine of the sacraments may take on an iconic as well as symbolic character. In the case of the baptismal rite, the semiotic character is

19. Robinson, Traces of the Trinity, 86. 20. Ibid.

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more symbolic (in the Peircean sense) than iconic, whereas in the case of the Eucharist, it is both iconic and symbolic. It is important to underscore that the use of the notion “symbolic” here should not be understood as a feature of historical discussions about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Instead, it must be seen as a designation of that which actualizes the reality or presence of God/Christ in the context of the practice. In my examination of semiotics in Part I, I  suggested that Otherness is a distinctive feature of human experience. The fact that Otherness is fundamental for what makes things matter to us is also important for understanding sacramental practices. It is based on our ability to identify what takes place in these rituals as something distinct, which is separated from other practices in which we are engaged. The ability to perceive otherness is crucial for establishing the identity of these practices as distinct from other practices. The sign engages a subject in a specific practice, and it mediates between the object and the interpreter. Since the sign stands for an object, the interpreter does not encounter the object directly but encounters the sign that mediates it. Water mediates between the infant and the kingdom of God, just as bread and wine mediate between Jesus and his contemporary followers. Without this mediating function, the sacrament would not exist.21 As with Otherness, Mediation can be found in the world even apart from its specific role in the structure of signs. It is important to point this out, as our experience of instances in the world as being mediated then also suggests that there is no connectivity between the different elements in the world without them having a specific sign-character. “[T]here can be nothing genuinely connected about the world without the operation of Mediation.”22 Mediation is, of course, also implied in the way we think, and in how we make a link between two thoughts. As indicated, to experience something as something implies experiencing it as something that has a distinct “what-ness”—a quality. To determine something’s quality is an assessment of value, but this value or quality is also related to its distinctiveness compared to other things. With regard to the sacraments, these three transcendental elements of experience—Otherness, Mediation, and Quality—relate the everyday character of signs to the specific context of the Jesus story. This story then offers the possibility of employing the signs or water, wine, and bread as signs of this story, and not as signs of something else. The mediation that is manifest here is therefore related to and determined by the employment of this story within the context of the sacramental practice. Thus, the experience of the distinct quality of these signs

21.  E. Herms emphasizes the necessity for God to mediate Godself in the world, and suggests that this must be seen as a condition for cooperation between God and humanity (cf. Herms, Systematische Theologie, 739f.). I  argue that this is important not only for understanding sacramental practices, but also for Christian practices in general. 22. Cf. Robinson, Traces of the Trinity.

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as sacraments is dependent on the story, but also upon the conventional and institutional conditions on which the practice relies.

Other Rites of Passage—or Orienting Practices Whereas birth and meals are necessary elements in every human’s life, there may be other elements that are more contingent, but nevertheless important. All religions have found ways to mark these as distinct, and in different ways. Many religions, including Christianity, celebrate the transition from adolescence to adulthood. However, in most Christian contexts, the rite of confirmation is not understood as a sacrament. In Protestantism, confirmation may refer back to the rite of baptism, thereby commemorating what once took place when the child was too small to know what was going on. The challenge with confirmation from a sacramental point of view is that this practice does not have any obvious reference back to the Jesus story. To some extent, it could be connected to the stories of the calling of the disciples, but there is no clear relation between this story and the actual mode of performing the rite. Therefore, it is also not clear to what extent we should see confirmation as one of the defining practices of Christianity. Marriage is, however, a practice that is reflected in the New Testament, and is one that Jesus also comments on. Thus, the rite of marriage can be linked to the Jesus story, as Christians frequently do. However, again, this is not a practice that has its origin in the Jesus story as such. Accordingly, not all churches have found it necessary to develop rituals surrounding marriage, which they see as a civic custom. But when such rituals have been developed, references to marriage in the Bible are most commonly employed to legitimize the practice of marriage and designate it as something willed by God, but the actual practice cannot be defined as specifically Christian. Instead, we are here confronted with a common practice that is given a Christian legitimization by the use of texts that mention marriage. In other words, marriage does not help us define the specific character of Christianity, but it is part of everyday customs that may be, but need not be, interpreted within the framework of the Christian story. This point is notable in relation to contemporary discussions about a “Christian” understanding of marriage that excludes the possibility for same-sex marriages. Such exclusion, based on historical contingencies as it is, may be corrected by the establishment of rituals that celebrate and recognize that same-sex marriages are also based on qualities identical to those usually considered as constituting “a Christian understanding of marriage”—in fidelity, mutual love, respect, commitment, and so on. The final, though not contingent, feature of human life that Christianity relates to, is death. Everyone dies. Funeral practices are nevertheless quite open across different parts of Christianity, reflecting the diverse ways New Testament texts are employed in these contexts, and also, as Kevin Schilbrack points out, how varying

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interpretations arise from different metaphors.23 In Christianity, however, two basic symbols are closely related to death and have a significant impact on how this rite is developed. On the one hand, we have the notion of judgment, which serves as a reminder that it is not irrelevant how people live, and that to live a good life is to live according to a specific standard that can also be detected in the practices of the individual. The use and abuse of this symbol has led to much division, as well as much pain throughout the history of Christianity. This point notwithstanding, the symbol of judgment has found its use specifically in relation to the burial rite. Thus, the symbols employed in this rite may provide an important basis for both orientation and transformation for those in attendance. The most important element in a Christian burial rite is nevertheless the symbol of hope that is established by the notion of the resurrection of Jesus, which is considered the anticipation of the universal resurrection of all. The function of a funeral may therefore not only be to allow mourners to part with the deceased. The distinct Christian character of a funeral is that it is an occasion to offer attendees a hope that may also provide comfort. Funerals, therefore, can be linked to the Jesus story, but in ways that are not linked to the practices of Jesus as much as to events that befell him, and thus are part of his story.24 Taken together, however, both these symbols—judgment and hope—point to the past as well as to the future, and thereby present us with the basic elements of orientation. Thereby, they also provide an important addition to what I described earlier when I presented rites as cognitive prosthetics.

23. As Schilbrack writes, “[A] given funeral ritual might frame the experience of death as if it is a departure for a journey. This conceptualization would be conveyed by how the body is handled, what is buried with it, and the physical markers that are used. If one sees death as a departure for a journey, then ritual participants will think of the deceased as a kind of traveler, they will feel that he needs to be equipped with the accessories needed for the journey, and the question of his final destination will become central.” Schilbrack Manifesto, 39. 24.  This means that I do not see resurrection in light of the fact that Jesus is reported to have resuscitated some of his contemporaries. There are theological as well as empirical reasons for making a distinction between resuscitation and resurrection.

Chapter 15 P U Z Z L E S F O R O R I E N TAT IO N :   S U F F E R I N G , D E AT H ,   A N D R E SU R R E C T IO N

As will have become apparent in this book so far, the argument is that the Christian religion cannot be understood apart from how it is expressed in distinct practices. However, what makes these practices distinctively Christian is not merely their relationship to the practices of Jesus himself. It is the relationship between his story and historically given features of the everyday that can be found elsewhere as well. These practices would not, however, have the impact and weight they now have for Christians, and for determining Christian practice, apart from two other events that cannot be described as practices at all: the death and resurrection of Jesus. Neither the message about the kingdom of God nor the healings of Jesus made his story important to his followers. Had it been only those elements, there would probably not have been a religion called Christianity. This point becomes apparent when you ask Christians what is at the heart of their faith: it is the belief that Jesus died for them, and that God resurrected him on the third day. For Christians, the events at Easter present them with serious challenges for interpretation and understanding. Initially, his death appears to be nothing less than a failure: it is the destruction of all the hopes and expectations that his followers had for him and his ministry. As for the resurrection, they seem to have had a hard time grasping it, and we see mirrored in the New Testament how this event was met with a lack of belief. So, the fundamental question becomes: how can Christians relate to these events in a way that provides possibilities for orientation and transformation? What does the story of these events do to the lives of those who hear them? Moreover, a reconstruction of Christianity that focuses on it as a cluster of practices is faced with a dilemma concerning the suffering and resurrection of Jesus. First of all, we cannot speak of suffering and resurrection as something that Jesus did, but rather as something that befell him. To the extent that Jesus’s death was related to his practice, it had to do with the fact that his opponents found his practice offensive or dangerous, and therefore had to be stopped. Furthermore, it is possible to see his death as a consequence of the fact that he was not able to give up on his calling and his ministry. He remained faithful to this calling and practiced it until the end without backing out.

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This initial approach makes it possible to relate to Jesus as a model for uncompromising love—one who does not give up or give way to other powers. However, even when interpreted from this perspective, the death of Jesus is not more than a moral story about integrity and failure when confronted with overwhelming imperial and religious adversaries. It is the conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead, even after this apparent failure and subjugation to the powers of this world, that is a constitutive element of the Christian faith. We nevertheless need to be careful with how this is interpreted in relation to the practices of Jesus himself, and to the subsequent practices of his followers. The resurrection can be related to the common experience of death, but it is not itself an everyday experience, and it is definitely not something that can be actualized through a specific practice. It lacks an analogy. Therefore, it is hard to relate it to the anything else than the negative experiences of the everyday—since resurrection is the negation of the experience that death is the end of all things. Moreover, given that this is a once-in-history event, it becomes even more difficult to relate it to the everyday. The only way that Christians, in general, have been able to turn their belief in resurrection into a practice is by designating Sunday as their day of worship. We, therefore, find ourselves in a curious situation concerning the present project and with regard to the death and resurrection of Jesus: these events are not, and cannot be seen as, the result of human agency in practices that Jesus initiated. Jesus’s death can be seen as a result of the violent practices of others, but these are not something that Christians have taken up as a practice themselves.1 Furthermore, the resurrection is not the result of the agency and practice of Jesus or any other human. Nevertheless, it is these events taken together that make all other Christian practices matter, and which have led to clusters of practices that we can identify as distinctively Christian. The reason is that these events designate distinctive and unique elements in the story that Christians relate to, and, therefore, are what shape their practices by offering a specific framework of understanding. I stress here that the events in question need to be taken together since the death of Jesus in itself would not have the determining significance that would lead to a definitive orientation and a vision or hope for human transformation. Nevertheless, taken together, the death and resurrection of Jesus are the two events that provide the basis for all other Christian practices of orientation, transformation, and legitimization. The death and resurrection have led to other important practices that are tightly linked to the everyday, and simultaneously get their distinctively Christian shape by being linked to this story. First of all, we can see Christians’ struggles for reconciliation and forgiveness as mirroring the idea that the cross is a sign of

1.  There are some exceptions, though, in that in the Philippines and other parts of the world there are rituals that emulate the crucifixion of Jesus. However, these have not received general acceptance and are not mirrored in or legitimized by church doctrine.

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forgiveness and reconciliation. It is important to note here that this interpretation of the cross would probably not have been possible without Jesus’s practice of calling people to community and offering them forgiveness on behalf of God. However, early Christians interpreted his death as sacrificial and analogous to the sacrificial practices of the Old Testament, and as a new covenant in which further sacrifices would not be necessary. Thus, for Christians, this event created the opportunity to leave some of the former traditional practices behind. It is, therefore, possible to see Christian ideas about reconciliation as an attempt to make sense of the puzzle with which Jesus’s death presented them. The Beatitudes and the many stories Jesus told, concerning reconciliation with debtors and merciful action, significantly reinforced this approach. Nevertheless, it was with regard to the relationship between God and humans—or even stronger, between God and the world—for which the cross was interpreted as the fundamental reconciling event. The concrete effect of this interpretation was that every time a Christian related to the cross as a sign for orientation, she also had to consider herself a sinner. The belief that Jesus died “for the sins of the world” had a profound effect on how the Christian message about human sinfulness was inscribed into the central symbol of Christianity. The emphasis that the cross has been given in Christian art and Christian teaching is therefore due to two central factors. First, the puzzle that the cross presents in terms of challenging understanding and sparking resources for interpretation makes it a topic to which theologians repeatedly have to return, since there is no decisive and final interpretation of this event. It is, like all signs, open to a variety of interpretations, and the fact that it deals with and represents two disturbing facts of human existence, namely, death and injustice, establishes it as a crucial point of continuous interpretation. The second fact is related to the first, namely, the crucifixion of Jesus provides Christians with a simple but very powerful sign that enables them to relate to this event: the cross. As a sign, the cross has both iconic and symbolic character. Thus, it opens up to several interpretations and becomes a central point of orientation. Furthermore, its central status and openness to multiple interpretations provides the most likely explanation for why the interpretations of the cross are surrounded by so much controversy. It has to do with the fact that since this is such a central point of orientation for believers, they need to have a firm understanding of its content. Any discussion or problematizing of traditional interpretations that question its meaning or significance (but not the event itself) generates insecurity and makes it more problematic as a clear point of reference.2 The openness to interpretation of the cross as a sign is therefore also the reason why it is an unstable center of Christian orientation. By designating it as an “unstable center,” I do not intend to question its status as part of what makes Christianity what it is (hence, the center). The point is rather to say that despite its

2. From the point of view of psychology, we can say that this makes it more difficult to use the cross as a self-symbol that provides the believer with safety or comfort.

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central character, it has never received one dominant or clear interpretation that all parts of Christianity can agree upon to a sufficient extent. Paradoxically, the instability of the cross as a sign is part of what allows Christians to return to it and engage with it as a symbol that provides new opportunities for understanding. In this sense, the cross is a profound example of the Ricoeurean statement that the symbol gives rise to thought, and then, thought returns to the symbol. Practices that engage the cross are therefore an important feature of Christian practices of reflection. In light of the discussion in the previous section concerning otherness, mediation, and quality, it is not difficult to see how the cross could take on significance:  its otherness as an instrument of torture makes it stand out from other elements in the everyday. Its ability to mediate between the believer and the horrific event from which it originates as a symbol is related likewise to its specific and distinctive quality: the cross is seldom used as a symbol for anything other than Christianity in Western culture and beyond. In this way, it is possible to say that the Christian practice of using the cross as its central sign more or less precludes it from use in other contexts without triggering connotations to the Christian story. As suggested above, several interpretations of the cross event have led to the abolition of sacrificial practices as central to Christianity. To the extent that there is a recognizable sacrificial element in the Eucharist, the focus is on offering bread and wine in the meal and in remembering what happened: the Eucharist is not a continued sacrifice to eliminate the sins of the congregation. Instead, it is a sign of the forgiveness offered by God. Hence, the sacrificial element is toned down or left behind. The cross has also led Christians to become advocates against injustice, false prosecution, and the miscarriage of justice. In this case, the contents of the Christian story provide further motivation for a moral stance that many might likely have, be they Christians or not. Thus, in this case, the relation to the Christian story does not add anything distinctively Christian to moral concern, although it can link general moral concern to an event that can be identified in the Christian story. Again, we see the relation between the everyday and the distinct or specific story. The interpretation of the cross as an instance of reconciliation can be further developed in relation to another practice that the Easter events enable Christians to oppose or criticize:  the practice of capital punishment. However, Christian theologies around the world differ considerably on this topic. While large parts of the Western world have left this type of punishment behind, we still see in parts of the United States and other parts of the world that this is an actual practice. Some places it is even considered legitimate from a Christian point of view. The question is then to what extent it is possible to see these differences as expressions of different receptions of a Christian doctrine, or if there are other historical or cultural elements that determine this variation. Most likely, however, it is a consequence of the general cultural development in the West that a majority of Christians are likely to legitimize their rejection of such practices with reference

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to the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection is then seen as signifying how the combination of forgiveness, reconciliation, and resurrection is the way God offers people new opportunities for transformation, despite their atrocities. God is then seen as the God of life, and of which the resurrection is the most obvious sign. The dialectical relationship between Christianity and the humanist movement reinforces criticism of capital punishment. However, in parts of the world where the Christian tradition is not so strong, and where Christians engage the Old Testament as a means for orientation on similar terms as they engage the New Testament, the tradition is still used to legitimize such practices. This is one of the issues on which Christians are called to take a stand and act against the dominant tendencies in the culture of which they are a part. The practice of theological reasoning will then be an important means to de-legitimize the practice of capital punishment. If we compare the crucifixion and the resurrection with regard to their functions as signs, it becomes apparent immediately that there are no strong symbols for the resurrection as there are for the crucifixion. In parts of Christian history, this has led to the focus being more on the cross than on the resurrection, and consequently, the emphasis has been more on the negative than on the positive dimensions of the Easter events.3 Again, this is not surprising, since there is no reality in our world that can represent this event. Furthermore, the phenomenon of life itself is always bound to a variety of concrete, embodied, and varied circumstances, and it is, therefore, hard to formalize or designate a specific and obvious sign for the resurrection as an event, despite its fundamental character for Christian faith. The lack of signs, though, makes it even more important to proclaim the resurrection as a central part of belief in Christ as the Messiah. This is obvious if we look at both the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul. References to this event serve two main purposes: first, they legitimize the status of Jesus in the Christian faith. They are evidence for his election by God, and for the fact that God vindicated him despite the injustice he suffered. In this way, the notion of the resurrection points to history and offers a reinterpretation of it. However, in the proclamation of the resurrection, there is also a reference to the future: the resurrection is the event that enables believers to have hope beyond death. Resurrection is the testimony that death is not the final event or experience that humans have to undergo. By relating the resurrection to the fate of all humankind, its relevance and impact on human life is profound: the belief that there is hope

3.  This point is illustrated well by Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker who offer historical and political reasons for why the cross became such a central sign in the Middle Ages, at the expense of hope for community in paradise, of which the resurrection was seen as an anticipation. See Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise:  How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (Boston, MA:  Beacon Press, 2008).

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beyond death shapes a community that lives on this hope, and the community thereby testifies in life and witness to the God of life. These considerations about signs—or the lack of clear signs—when it comes to mediating the death and resurrection of Jesus can be developed further if we consider how these events allow for a variety of different artistic expressions. What makes Christian art Christian is not necessarily that it depicts motifs from the Christian story, but that the motifs used in some way open up, or relate to, this story. Of course, motifs from this story can offer a critique; in these cases, the story is not used directly as a constructive or positive resource for orientation or transformation, but rather as a means for reorientation. The central place that the crucifixion has in Christian art is the most obvious example of what I am after here. However, the variety and magnitude of other elements in the biblical story have given artists many different opportunities to express themselves as well. Thus, we can say that Christianity has contributed content to the everyday skills of artists and architects. Their skills engages this story and explores its content. Again, we see the interaction between the elements of everyday practice and distinct elements that belong to the Christian story. This interaction is furthermore enhanced by the fact that every artist and every architect in his or her employment of this story nevertheless give it (the story) an expression in which elements in a particular context and tradition are used to develop it. What we have seen in this chapter is how events such as the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ provide Christians with resources by which they can reflect on other practices. This is the case despite the fact that these events are not themselves practices that Christians can perform by their agency. As such, they have practical implications and relevance for Christian practice. Furthermore, both the death and the resurrection of Christ refer to elements in his ministry. Death is a consequence of his proclamation of the kingdom of God and of acting on God’s behalf, whereas the resurrection can be seen in relation to his testimony about God as the merciful, healing, and caring power who will not allow anything—not even death—to separate humans from God’s love. If we consider the content of this part of the book—story, community, prayer, preaching, sacraments—it becomes clear that worship and liturgy may be seen as clusters of elements to remember and make present the distinct Christian mode of being in the world that allows for orientation and transformation on the basis of this story. The bringing together of these elements into one coherent liturgical structure is perhaps the most obvious way in which these elements are given an expression in ritual. As such, it is structured, repetitive, and provides orientation and recognition. I will not, however, develop further the topic of liturgy in this book, as the main argument here is that what Christians do as believers living in the everyday is intertwined with, and cannot be separated from, other practices. Liturgy and worship, however, can be separated, and I  argue that to think of participation in the liturgy as the main part of being a practicing Christian is

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misleading. Instead, I argue that to identify a practicing Christian one will have to take the point of departure in the everyday and see how the everyday is shaped and motivated by the Christian story, even when the practices at hand are such that they can also be performed on the basis of other faiths or motivations.4

4. This last remark is in consonance with Kathryn Tanner, who argues that “while there are boundaries between Christian and non-Christian ways of life, those boundaries are fluid and permeable. Claims and values that are outside are brought inside (or, much the same, what is inside is brought outside) in processes of transformation at the boundary. Christian identity is therefore no longer a matter of unmixed purity, but a hybrid affair established through unusual uses of materials found elsewhere. Nor can Christian identity be understood from isolated attention to Christian practices per se; understanding it now requires the careful situating of Christian practices in the wider field of cultural life on which they are commentary.” Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, 152.

Chapter 16 A T H E O L O G IC A L C O N C LU SIO N :   H OW T O P R AC T IC E “ G O D” ?

If we take seriously the claim that Christianity cannot be understood solely as holding certain things to be true, but that we instead should see it as a disposition toward specific practices, the question becomes this: in what way can “God,” as the constitutive notion of this faith, be understood as related to practice? To put it differently, how can God be practiced? There would be no religion without practices of interpretation leading to orientation and transformation. It is especially important to note this point in relation to the topic of this chapter: God. God is not a thing of this world; God is not a phenomenon, entity, or an event. God is in, with, and under this reality, and it is as such that God shapes and forms the reality in which humans live. If humans say that they experience God, this statement relies on a semiotic process in which they use something in the world as a sign that mediates God. In Christianity, a central part of its practice is to interpret events, practices, and phenomena as manifestations of who God is as the presence of love, care, and mercy in the face of dehumanization and injustice. The symbol “God” is the condition for making sense of the Jesus story. This symbol cannot mediate the presence of God unless there is something in the world that can represent God. The distinct character of Christianity is the claim that Jesus represents the concrete and actual presence of God in the world—not only as a symbol, but as an icon, and in a way that actualizes this reality. To speak of Jesus as God is therefore not something that Christians do on an arbitrary basis. Instead, we have to see this designation as originating from Jesus’s practices, and resulting from the Christian community’s practices when they started praying to him, which would only be acceptable if Jesus had a divine status. To activate this representation and actualize it as a working presence in the world, Christians have to bear witness to God’s presence in Christ. God is not accessible unless witnesses relate to potential representations of God, and especially to Christ as the image of God. They need to allow these representations to work for orientation and transformation in their own lives. The personal dimension of the Christian religion is therefore first and foremost manifested in how the relation to Christ becomes apparent in the way Christians practice their faith in Christ as the site where God is a present and working reality. Thus, the dispositional

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character of this faith1 comes to the fore in the way the story of Christ comes into use and is practiced in the everyday lives of believers. Unless there is a personal commitment to this story for orientation and transformation, the story is not put to use (practiced) in a way that enables us to see it as constituting the distinct character of Christianity. At this point, it is necessary to refer back to my initial distinction between the different types of practices found in religion, and show how these are particularly relevant for how God is represented in the world. I argued that religion is based on practices of orientation, transformation, and legitimization. The latter type of practice is what concerns me here. To legitimize specific ways of interpreting something as a representation or an actualization of God, God’s power or will, and so on, theological reflection must overcome the immediate character of how believers/practitioners often employ such interpretations uncritically. Theological reflection and practice may combine the insight of how God is always only accessible through or by means of representation (which is why it is possible to see Jesus as God) with the parallel insight that nothing in this world (apart from Christ, a Christian would claim) can fully represent God. Due to the latter insight, the Judaeo-Christian tradition has always warned against idolatry, although this concern has been practiced in a variety of ways.2 Given the problem of idolatry, all semiosis is made unstable or questioned from the perspective of critical theological reflection, although it may not seem so from the immediate perspective of a believer involved in processes of semiosis. Concrete semiotic processes that interpret what takes place in relation to the Jesus story are, therefore, from a theological point of view, in constant need of deconstruction: this or that represents or actualizes God in the world, but it is not God. In the following section, I will argue that Christians practice their faith using three distinct elements that originate from, and are given concrete shape by, their relation to the contents of the Jesus story. These elements are famously defined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: faith, hope, and love. My main claim is that Christians not only shape their everyday lives on the basis of faith, hope, and love, but that God’s presence in the world is manifested and actualized when Christians engage in processes of orientation and transformation that are based on faith, hope, and love. Moreover, again, it is important to underscore that all humans can live on the basis of faith, hope, and love, since these are features that belong to human life in general. However, it is the specific shape that they are given by their relation to the content of the Jesus story that makes it possible to identify the practices of faith, hope, and love as practices that in a distinctly Christian way actualize God’s presence. Accordingly, there are two strong claims implied in this approach, still bearing in mind the warning against idolatry just mentioned: first, Christian faith is practiced through faith, hope, and love, which are recognized in Christianity as

1. Cf. what was said about dispositional belief in Part I, p. 56–8. 2. Cf. the difference between reformed iconoclasm, on the one hand, and the paintings in St. Peters Cathedral in Rome, on the other hand.

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the most important ways to be in the world. The even stronger claim is, second, that it is by this means that it is possible to see God’s agency as revealed and present in the world, since God in Jesus Christ is the source of the content of these three elements.

God as Revealed: The Semiotic Practices of Faith, Hope, and Love It makes sense to speak about God only if this has some impact on, and relevance for, how humans live in the world. Thus, to claim that God exists makes no sense unless there is a way in which the world and God relate. It is therefore natural to think that God is in some sense revealed in the world, and, consequently, that to be revealed belongs to what it means to be God. However, there would not be any revelation of God without some type of semiosis. This means that God must be seen as always revealing Godself through God’s own creation. Thus, if God, as creator, relies on, and is even dependent on, something in creation to reveal Godself, then the ways in which God reveals Godself are through the creation and specific creational modes of being.3 This indirect mode of revelation, then, might have implications for how we think about divine agency. It may also help to overcome interventionist conceptions of the relation between God and the world, or the idea that God is only present at specific instances or in specific acts. Hence, by starting out with an analysis of how God reveals Godself through the means of God’s creation, we may achieve a better grasp on how we can think about divine agency and about how Christians can be seen to practice God. Even though God’s revelation may be manifested and mediated in specific events, as well as through inspiration, dreams, and so on, all such elements need a wider interpretative context in which they can appear and be interpreted as parts of the larger framework constituted by God’s actions. Although such elements may reveal God in a specific way, they always link to, build on, and confirm or expand our preconceptions about God and reality as a whole. It is the relationship to this totality that makes these elements appear as revelations of a God who has a specific identity. In previous chapters, I have suggested that Christians can see this framework as accessible through the Jesus story. This approach opens up to an understanding of revelation that sees it as constituted through the relation between parts and the whole. The question, though, is this: what are the parts, and what is the whole? God’s revelation is in and through specific events and phenomena, and not in isolation. Thus, even when we see God revealed in the elements of faith, hope, and love in the everyday, this relation would not be known as such if it was not located within the wider

3. The following section builds on, and is a reworking of, some of the elements presented in Jan-Olav Henriksen, “God Revealed through Human Agency—Divine Agency and Embodied Practices of Faith, Hope, and Love,” Neue Zeitschrift Für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 58, no. 4 (2016).

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framework of the Jesus story. The Jesus story would not, however, be a revelation of God unless it was related to the everyday world, as well as to the totality of history. There is a reciprocal, oscillating process between these components, and the consequence is the Christian claim that God is revealed in and through the world as a whole. Accordingly, it would be absurd to claim that a single instance or event would be able to reveal the whole. It also makes sense to say that some event may be part of what reveals God as God, without having to say that this event is the final or total revelation of who God is. Therefore, when humans have experiences that realize specific values or qualities that they identify with God’s reality, or attribute specific events to the specific purposes of God, these attributions will make sense only against a wider and already established conception of God, which may derive from specific semiotic practices in which the interpreter has already taken part. These practices may have their origin in other events or instances in which God can be seen to reveal Godself. Therefore, despite its mediated character, one can always think of revelation as having its origin in God, even though it can only be conceived of as revelation because of interpretation and practices. The mediating feature in all revelation implies that God is revealed through specific human practices. This feature does not mean that human agency alone is what reveals God, but rather that when they participate in specific practices, human beings can be said to be participating in a reality where God is revealing something about Godself. These practices display more than the assumed intentions or values that determine the presupposed divine agency. They manifest or actualize realities as they are carried out by those who are determined by a larger reality. Thus, this way of looking at revelation may also help overcome a merely abstract or cognitive way of thinking about God’s revelation. Thus we can see revelation as more than testimonial. In his little book Love, Power, and Justice, Paul Tillich places these three elements together, though they are not usually considered in the same category. However, these three elements have something in common:  they are relational categories that presuppose that individuals exist in relation to each other, or that individuals are related to something other than themselves. Therefore, none of these phenomena can be realized apart from relationality. Moreover, none of them would exist without being practiced. Consequently, in order to become manifest, all three elements are dependent on something more than the individual: they all point the individual beyond himself or herself and toward some type of practice. We can elaborate on this by using love as an example. When God reveals Godself to humans in and by their participation in love, power, and justice, God does so in a way that affects the whole human person. This understanding is conditional for human agency. Such agency relates to all dimensions of human life: the psychological, emotional, cognitive, embodied, and the reflective. In his important article on “Divine Agency and Providence,” Christoph Schwöbel points to how human agency (and therefore, also practices) cannot constitute itself and, moreover, cannot be explained as the result of other finite agencies. Therefore, Schwöbel claims, we may see God’s creative agency as the

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presupposition for human agency, since “God invests human beings with the ability to act as free agents.”4 Schwöbel considers the theological notion imago Dei to be an expression of this fact, and he sees this idea as pointing to the similarities and differences between human and divine agency.5 When discussing divine agency in relation to the story of Jesus Christ, Schwöbel points to the prima facie incompatible character of God’s universal agency as creator and what God does though the particular life of Christ. However, Schwöbel holds that there are good reasons for rejecting the claim about incompatibility. Trinitarian thinking maintains a difference between Father and Son that implies that the Son is not God tout simple. Their work is never identical. Therefore, Schwöbel holds that “in Jesus, Christ God reveals his faithfulness in sustaining the created universe despite the human contradiction against the order that God had created. If this is true, God’s creative agency and his redemptive agency cannot be incompatible. Rather, they must be seen as complimentary.”6 Below, I aim to show the Christological implications of Schwöbel’s position, and also point to how this might have implications for thinking about how human agency and practice, in general, might reveal God. Schwöbel proposes to interpret God’s agency in Christ in terms of revelation. Christ reveals God insofar as his actions disclose that God remains faithful to God’s creation “by remaining the ultimate agent who invests finite agencies with the ability to act.”7 This is a crucial point concerning the practices of faith, hope, and love in general. However, as Schwöbel states, the presupposition for such agency is God’s relation to humans, whether as Creator or through the works of Christ. The character of Christ as true God and true human is part of this presupposition: “Insofar as Jesus Christ reveals the relation of God to finite beings which [are] constituted and maintained through his creative agency, Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. Insofar as he discloses in his actions the adequate relation of human beings as creatures to their Creator, he is the revelation of what it means to be truly human.”8 As a consequence of this revelation, Christ can restore the relationship between God and humans.9 Hence, according to Schwöbel, revelation is not only closely related to the manifestation of who God is, but it also shows what it means to be human. Given that a human being is truly human by being the image of God, when Christ reveals

4.  Christoph Schwöbel, “Divine Agency and Providence,” Modern Theology 3, no. 3 (1987): 232. 5.  Ibid. Schwöbel writes:  “Human agency is similar to divine agency, insofar as it is understood as the ability for free intentional action. The difference between human and divine agency is that, whereas the limitations of divine agency are freely chosen, human agency is limited in its freedom of choice” (232). 6. Ibid., 234. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid.

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God he is the true image of God in a way that reveals the new possibilities for faith, hope, and love. God’s action in and through Christ shows how God is the ultimate agent in the particular actions of a human being. Nevertheless, believers may consider the significance of God’s action to be universal as they manifest them or take their inspiration from them. It is the universal dimension in this particular event that qualifies the appearance of Christ as the revelation of God.10 I hold that this understanding forms the theological background for the interpretation of practices for which I have argued in the previous chapters. Thus, the universal significance of the particular manifestation of God’s agency in Christ can be identified as a condition of human agency in general. Whereas the fact that humans are sinners often causes them to misjudge God’s intentions for the world, the revelation in Christ provides humans with less ambiguous conditions for agency, which are all related to faith, hope, and love. Schwöbel writes:  Through the particular action of God in Jesus Christ as God’s revelation of God’s relation to humankind, human beings can now interpret the world in light of the belief that the motif of God’s action is love and that the purpose which determines the patterns of its actions is the Kingdom of God. In this sense, Jesus Christ can be said to be the Word of God or the exemplary Act of God.11

An important consequence of Schwöbel’s line of reasoning is a close connection between God’s agency and human agency. Christ is not only the revelation of God but is also, as a human, an “exemplar for the kind of human action that is made possible by acknowledging the divine constitution of human agency.”12 Of particular interest for my argument here, Schwöbel writes: Whereas the creative agency of God determines the scope of human agency, the revelation of God’s motive and purpose determines the character of human agency. If we see the purpose of God’s agency in Christ as the establishment of an agapeistic community with human beings, Jesus’ actions as the exemplar of the adequate human relation to God manifest the kind of actions adequate to this purpose. Since the relation of human beings [to] God is constitutive for the relation of a human person to himself, to others and to the world, this revelation does not only concern God and the soul, but the whole set of relationships that make up human life.13

Accordingly, the presupposition for understanding human agency as manifesting God’s agency is that humans can adopt God’s intentions and concerns as their own. That can only happen when one believes in these intentions and trusts that

10. Cf. ibid., 235–6. 11. Ibid., 236. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., 237 (emphases in the original).

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they are the best way to perform agency. Unless this appropriation of God’s will takes place, God’s work in the world through human beings will not manifest human freedom. It would also be problematic to talk about human agency at all, since there would be no human agent to perform an action on the basis of his or her intentions, values, concerns, or aims. Such an identification is made easier by the fact that humans can more easily identify with God’s intentions for action. The Gospels portray Jesus as one who embodies God’s relations to the world, whereas Jesus as a bodily agent exemplifies the relation of humanity to God.14 Thus, faith is a distinct condition for the type of agency and practice that can reveal God through human agency. This is not so only because it is faith that recognizes God as the agent in the works of Christ, but also because it is faith that discloses and authenticates what the believer experiences as the work of God. The experiential and authenticating dimension related to God’s agency, including God’s revelation in concrete human action, is conditioned by and conditions faith.15 The internal goods of Christian practices are faith, hope, and love. It is in these practices that God reveals Godself and God’s purposes for the world. Thus, God reveals Godself by the very acts in which Christians practice faith, hope, and love. They do not love in order to achieve something external to the loving relationship. Accordingly, theology has always criticized instrumental approaches to faith, hope, and love, because such approaches destroy their character as religious virtues. Thus, from a theological point of view, the emergence of social and cultural capacities in humans and, accordingly, the capacities for a specific human form of semiosis, can be seen as part of how God conditions human agency and practice. The next step is then to acknowledge that such cultural and social conditions, in turn, enable practices in which God can reveal Godself. My point is that it is exactly these social practices that can be most clearly identified as contributing to such revelation. To get a better understanding of how human practices can manifest God, I draw on the resources of practice theory, which underscores the composite and manifold, individual-transcending conditions of human social practices. By seeing practices of faith, hope, and love from this perspective, we can have a richer and more nuanced picture of the interplay between divine and human agency, which allows for an open-endedness and a multitude of ways in which these qualities or virtues may be practiced under different historical, social, and cultural circumstances of the everyday. Consequently, I  argue that we can see a close and internal relation between divine and human agency at the general level of creation, and as revealed in the specific history of Christ. Humans realize God’s intentions by freely appropriating, and thereby also participating in, the reality of God as they participate in the ongoing history of creation and redemption. A full realization of this participation requires that humans recognize God as the condition for their agency. However, in cases where such recognition is lacking, people may still realize some of God’s

14. Ibid. 15. Cf. ibid.; also 239.

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aims when they perform actions of love and care, provide comfort, and offer reasons for hope. They are then still conditioned by God’s creative work for creation, even though they do not recognize it. However, because faith opens up the full relationship between God and humans, we can say that it is in faith, hope, and love that God’s agency for humankind is most fully realized, and in ways that allow human beings to fulfill their calling and destiny to be and become an image of God. Finally, I have suggested that the conditions for human agency, and therefore also for God revealing Godself in human reality and experience, are the result of semiotic processes. These enable us to see humans as embodied agents who are the result of an interplay of different elements that can only be adequately interpreted by different theoretical approaches to practice. I presented some examples of these theories in Part I. Various dimensions of practice can reveal God in ways that are less ambiguous and more clearly shaped by love and care than if God was revealed in one specific way only, through one means or one practice. Thus, all God’s actions to manifest Godself as love can be seen as a result of the many and diverse actions and practices that God has allowed to emerge, both in the totality of creation and through human agency.

Chapter 17 I S C H R I ST IA N I T Y A R E L IG IO N ? A R E B E L I E F A N D D O C T R I N E O P P O SE D T O P R AC T IC E ?

“Religion has everything to do with the relationships that constitute, form and enliven people in everyday activities in this material world.”1 With these words, religious studies scholar Graham Harvey presents a key point of the main thesis in his refreshing book on religion. Concomitant to this view is his insistence that religion need not be about belief in God—although sometimes it is. Hence, he argues for opening the concept of religion, to avoid having belief as the defining element of religion. He argues that the tendency to ignore everyday activities in religious studies is due to the influence of a tradition that has determined what we treat as significant, such as personal beliefs about or in a deity. This emphasis on belief is part of the Western world’s approach to religion after the Reformation, forcefully determined by the rise of modern states in the wake of modernity.2 Harvey’s provocative take on the topic is that if this is the case, we will have to argue that Christianity is not a religion, and if it were, it would be the only religion. It is his discussion of how belief defines Christianity as a religion, or not, that will occupy me in this present section. Of course, he concludes that it nevertheless is a religion, that is, if we approach it as more than a belief system, or as more than only features of the human interior (see further on this below). Somehow, Harvey ends up at a position that seems to agree with my own: the distinct character of Christianity cannot be determined apart from the practices on which it is based, and through which it expresses itself. However, I have argued that these practices cannot be seen as isolated from the belief or the conviction that God is revealing Godself in the world as the loving and caring power that wants all life to flourish and has human well-being in mind. When Harvey, therefore, claims that religions are about what people do in the world—ordinary acts, physicality, matter, surfaces, and movement3—this makes perfect sense against the backdrop of my previous chapters here.

1. Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 2. 2. Ibid., 3. 3. Ibid., 10.

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Furthermore, how Christianity articulates itself in different practices is influenced by a lot of different and local variables, and these practices cannot be expressed or seen as meaningful apart from how they appear in the everyday. Therefore, to determine what the Christian religion is, or what forms its distinct character, compared to other religions or cultural formations, is not that easy. Moreover, Harvey’s empirical approach addresses the problematic tendency of many scholars of religion to draw on ideal forms of religion rather than on lived realities; he argues convincingly, I believe, that this preference for ideal forms is itself part of a religious practice that scholars have bought into.4 Given that this is the case, what are the implications of this approach for understanding Christianity? Harvey’s argument goes as follows:  no other religion is properly defined in terms of belief or believing except for Christianity. Therefore, either Christianity is the only religion, or it is no religion at all, he argues provocatively.5 The question is, in turn, what Christianity’s focus on believing means, even when it is not taken to define the basic features of religion in general.6 Among the falsely held implications of this emphasis on belief is that people’s beliefs are sufficient to offer grounds for or to explain their behavior.7 This is important for my own argument, as I argue that quotidian practices, our familiarity with them, and our understanding of their rationale, provide us with an everyday basis for belief that needs to be recognized as just as significant to the understanding of religious agency as is “mere” belief about events of the past. Harvey furthermore refers to Malcolm Ruel’s distinction between having a belief (as a subject) and what a person believes in (object of belief). He means that it is a mistake to define the former as more important than the latter. This suggestion agrees with my argument for the importance of the content of what is believed and its relevance for determining the distinct character of Christian practices. In the following quotation, Ruel clarifies some of the implications of this distinction: In Christianity to be a believer is to acknowledge an allegiance and to declare an identity: the person does not always have to be clear about the full content of his belief. The same circumstance transposed to non-Christian religions makes much less sense. To say that a people “believe” in this, that or other abstraction

4. Ibid., 24. 5. Ibid. 6. In relation to this argument, Harvey comments on Karl Barth’s insider and polemical understanding of Christianity as divinely revealed truth—and therefore something that sets it apart from religion. It is not hard to agree with Harvey that Barth “is preaching and simultaneously demonstrating how different theology can be to the study of religion.” Ibid., 43. 7. Cf. ibid., 46. Harvey’s approach can be seen in accordance with the understanding of belief as dispositional, and as presented earlier in my treatment of Schilbrack’s contribution above (pp. 56–8).

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(“Witchcraft, God, spirits of the ancestor, humanism) tends to bracket off ideas that they hold about the world from the world itself, treating their “beliefs” as peculiar to them, a badge of their distinctiveness, and all knowledge of the world as our privileged monopoly.8

Although to acknowledge an allegiance is part of what it means to be a Christian— identity is important for orientation and transformation—there are good reasons for not singling this out as the defining feature of Christianity. In the previous chapter, I  argued that practices of faith, hope, and love engage Christians in relations to the world, and these relations to the world mean that there cannot be any “bracketing off ” of these practices from the knowledge that Christians share with others about the world. Instead, we should see the distinctly Christian here in how one relates to and engages in the world, and not in some knowledge for which one holds a monopoly. While being critical of Ruel’s description of belief, it is, therefore, possible to side with Harvey when he suggests that we must see belief as more fluid, or rather, as occasional. Belief is something that Christians do some of the time, but not all the time. Furthermore, some Christians have insisted that believing is necessary. However, insistence on the importance of belief or believing (in the subjective sense) does not exclude the importance of the distinction between the subject and object of belief. It is therefore also part of some forms of Christianity to emphasize the importance of correct belief. Harvey uses the latter point to make a case for why belief cannot be distinctive for religion in general: because Christian belief is specific, we cannot extend “belief ” as such to define religion.9 There is one pragmatic implication of this emphasis on belief:  it makes Christianity about “non-physical minds, intentionality in ethics, intellectualism, and other interiorities.”10 However, when right belief as a manifestation of identity or allegiance is emphasized, it means that belief is used distinctly to define others as nonbelievers, wrong-believers, or heretics.11 In this way, focus on belief provides a mental basis for social demarcation.12 Of course, one of the advantages of approaching Christianity from doctrine and belief is that it creates a more unified picture of a religion that is widely different in outlook, practices, and rituals and is concerned with social, political, and cultural matters. In this way, such an approach simplifies the issues, but the cost is that we lose sight of the practical aspects. Finally, it is these practical aspects that make it possible to define Christianity as a religion after all (and despite

8.  Malcolm Ruel, Belief, Ritual and the Securing of Life:  Reflexive Essays on a Bantu Religion (Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1997), here after Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 47. 9. Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 47. 10. Ibid., 52. 11. Ibid. 12.  This is a point that is taken up in a quite different context by Alistair McGrath; see below.

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Harvey’s provocative thesis at the outset of this chapter). Christianity consists of negotiated practices of embodiment, materiality, power, and discipline, and these are normatively articulated in practices of faith, hope, and love. It is not only to be defined by how it articulates its ultimate concerns in specific representations and symbols.13 The focus on belief and transcendence, accordingly, does not define Christianity, but must be seen, Harvey argues, as particular mechanisms within it.14 Believing is connected to allegiance and identity, something that can be thought of as an activity, a relational activity. Harvey cites Michel de Certeau’s statement about the problematic consequences of seeing belief as related to the human interior and subjectivity. He writes: “Cut off from the act that posited it, regarded as a ‘mental occurrence,’ belief received the comprehensively negative definition of corresponding to what one does not know or see, in other words, of being the other of knowledge or sight.”15 If we see believing as an action, and moreover as an action that promotes other actions, we can see it not only as contributing to significant objects of orientation, but also as a specific way of enacting beliefs.16 Harvey’s argument here helps me to spell out how belief not only orients but, due to the quality of the orientation, also provides dispositions for specific types of agency.17 Moreover, as Harvey writes, when people learn about what to believe in Christianity, they learn about the objects of belief and how to enact this belief (what he calls “belief-ing”). He writes: “Belief-ing is a practice or activity which needs to be learned and properly performed within particular Christian groups because the way in which people do belief differ.”18

Doctrine as Practicing Memory: A Discussion with George Lindbeck George Lindbeck’s seminal contribution The Nature of Doctrine,19 which is inspired by Wittgenstein, offers further resources on the relationship between

13. Cf. Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 71. 14. Ibid., 189. 15. de Certeau after ibid., 194. 16. Cf. Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 195. 17. Cf. for this again Schilbrack’s understanding of faith as dispositional (above, p. 56–8). 18. Harvey, Food, Sex and Strangers, 195 (my italics). 19.  Further discussions of Lindbeck’s “position” can be found in Hans W. Frei, George Hunsinger, and William C. Placher, Types of Christian Theology (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1992); Garrett Green and Hans W. Frei, Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1987); as well as C. C. Pecknold, Transforming Postliberal Theology:  George Lindbeck, Pragmatism and Scripture (London and New  York:  T&T Clark International, 2005). Other contributions that also discuss the position he argues are Tanner, Theories of Culture:  A New Agenda for Theology; and

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doctrine, belief, and reflective practices when we consider the previous argument’s implication for the understanding of theology as a practice.20 Lindbeck understands theology and doctrine to be closely related, but not identical. It is important to note this fact since it allows us to maintain the idea that theology as a reflective practice can legitimize, explain, justify, and criticize practices of orientation and transformation, whereas church doctrine has a more limited scope. Many contributions that go under the heading of theology will, therefore, according to Lindbeck, be about more than doctrinal content and confessional decisions. “They generally deal with everything that it is desirable to teach rather than only with that which functions as communally essential; and the explanations, justification, and defense of doctrine they present are optional theological theories rather than communally normative.”21 A question that immediately emerges from a reading of Lindbeck is how he can make a distinction between the optional and the normative and constitutive. How does one make a choice about which circumstances are the object of theological reflection, as distinguishable from a concrete and normative articulation of doctrine? This question cannot be answered without an examination of Lindbeck’s understanding of religion. He argues in favor of what he calls a cultural-linguistic understanding of religion. The definition goes as follows: Religion can be viewed as a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought . . . It is not primarily an array of beliefs about the true and the good (though it may involve these), or a symbolism expressive of basic attitudes, feelings, or sentiments (though these will be generated). Rather, it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments. Like a culture or language, it is a communal phenomenon that shapes the subjectivities of individuals rather than being primarily a manifestation of those subjectivities. It comprises a vocabulary of discursive and non-discursive symbols together with a distinctive logic or grammar in terms of which this vocabulary can be meaningfully deployed. Lastly, just as a language (or “language game,” to use Wittgenstein’s phrase) is correlated with a form of life, and just as a culture has both cognitive and behavioral dimensions, it is also so in the case of a religious tradition. Its doctrines, cosmic stories or myths, and ethical directives are integrally related to the rituals it practices, the sentiments or experiences it evokes, the actions it recommends and the institutional forms it develops.22 Christine Helmer, Theology and the End of Doctrine, 1st edn (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2014). 20.  Some elements in this section have previously been published in an article in Norwegian. See Jan-Olav Henriksen, “Hva Er Lære? Et Religionsteoretisk Innspill Til Et Gammelt Problem Med Aktuell Relevans,” Teologisk Tidsskrift 5, no. 4 (2016). 21. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 76 (italics mine). 22. Ibid., 33 (my italics).

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We note here immediately that Lindbeck does not emphasize practice much in the above definition, although it is not missing. However, it is highly relevant that he points to how religion is a condition for specific experiences, acts, understandings, and forms of community, and that it is conditioned by the community and not by the individual’s beliefs only. Accordingly, religion cannot be understood as merely an externalization of an inner experience (W. James), nor as a collection of propositional statements or claims about truth. A  consequence of this understanding is that religious resources shape experiences of self, others, and the world. In Lindbeck’s conception, however, this need not imply that experiences have an impact on and may contribute to changing the cultural system that religion represents and articulates. Hence, despite the fact that Lindbeck accepts and acknowledges a mutual relationship between religion and experience, the relationship seems to be one-way, from religion to experience, and not so much the other way around. A critical question in this regard will be if he is then able to articulate how the contents of religious belief are in fact also shaped by the ways it finds expression through different practices. Furthermore, it is possible to interpret his position as one in which belief is seen from a dispositional point of view, as presented via Schilbrack previously.23 Since the practice component is not totally beyond his horizon, he can say that to become religious in a generic sense is therefore to acquire cultural and linguistic competence, and to internalize specific capacities by and in practices: One learns how to feel, act, and think in conformity with a religious tradition that is, in its inner structure, far richer and more subtle than can be explicitly articulated. The primary knowledge is not about the religion, nor that the religion teaches such and such, but rather how to be religious in such and such ways. Sometimes explicitly formulated statements of the beliefs or behavioral norms of a religion may be helpful in the learning process, but by no means always.24

In the above quotation, it is worth noting how Lindbeck sees religion as fairly open-ended because its richness can be articulated in ways that cannot be foreseen or fully anticipated. However, he nevertheless seems to think that religion as a cultural-linguistic system has a formative structure that determines how everything that is to be incorporated into it is shaped. I think this is misleading since it is the interaction and the intertwinement between religious content and the cultural conditions of the environment (or between tradition, community, and the individual) that shape the actual practice in which a religious position finds expression and articulation. Furthermore, this happens not only by means of articulated linguistic structures that can be understood analogously with how language works in a specific culture, but it needs to be seen as conditioned by the shape of everyday practices as well.

23. See Part I, p. 56–8. 24. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 35 (italics mine).

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If we see religions as open, interactive, or porous systems that are subject to impact from other forms of knowledge and experience than that already defined as religious or belonging to the religious sphere, we get a more active and dynamic understanding of the relation between the religious and the everyday. Thus, we also achieve a better understanding of what I have previously called the complicated relationship. Lindbeck himself, though, seems to emphasize the formative aspect of religion more than the dynamic aspect, a fact that becomes understandable given his reliance on the work of anthropologist Clifford Geertz for his understanding of religion. When Lindbeck explains why and how religious traditions undergo change or are replaced by others, he does not connect this to the fact that people experience themselves, the world, or God in new and different ways. Instead, he holds that it is the interpretative framework that religions express through faith and practice that displays anomalies when related to new contexts and circumstances. These anomalies produce or lead to negative consequences. In other words, it is the pragmatic capacity of a religious tradition that is then questioned. The anomalies that are produced by the old framework give rise to experiences that contradict or question its relevance. These anomalies may, in turn, lead to the overturning of that tradition, and not only to an adjustment of it. I want to question the conclusion that Lindbeck draws from this observation, however. He suggests that religious experiences “in the sense of feelings, sentiments, or emotions then result from the new conceptual patterns instead of being their source.”25 Nevertheless, to understand religious experience only as mediated by an existing cultural-linguistic system seems to exclude the fact that there are experiences that can be interpreted as religious without fitting into, or being identified with already existing and defined schemata for interpretation. In other words, Lindbeck emphasizes the productive element exclusively within the religious system, instead of recognizing its dialectical and interactive engagement with experiences of the world in general. Hence, he is unable to come to terms with the fact that there may be religious experiences of what takes place in the world that contradict or challenge existing religious patterns, and which cannot be integrated into these patterns or understood as their product. My point in stating this criticism is related to what I have previously described as the complicated relationship between the individual (including the individual’s experiences) and tradition. In Lindbeck’s conception, it seems possible to articulate the dialectical tension between the tradition and the individual as a process of interpretation, renewal, and transformation only within a given tradition. Accordingly, he seems to underestimate the role of experience in shaping, reforming, and transforming an existing religious tradition. He becomes unable to see that there is actually something taking place in the everyday—and independent of what we define as clearly religious—that can generate religious content and religious experience. Since religion originates from the human relation

25. Ibid., 39.

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to the world and is not only the result of human agency, this is an important point to underscore. Against the backdrop of this argument, which admittedly implies a criticism of Lindbeck’s position, we can look more closely at his understanding of religious doctrine. On the one hand, he distances himself from an understanding of doctrine as propositional statements about objective realities or entities, which can be determined as true or false. Lindbeck sees this as enabling a view of religion that is parallel to what takes place in both science and philosophy.26 This understanding of religious doctrine has its proponents in traditional ecclesial circles, but also in strands of Anglo-American philosophy of religion that has been concerned with the ways we understand religious positions to be meaningful and to convey information. “For a propositionalist, if a doctrine is once true, it is always true, and if it is once false, it is always false.”27 In this position, experiences are subjected to normative scrutiny about what doctrine says is acceptable. Another position from which Lindbeck distances himself views doctrine as an expression of specific and subjective religious experiences. Here, doctrine does not convey information at all, but instead is to be considered as the symbolic articulation of inner feelings, attitudes, and existential orientations. Accordingly, it is possible to see this understanding as parallel to different aesthetic experiences. Lindbeck mentions Schleiermacher as the most prominent representative of this approach. “The general principle is that insofar as doctrines function as nondiscursive symbols, they are polyvalent in import and therefore subject to changes of meaning or even to a total loss of meaningfulness.”28 In this position, doctrine is subjected to and determined by experience. Lindbeck’s alternative is to consider how doctrine is used (i.e., the pragmatics of doctrine). Accordingly, he has to define a context of use, and the context he identifies is the church. It is within this context that doctrines serve as “authoritative rules of discourse, attitude, and action.”29 In other words, doctrines regulate discourse and are the tools by which such discourse is regulated—and nothing else. The advantage of this approach is that it allows us to see the meaning of these rules in relation to specific contexts of use. Furthermore, the context then also determines why one rule receives priority over another. The problem with this understanding of doctrine is that Lindbeck sees this as the only pragmatic function it has. Doctrine is a means primarily to “recommend and exclude certain ranges of—among other things—propositional utterances or symbolizing activities.” Thereby its functions in relation to, and as a basis for, both preaching and teaching are defined as rather limited—“it is the only job that doctrines do in their role as church teachings.” He goes on: “Doctrines regulate

26. Ibid., 16. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 17. A recent criticism of this rather subjectivist interpretation of Schleiermacher is found in Helmer, The End of Doctrine. 29. Ibid., 18.

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truth claims by excluding some and permitting others, but the logic of their communally authoritative use hinders or prevents them from specifying positively, what is to be affirmed.”30 Concerning how I have defined theology more generally, one can ask if this is a sufficiently comprehensive definition of doctrine. Will doctrine not also serve a function in defining basic points of orientation and transformation by stating something about historical facts (as in the Creeds) and by offering regulative interpretations of specific elements related to church practices? Doctrine does in fact also justify and provide explanatory resources for both faith and specific practices. The many nuanced functions that doctrine may have within the context of the church cannot be left to theological reasoning alone but needs to be also articulated in normative statements about acceptable beliefs and practices. Doctrine does more than offer rules for the regulation of discourse. If this is not the case, it becomes impossible to see how doctrine itself is reshaped and given new expressions throughout history.31 A concomitant effect of his definition of doctrine is that Lindbeck also leaves the cognitive content of doctrines underdetermined. The struggles over doctrinal statements and how to use tradition are not about discursive rules only, but about what is to be believed and practiced in the church. Nevertheless, he is right in pointing to how doctrine serves the pragmatic function of constituting and maintaining a given and specific community. The authority of doctrine is related to this pragmatic function, and the meaning of doctrine cannot be isolated from the practices of this community. He writes:  “Church doctrines are communally authoritative teachings regarding beliefs and practices that are considered essential to the identity or welfare of the group in question. They may be formally stated or informally operative, but in any case, they indicate what constitutes faithful adherence to a community.”32 Thus, he points to the social pragmatics of doctrine, and to its function as orientation:  doctrine contributes to the understanding of who belongs or not to the community. Alister McGrath has defined this function as the role doctrine has in “social demarcation.”33

30. Ibid., 19. 31.  See, for example, Alister E. McGrath, The Genesis of Doctrine:  A Study in the Foundations of Doctrinal Criticism (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA:  B. Blackwell, 1990), 3. McGrath criticizes extensively the caricatures that Lindbeck draws of these positions, and against which he develops his own understanding (14 ff.). 32. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 74. 33. McGrath, The Genesis of Doctrine, 37ff.

Chapter 18 C O N C LU SIO N

In the Introduction, I had  asked if we can find something distinct, specific, or even unique in the religious tradition that we call Christianity. I argued that an approach that focuses on practices might help us reach a more nuanced answer than if we only focused on the content of Christian beliefs. We are now in a position to answer the question. It has become clear that Christianity may not be very distinct from other religions with regard to its functional or pragmatic dimensions. It has a lot in common with other religious traditions; it is based on, draws on, and relates to everyday practices and processes that may be present in other traditions—“elsewhere,” so to speak. However, this conclusion is only possible from the outside; it does not take into account the conditions for agency of those who take part in these practices. Given that Christianity is a historical phenomenon that relates to the everyday practices of communities and individuals under quite different cultural and social circumstances, the way the Christian tradition (or Christian traditions) articulates itself through different practices cannot be determined by these practices alone. Although Christianity cannot be understood without these practices, these practices cannot be understood as Christian apart from their relationship to, and as an expression of, the Jesus story.1 This observation leads us to the theoretical conclusion that an understanding of Christianity as practices cannot be achieved solely on the basis of a functional or pragmatic understanding of religion; we must relate practices to the substantive content that is expressed in that story and in how this story is put to use. Substance and function are related. If we then ask: how do we do Christianity? Can Christianity be done? What does it take for it to appear and make a difference—and what disappears if Christianity disappears? The answers to these questions are related to the way practices are related to the Jesus story. People do Christianity by relating their everyday practices to the Jesus story and by engaging in practices as signs that use this story as the semiotic context for their meaning. Everyday practices do not need to disappear if Christianity disappears, but what would disappear is the possibility for seeing 1.  For the complicated and nuanced relation between story, doctrine, and practice, see Volf, “Theology for a Way of Life,” especially 255–62.

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everyday practices as expressions of the specific content given in the faith, hope, and love that expresses itself in the Christian way of being in the world. Let us look back at what we have done, and try to draw some conclusions from it: Christianity is a cluster of practices for orientation and transformation, and these practices display their distinct character by combining everyday elements with the specific contents of the Jesus story.

Accordingly, these distinct practices have two sources:  first, everyday practices that Christianity has in common with features in ordinary life and with many practices found in other religious traditions. These can be described in functional or pragmatic terms (but not merely instrumentalist terms), as some practices cannot be substituted with other practices, but only with other versions of similar practices. The second source is the substantive content that shapes these practices, namely, belief in Jesus Christ as the fundamental symbol for orientation and transformation. The semiotic process employs this symbol in relation to the actual and concrete quotidian practices that shape and make Christianity distinct from other traditions. Therefore, Christian practices cannot be separated fully from (a) everyday life, or from (b) other religious traditions, unless we see them as conditioned by and related to the actual story of Jesus Christ. It is not the actual and concrete historical Jesus who is the substantive content of Christian practices, although the “historical Jesus”—including his context in the concrete history of the Jewish people and the Mediterranean area—must be seen as the originator of the narrative tradition and the interpretations that shape and inform these practices, and therefore, constitute their substantive content. It is the Jesus story as communicated by and mediated by specific Christian communities that shape the content of the practices. This point is important because the ways in which Christians relate to the story and perceive it as “normative” or determining for their practice vary considerably.2 However, we have shown that by reconstructing Christianity as practice(s), we can articulate the distinct character of the Christian tradition by other means than just by comparing doctrine. Christianity, against the backdrop of a practiceapproach, can be seen as a distinct way of articulating faith through, and based on, everyday practices. Accordingly, Christian practices are not separate from other everyday practices, but are closely related to or intertwined with them. Thus, Christianity is a way to lead everyday lives.

2. Admittedly, this comment opens up a huge discussion that cannot be fully elaborated here. It is sufficient to point to recent scholarship that partly distinguishes the Jesus story by identifying what some hold to be the “indisputable” content of this story (the Jesus Seminar) whereas other scholars speak of “Jesus remembered” or simply “the narrative Jesus.”

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This view thus problematizes an approach to (Christian) religion that considers it possible to separate religion from other spheres of life. Consequently, it opens up to a reconsideration of the impact and understanding of secularization as a process in which religion is separated from the everyday and the public sphere. Christianity will, on this account, be at least tacitly present because those who are practicing Christians will have to live by faith, hope, and love in all spheres of life. How this is done is nevertheless not pre-described or able to be controlled or restricted—a point that follows from the analysis that practices are open-ended and not strictly defined, for the most part. Christianity, as reconstructed by practiceoriented theories, is inherently open to pluralism, both within its boundaries and in an interreligious context. Pluralism belongs to Christianity. From a theoretical point of view, the solution I  suggest for determining the distinct character of Christianity avoids the usual alternatives that are operational in religious studies, and which approach religion on the basis of either a functional or substantial definition. In this, I again side with Kevin Schilbrack, who argues along similar lines on a more generic level. He suggests that these approaches combine two elements that both relate to practices, but in different ways:  “One aspect concerns why a belief is held and a practice was done, the functional or pragmatic aspect of religion. The other aspect concerns what the beliefs and practices are about, the substantive or ontological aspect of religion.”3 He argues that the two approaches can be seen as overlapping since practices can be both functionally religious (providing certain kinds of benefits) and also substantively religious (concerning certain kinds of realities). Accordingly, one can recognize that functionalist or pragmatic approaches capture an important aspect of religion.4 Schilbrack recognizes the importance of a pragmatic approach to religion but not without reservations. Whereas he holds that starting with defining religion as teaching a variety of normative practices may be the right way to start, this is not sufficient since “all of culture is composed of normative practices.” Therefore, this approach cannot distinguish religion from other aspects of culture unless one also specifies which normative practices are religious.5 This point is the reason I find it necessary to relate the practices in question to what I have called the Jesus story. On this topic, Kathryn Tanner writes: Thus, one could say that, despite the difference in results, the same cultural materials—the Bible, the Christian idea, the living impression of Jesus—are being applied and appropriated in each case so as to meet the demands of a changing context. Rather than being internal developments of the material being handed down, here diverse results of transmission depend on the changing contexts of the material’s appropriation. Diversity of outcomes is the product of outside influences of a cultural or historical sort—though not exclusively

3. Schilbrack, Manifesto, 120. 4. Ibid., 120f. 5. Ibid., 126.

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Christianity as Distinct Practices

so if the process of transmission is to retain its identity across such differences of context. The material transmitted has its own internal richness making it suitable for and applicable to all these varying contexts. The material gives itself to be understood differently in a way that is appropriate for a particular time and place. It need not itself change; it can remain itself while being viewed from multiple perspectives, while addressing new questions or satisfying new needs from its bountiful resources.6

To understand Christianity one, therefore, has to have a basic understanding of the Jesus story. However, it is not the Jesus story as such that defines Christianity, but the ways in which this story provides believers with conditions for agency and practice. I repeat this point here because it means that a purely external or functional approach to Christianity will not be able to give a sufficient account of it.7 It is the practices of faith, hope, and love that determine agency, and are determined by the Jesus story, that give us access to Christianity’s distinct character.

6. Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, 130. 7. This point is in line with my criticism of reductive accounts of religion in general, as argued in Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation.

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NAME INDEX Alcorta, Candace S. 74–9 Ammerman, Nancy 25–31, 152

McGrath, Alister 191 McGuire, Meredith 25

Barth, Karl 21 Bass, Dorothy 89 Bell, Catherine 78–80, 82

Otto, Rudolf 6

Douglas, Mary 85 Durkheim, Émile 8, 79

Pannenberg, Wolfhart 133 Plato 13

Geertz, Clifford 189 Graham, Elaine 88–9, 115, 117, 161

Raposa, Michael L. 74 Rappaport, Roy 78 Reckwitz, Andreas 35–7, 48, 76, 78, 141 Robinson, Andrew 62, 64, 66–9, 155–62 Ruel, Malcolm 184–5 Ryle, Gilbert 57

Habermas, Jürgen 20, 150–1 Harvey, Graham 73, 183–6 Hauerwas, Stanley 21 Herms, Eilert 12 Hollywood, Amy 73 Hurtado, Larry 97, 110–11, 141

Schilbrack, Kevin 21–2, 39–42, 44–58, 62, 81–5, 164, 188, 195 Schneider, Laurel 101, 133 Schwöbel, Christoph 178–80 Sosis, Richard 74–9 Stark, Rodney 111

James, William 6, 188 Jesus Christ 64, 66, 89, 92, 95–7, 99–101, 103, 106, 107, 109–27, 129–31, 133–9, 143–5, 149, 152, 155–7, 160, 163–5, 167, 169, 171–2, 175–7, 179–81, 194

Tanner, Kathryn 101–3, 195 Taylor, Charles 5, 8–9, 11 Tillich, Paul 178

Eve, Eric 124

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 148 Lewis, Thomas A. 5, 13–14, 25, 104 Lindbeck, George 186–91 MacIntyre, Alasdair 33–5 McFadyen, Alasdair 117–18

Vásquez, Manuel 48 Volf, Miroslav 89 Warrington, Keith 123 Williams, Rowan 118, 127, 138 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 54, 65, 95, 186, 187 Wuthnow, Robert 29

SUBJECT INDEX agency see also God’s agency 29, 37, 43–7, 52, 56, 58, 71, 75, 81, 87, 88, 113, 117, 132, 134, 139, 162, 168, 172, 178–82, 184, 186, 190, 193

Augsburg confession 153 authoritative source 101, 106–7 authority, authorities 9, 13, 21, 25, 28, 31, 105–6, 110, 123, 150–2, 190–1 baptism 34, 36, 62, 70, 155–6, 158–62, 164 beatitudes 114, 115, 135, 169 belief 1, 3–8, 11, 13, 21–8, 30, 39, 40, 43–7, 54–9, 74–5, 77, 78, 82, 87, 92, 99, 106, 110, 111, 113–14, 119, 121, 124, 132, 140, 144, 153, 167, 171, 183–8, 191, 193–5 Bible see also Scripture 92, 100–1, 105–6, 143–4, 146–8 Bible, use of 107, 144–9 biblicist 104 bibliolatry 148 biology, biological 19, 52, 75, 77, 87, 106, 121 body see also embodied 37, 47–50, 83, 125–7, 140 capital punishment 107, 170–1 chain of memory 91–2 Christianities 2, 3, 11, 98, 111 cognitive dissonance 77 cognitive prosthetics 73, 75, 81, 83–5 communicative action 78, 150–2 communicative practices 61 community, communities (Christian) 1, 12, 19, 26, 29, 36, 40–4, 49, 54–5, 88, 91–2, 98–100, 102–5, 110–12, 115–21, 129–36, 141, 145, 147, 149–56, 158–62, 172, 175, 188, 191, 193–4 compassion 113, 122, 124, 126

complicated relationship 1, 88, 89, 91–2, 97–8, 100–1, 104, 109, 110, 131, 143, 152, 158, 189 containment 50 costliness, of ritual 75 creation 134, 135, 139, 177, 179, 181, 182 cross, crucifixion 168–72 death 25, 45, 101, 111, 164–5, 167–72 discipline, disciplining 5, 21, 31, 52, 74, 99, 130, 186 disposition, dispositionalism 49, 56–9, 114, 175, 186, 188 distinctiveness, of Christianity 2, 4, 6, 89, 96, 111, 122, 135, 141, 153, 167–8, 170 doctrine, doctrinal 4, 6, 7, 9–11, 13, 21–2, 24–31, 40, 41, 44, 51, 55, 81–2, 87, 101, 124, 145, 158, 170, 185–7, 190–1, 194 embodied 25, 38, 45, 47–53, 55–7, 62, 73, 74, 76–7, 81, 84, 87–8, 118, 121, 123–5, 171, 178, 137–8, 140, 181, 182, 186 embodiment paradigm 48–9, 51, 83 emotion, emotional 29, 30, 35–7, 69, 74, 76, 77, 84, 152, 178, 189 ethics 20, 41–2, 88, 97, 101, 132, 134–5 Eucharist 43, 44, 53, 57, 59, 70, 71, 130, 155–6, 158–63, 170 everyday religion 23–6, 28, 29, 73 evolution 35, 69, 74–6, 78 excess 116, 120, 121, 129, 130–1, 133 exclusivity 2, 75–6 faith, hope and love 34–8, 113–14, 176, 177, 179–82, 185, 186, 194–6 feeling see also emotion 69, 127, 187, 189, 190 fideist, fideism 54 forgiveness 40, 112, 119–21, 126, 136, 139, 140, 168–71 fundamentalism, fundamentalist 7, 148

Subject Index gift, gifts 113, 116, 117, 122, 129–30, 133–6, 139–40, 145, 162 God’s agency 177–82 golden rule 27 goodness, source of 35, 115, 116, 119 goods, internal 34, 181 healing 30, 81, 101, 112, 121–7, 143, 167, 172 history of effect (Wirkungsgeschichte) 100 icon, iconic 63–6, 76, 84, 162–3, 169, 175 identity, identity–formation 2, 8, 9, 14, 26, 85, 88, 98–9, 118, 144, 150, 163, 184–6, 191, 196 idolatry 176 individual, individuality 1, 8–12, 25, 27, 28– 9, 34, 36, 50, 59, 61, 66, 75, 78, 81, 91–2, 98, 99–100, 104, 109–10, 117–18, 120, 131–3, 145, 152, 165, 178, 187–9, 193 injustice 109, 115, 169, 170, 171, 175 institution, institutional 10, 25, 27–30, 62, 88, 100, 134, 147, 153, 155, 164, 187 interpret, interpretation 10–12, 20, 24, 29, 36, 41, 45–6, 48, 62–7, 81, 92, 100–7, 110, 111, 122, 123, 125, 126–7, 144–6, 149, 154, 156, 157–62, 164–5, 167–70, 175–80, 189, 194 Israel, people of 110, 119, 143, 144 Jesus story 63, 89, 92–3, 97, 99–100, 103–5, 109, 147, 149, 155, 158, 160, 163–5, 175–8, 193–6 justice 20, 35, 42, 115, 119, 133–6, 170, 178 kingdom of God 35, 109, 111–15, 121, 122, 124–6, 129–30, 134–6, 138–40, 158–60, 162–3, 172, 180 last supper, 44, 156 see also Eucharist legitimization 10–12, 19–24, 26, 28, 30, 33, 38, 39, 95, 100–1, 105, 107, 110, 132, 133, 143–6, 164, 168, 170–1, 176, 187 liturgy, liturgical 67, 70, 105, 141, 172 marginalization 5, 34, 115–18, 161 marriage 42, 44, 106, 164

205

marriage, same–sex 164 material, materiality 25–6, 37, 48, 62, 65, 84, 100, 109, 140, 146–7, 186 mediate, mediation 19–21, 33, 41, 48, 50, 55, 58, 65, 67–70, 91–3, 100–1, 103, 147, 163, 170, 172, 175, 177, 178, 189, 194 memory 64, 66, 91–3, 96, 113, 144, 147, 156, 162, 164, 186 mercy 113–15, 120–1, 124, 175 metaphors 50–3, 59, 115, 161, 165 morality, moral practices 11, 26, 29, 42, 52, 81, 101, 105–6, 114, 131–6, 141, 151, 168, 170 normative, normativity 7–8, 12–15, 22, 30, 31, 34, 46, 52, 83, 88, 98, 107, 131, 134, 136, 151–3, 156, 186–7, 190–1, 194–5 objects 5, 50, 57–8, 65, 140, 186 oppression 20, 103, 110, 133 ordination 6, 62, 92, 106 orientation 3, 9, 11–14, 19–21, 23–4, 26–30, 33–4, 36, 38, 41, 42, 44, 46–7, 49–50, 52, 55, 58–9, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 71, 74, 75, 77–82, 91, 93, 95, 97–100, 103, 104, 106, 111, 112, 117, 119, 120, 124, 136, 138–41, 143–4, 146, 147, 150, 152–4, 160, 162, 165, 167–9, 172, 175–6, 185–7, 190–1 otherness 67–9, 161, 163, 170 outsider perspective 5, 43 parable, parables 112–14, 134 participation 35, 67, 74, 77, 98, 129, 131, 133, 135, 140, 152, 154, 156, 162, 172, 178, 181 peace 114–15, 119, 135–6 phenomenology, phenomenological 13–14, 48, 100, 105 philosophy of religion 1, 5, 13, 39–40, 42–5, 47, 49–50, 190 power 6, 21, 30, 81, 88, 112, 123, 125–6, 133, 135, 137, 140, 144, 147, 152, 168, 172, 176, 178, 183, 186 practice–oriented approach to religion 2, 4, 6, 24, 36, 40, 43, 140 practices, cluster of 1, 4, 13, 15, 42, 55, 62, 87, 91, 100, 103, 149, 167, 194

206

Subject Index

practices, different types 3, 73, 87, 176 pragmatic understanding of religion 6, 19–20, 23–4, 26–7, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 56, 80, 87, 124, 144–5, 193–5 prayer 7, 34, 35, 57, 54, 68, 84, 137–41, 143, 172 preaching 29–30, 95, 143, 147, 149–53, 172, 190 quality 67–9, 163, 170, 186 Qu’ran 148 rationality 39, 54, 150 reconciliation 117, 136, 168–71 redemption 127, 181 reform, reformation 5, 11, 21, 33, 100, 145, 146, 160, 183 religious pluralism 6, 195 representation, representationalist 43, 55– 6, 175–6, 186 responsibility 83, 104, 115, 132, 145, 153 resurrection 95–6, 109, 126–7, 144, 165, 167–8, 171–2 revelation 21, 11011, 116, 119, 125, 177–81 rites of passage 10, 164 ritual, ritualization 10, 20, 42, 55, 62, 73– 85, 93, 97, 141, 145, 148, 155, 156, 159, 162–5, 172, 185, 187 sacrament, sacramental 37, 48, 131, 133, 153, 155–64

Scripture, scriptures 37, 38, 101, 105, 129, 143–7, 149, 152–3 secularization 5, 7–8, 40, 55, 58, 131, 150, 195 semiosis, semiotic 41, 48, 57, 61–6, 69–71, 74, 76, 93, 96, 97, 111–13, 115, 119, 125, 145–6, 149–50, 155–8, 160–3, 175, 176–8, 181–2, 193–4 standards of excellence 33–4 story, use of 97, 100–4, 106–7 strategic action, preaching as 149–50 subjectivity 49–51, 62, 186–7 symbols, religious 10–12, 20, 34, 59, 63–7, 70, 77, 104, 154, 157, 165, 171, 186, 190 teaching, religious 25, 34, 39–41, 52–5, 59, 81, 82, 131, 147, 149, 151–3, 169, 190–1, 195 theology 1, 5, 10–14, 24, 30, 34, 43, 66, 88, 92, 105, 111, 125, 181, 187 things see also objects 35, 37–8, 76, 77 transformation, transformative 3, 9, 11–14, 19–21, 23–4, 26, 29–30, 34, 38, 41–2, 44, 46–50, 52, 55, 58, 62–3, 66–7, 71, 74, 77, 80, 82, 97–100, 103–6, 112, 119–21, 136, 139, 140, 145–50, 152–4, 157, 160, 162, 165, 168, 171–2, 175–6, 185, 187, 189, 191, 194 vicarious religion 10, 133