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Two Traditions in the Study of ReligionAuthor(s): Robert WuthnowSource: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Mar., 1981), pp. 16-32Published by: Wiley on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of Religion

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JOURNALFOR THE SCIENTIFICSTUDY OF RELIGIONOURNALFOR THE SCIENTIFICSTUDY OF RELIGION

REFERENCESEFERENCES

Bainbridge,WilliamSims1978 Satan's Power:Ethnographyof a Deviant

PsychotherapyCult Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress.

Bainbridge,WilliamSims and RodneyStarkin "Sectarian tension." Review of Religious

press Research.

1979 "Cult formation: Three compatiblemodels." Sociological Analysis 40:

283-295.

Glock,CharlesY. and Robert N. Bellah

1976 The New Religious Consciousness.

Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress.

Lofland,John and RodneyStark

1965 "Becoming a world saver: A theory of

conversion to a deviant perspective."AmericanSociologicalReview 30:862-875.

Stark, Rodneyand WilliamSims Bainbridge1979 "Ofchurches,sects, and cults:Preliminary

concepts for a theory of religiousmovements." Journal for the Scientific

Study of Religion 18: 117-131.

Bainbridge,WilliamSims1978 Satan's Power:Ethnographyof a Deviant

PsychotherapyCult Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress.

Bainbridge,WilliamSims and RodneyStarkin "Sectarian tension." Review of Religious

press Research.

1979 "Cult formation: Three compatiblemodels." Sociological Analysis 40:

283-295.

Glock,CharlesY. and Robert N. Bellah

1976 The New Religious Consciousness.


Lofland,John and RodneyStark

1965 "Becoming a world saver: A theory of

conversion to a deviant perspective."AmericanSociologicalReview 30:862-875.

Stark, Rodneyand WilliamSims Bainbridge1979 "Ofchurches,sects, and cults:Preliminary

concepts for a theory of religiousmovements." Journal for the Scientific

Study of Religion 18: 117-131.

in "Towards a theory of religion: Religious

press a commitment."Journal for the Scientific

Study of Religion.in "Networks of faith: Interpersonalbonds

press b and recruitment to cults and sects."

AmericanJournalof Sociology.Stark, Rodney,WilliamSims Bainbridgeand

DanielDoyle1979 "Cults of America: A reconnaissancein

spaceand time."SociologicalAnalysis 40:

347-359.

Stark, Rodney,Daniel P. Doyle, and Lori Kent

forth- "Rediscovering Moral Communities:

coming Churchmembershipand crime."

Wuthnow,Robert1976 TheConsciousnessReformation.Berkeley:

University of CaliforniaPress.1978 Experimentation in American Religion.


in "Towards a theory of religion: Religious

press a commitment."Journal for the Scientific

Study of Religion.in "Networks of faith: Interpersonalbonds

press b and recruitment to cults and sects."

AmericanJournalof Sociology.Stark, Rodney,WilliamSims Bainbridgeand

DanielDoyle1979 "Cults of America: A reconnaissancein

spaceand time."SociologicalAnalysis 40:

347-359.

Stark, Rodney,Daniel P. Doyle, and Lori Kent

forth- "Rediscovering Moral Communities:

coming Churchmembershipand crime."

Wuthnow,Robert1976 TheConsciousnessReformation.Berkeley:

University of CaliforniaPress.1978 Experimentation in American Religion.


Two Traditions in theStudy

ofReligion

ROBERT WUTHNOW*

Bainbridgeand Stark's essay on The ConsciousnessReformationillustrates conceptualand

theoreticalambiguitiescharacteristicof research n the scientific study of religionmoregenerally.This paper traces these ambiguities to the presenceof two competing,but poorly differentiated,

epistemological traditions. An examination of the assumptions implicit within each of these

traditionsprovidesa basis for clarifyingthe distinctionbetweenreligioussymbolismand religiousbelief, the concept of meaning, the difference between consistency as an attribute of belief and

coherence as an attribute of reality, and the role of interpersonalbonds in maintaining theplausibilityof religioussymbolism.An emergingthirdperspectivethat appearsto circumventsome

of the limitations of the two major epistemologicaltraditions is also discussed.

For much of its recent history the scientific study of religion has been divided by

competing intellectual presuppositions.Often the subject of discussion in the journalsand at professional meetings, these divisions continue to influence the selection of

researchproblems, the conceptualizationof variables, and even the decision of which

*RobertWuthnow s AssociateProfessor of Sociology

at PrincetonUniversity

and Directorof

Princeton's

Program n Sciencein HumanAffairs.

Two Traditions in theStudy

ofReligion

ROBERT WUTHNOW*

Bainbridgeand Stark's essay on The ConsciousnessReformationillustrates conceptualand

theoreticalambiguitiescharacteristicof research n the scientific study of religionmoregenerally.This paper traces these ambiguities to the presenceof two competing,but poorly differentiated,

epistemological traditions. An examination of the assumptions implicit within each of these

traditionsprovidesa basis for clarifyingthe distinctionbetweenreligioussymbolismand religiousbelief, the concept of meaning, the difference between consistency as an attribute of belief and

coherence as an attribute of reality, and the role of interpersonalbonds in maintaining theplausibilityof religioussymbolism.An emergingthirdperspectivethat appearsto circumventsome

of the limitations of the two major epistemologicaltraditions is also discussed.

For much of its recent history the scientific study of religion has been divided by

competing intellectual presuppositions.Often the subject of discussion in the journalsand at professional meetings, these divisions continue to influence the selection of

researchproblems, the conceptualizationof variables, and even the decision of which

*RobertWuthnow s AssociateProfessor of Sociology

at PrincetonUniversity

and Directorof

Princeton's

Program n Sciencein HumanAffairs.

? Journal or theScientificStudy of Religion,1981,20 (1):16-32Journal or theScientificStudy of Religion,1981,20 (1):16-32

166

166







TWOTRADITIONSOF RELIGIOUSSTUDIES

variables to employ in research. They also inform the selection of methodological

styles, the application of statistical techniques, and the interpretation of research

results.

Of itself, intellectual disagreement is not an unhealthy state of affairs. It is thefailure to understand the assumptions underlying these disagreements that produces

ambiguity and conceptualconfusion. In the scientific study of religion such confusion

and ambiguity has been much in evidence. The existence of intellectual disagreementshas been widely admitted, but little has been accomplished toward clarifying the

nature, sources, and implications of these disagreements. As a result, it is not

necessary to search far in orderto find examples of strikingly discrepant conclusions

being drawn from the same data or from similar sets of empiricalobservations.

The Bainbridge-Stark essay contains much that is worthy of comment. It also

illustrates the deeper conceptual and theoretical ambiguity that currently pervades

researchin the scientific study of religion.Rather than responding only to questions ofmethod and interpretation,therefore,I shall directmy remarksprimarily o the deeper

presuppositions that underlie these ambiguities. I shall outline several broad

developments in the history of the scientific study of religion that have, in my view,contributedsignificantly to the present state of affairs.This approachwill allow issues

to be addressed that go well beyond the specific points raisedby Bainbridgeand Stark.

I shall argue, contraryto a widely held view, that the main lines of division in the

study of religion do not correspond to the cleavage between quantitative and

qualitative methods. Nor do they coincidewith the disjuncturebetween scientific and

humanistic perspectives. Close examination of the history of the field reveals instead

that it has been dividedprincipallyby two competing epistemologicalorientations.Thefirst, derived from Cartesian dualism, dominated the field during its initial

development and maturation. The second, a wholistic epistemology that came to be

articulated primarily in phenomenology and in textual hermeneutics, emerged in

response to problemsthat became increasingly apparentin the dualistic conceptionas

the field evolved. The wholistic approachwas not entirely successful at resolving these

problems, however. For at least the past two decades both orientations have been

represented n varying degrees in the majortheoreticalandempiricalformulationsthat

have guided work in the field. Although the resultant admixture has frequently been

productive, it has also left a heavy residue of terminological ambiguity which, in turn,

has contributed to misunderstanding in the conduct and interpretation of research.

Only by sorting out the presuppositions inherentin the two epistemologicaltraditions

that have shaped the study of religion does it appear possible to advance beyond the

currentconceptual confusion.

In the early phases of its development, the scientific study of religionwas unified

by a common epistemological outlook, even though several distinct theoretical

perspectives came into being during this period. This epistemological outlook was a

derivative ultimately of Cartesiandualism. At the heart of the dualistic conceptionof

reality was the idea that a perplexing gulf existed between the self, acting as a thinking

17







JOURNALFOR THE SCIENTIFICSTUDY OFRELIGION

subject, and the world of objects surroundingthe self. The fundamentalcharacteristic

of the human condition according to this analysis was alienation; i.e., the knowing

subject's awareness of being cut off from the object world. In Marx's view alienation

was the subjective counterpartof economic contradictions that estranged the laborerfrom his products, from his fellow laborers, and from himself. For Weber life was

characterized by an erosion of meaning inherent in the process of rationalization

through which the self gradually lost control of the world it had created.Similarlyfor

Durkheim,the greatest problemfacing humanity was the moralestrangement of the

individual from the society in which he lived and from the corporate rules of this

collectivity.With alienation identified as the fundamental dilemma of human existence, the

highest calling of scholarshipbecame that of reuniting subject and object. Indeed, the

great humanistic endeavor which lent modernscholarshipits motivating forceclaimed

as its primarygoal the task of reclaimingthe object worldfor the knowingself, therebyreconciling the two and reinstating the self to its naturalposition as master over the

object world. To this end, the central purpose of human knowledge came to be

identified as demystification, to be accomplished through what Ricoeur (1973) has

aptly termed a "hermeneuticsof suspicion."Demystification of the object world and of

the forces in it impelling fear and estrangement in the knowing self was to be

accomplished by adopting a skeptical attitude concerningthe "objectivity" or realityof the object world.By questioning its nature,the worldof objects was to be unmasked

and shown to be no longer an immutable fact of the external non-humanworld but

rather a product of human creation. Once the world of objects was thus unmasked, it

could be re-created,controlled,and appropriatedby the self for its own uses. In thisway subject and object were to be reunited and alienation was to be overthrown.

While there were important nuances that can be overlookedfor present purposes,the commonphilosophicaloutlookon whichthe scientific study of religionwas founded

stressed, in short, that all of reality was divided fundamentally into two categories

consisting of subject and object, that humanity was brokenby this division, and that

this brokenness could be healed by the strategic application of skeptical knowledge.The source and function of knowledge, the epistemological agenda of the Cartesian

perspective, lay in the recognition that the self was the originatorof knowledge, that

the world of objects existed ultimately through and only through the subject's

knowledge of this world,and that the self gained mastery over the worldand thereby

conqueredself-estrangementprimarilyby extending its knowledge of the world. This

conception of knowledge had decisive implications for the study of religion.

Having as its focus the worship of and subjugation of human desires to objectsconceived of as supernatural entities existing entirely beyond the realm of human

manipulation or control and, moreover, exerting constraint over human affairs,

religion, so conceptualized,stood forth as an exampleof ultimate reificationwithin the

Cartesian framework. It was, in Marx's terms, one of humankind's "alienated life

elements," symptomatic of the alienation of subject from object, an expressionhowever naive of the human quest to heal the breachbetween consciousness as actor

and the constraints of the object worldimpingingcontinuously on the actor's freedom.Contrary to the realization of Enlightenment hopes for emancipation of the human

18







TWOTRADITIONSOFRELIGIOUSSTUDIES

spirit, however, the prevailing tendency of religion was to reify the object world as a

productof forcesentirely beyond humancontrol,rather than to acknowledge ts human

sources. The immediate task of humanistic scholarship, therefore, became that of

demystifying the "objectivity" of religiously conceivedobjects by demonstratingthatforces perceived religiously as emanating from the gods were in fact identifiable as

alienated elements of the human world itself.

From the classic dualistic conceptionof religionthe main research orientation that

developed might best be described as a radical sociology of knowledge approach,the

aim of which was to demonstrate through empirical investigation of the social world

that religiously-perceived forces were merely a reflection of other, more obviouslyhuman realities. The commonepistemological thread runningfromDescartes to Marx

to Freud was a reductionistic view of knowledge that equated understanding of

religious phenomena with the capacity to discover their correlates in the various

economic, societal, and biological dimensions of the human world (cf., Bellah, 1970:246-257).It is instructive to recognizethat this search forcorrelateswas madepossible

only by the fact that reality had in the first place been divided into two components -

the subjective and objective - which were then rediscovered to bear an empiricalrelation to one another!

The particular genius and basis of lingering attraction of the radical sociology of

knowledgeapproachto religionlay in the fact that paradoxically t met the humanistic

agenda of reclaiming the object world for the subject, while at the same time it

appeared, at least initially, to provide a firm foundation for scientific analysis by

reducing the subjective realm of religious belief to the more objective realm of

economic, social, and biological conditions. This fortunate union of humanism andscience failed to achieve its originalaspirations, however.

In the name of humanism,as Marx saw most clearly, science found it necessary to

invert the original subject-objectrelationship, focusing increasingly on the subjectiveelements of religion (i.e., belief),while attempting to explain them in terms of the more

objective facts of the social world.Though rooted in the initial humanistic conceptionof dualistic reality, the radical sociology of knowledge tradition evolved in a direction

that ran counter to both the philosophical and epistemological agendas that had

inspiredit: the former, nsofar as in practice it becamenecessary to identify religionas

a subjective phenomenonwhich it then proceededto alienate from the humanactor by

attributing religiousbelief to the object world fromwhich the actor was alreadycut off;the latter, in that the radical sociology of knowledge approachsubverted the higherorderepistemologicalgoal of explaining the (apparently)known - vis., the functioningof the gods - in terms of the (heretofore)unknown - the wishes and needs of the

knowing subject, replacing this higher order aim with what has always been the more

rudimentary and less satisfying strategy of normal science, namely, explaining the

unknown in terms of the known (here, religious belief in terms of observable social

variables).The chief difficulty in sustaining this inversion, apart from the inherent tensions

that evolved in relation to its humanistic origins, was that the radical sociology of

knowledgeapproachcould be regardedas scientifically satisfactory only as long as theconstructed, and therefore reducible,characterof the "objective" life world to which

19







JOURNALFORTHE SCIENTIFICSTUDY OF RELIGION

religion was to be reduced was denied. There was, therefore, an inevitable tendencywithin the dualistic tradition toward (1) reification of the object world - a tendencythat became fully pronounced with the triumph of empirical positivism; (2)

exaggeration of the distinction between culture,which was presumedto be subjective,and social structure,which was presumedto be objective;and (3)an increasingbias in

researchon religion to focus on the cognitive dimension of religion,making it possiblefor religion to be conceived of primarilyas culture and, therewith, to be regardedas

explicable in relation to social structure, as opposed to the ritualistic, behavioral,and

institutional elements of religion that could not be separated as easily from social

structure.

II

If reductionism became a serious problem in the dualistic tradition, as it didparticularlyfor those inspired by the originalhumanistic agenda of reconcilingobjectwith subject rather than reducing subject to object, then an obvious solution was to

reconceptualizereligion. In orderto save religionfromreductionism,it was necessarythat religion be conceived as something other than an external object. Most

importantly, the idea of the supernaturalas being a constraining force external to the

knowing subject had to be circumvented,for the main line of theoreticalargumentationin the radical sociology of knowledge approach had attempted to demonstrate that

these constraining forces were not in fact manifestations of the supernatural, but

mythologized expressions of the socialand natural world.Thereconceptlalization that

began to take shape was concerned above all with avoiding traditional assumptionsthat cast religion within the epistemological frameof the subject-object split. In this

effort, the distinction between part and whole became an attractive alternative.

Increasingly there developedwhat might be called a wholistic approachto the study of

religion.In the wholistic tradition the essential element of religion has been conceived of,

not as the worship of realities external to the self, of which belief in the supernaturalconstitutes the clearest example,but as an expression of universal quests for meaningin life. This orientation is in fact common to most of the frequently cited definitional

discussions of religion in the social scientific literature (e.g., Bellah, 1970: 16; Berger,

1969:24-28;Geertz, 1973:87-125).Meaning, as conceptualizedin these discussions, isan attribute of symbolism, including objects, acts, events, and utterances, and is

assumed to be definedby the context in which a symbol or set of symbols appears. In

short, meaning is contextual. Bellah, describing meaning associated with religious

symbolism, writes, "Meaning in this sense is location in a context, in a largerinterrelated framework defined by values or norms of a more general order than the

specific act or object" (1970: 260-261).Bergerand Luckmann(1966)emphasizethe role

of "symbolicuniverses" in conveying meaningto individuals and collectivities. Geertz

(1973: 126-141)stresses that sacred symbols mediate between the ethos of immediate

activities and more general conceptions of reality.

The contextual definition of meaning derives from linguistic formulations,particularly those of Saussure (1959) and Langer (1951), in which the meanings of

20








words are given by the contexts, ranging from sentences to entire texts, in which theyare used. This definition has also been widely assumed in social scientific treatments of

meaning that bear little affinity to one another on the surface. For example, Cantril's

(1941:59) discussion of the psychological factors motivating social movements treatsmeaning as a "frame of reference"making isolated stimuli interpretable. Seeman's

(1959; 1972: 472) extension of this argument conceptualizes meaninglessness as "a

sense of the incomprehensibilityof social affairs, of events whose dynamics one does

not understand and whose future course one cannot predict . . ." Jung (1963: 246)

speaks of psychological meaning as presupposing "a view of the whole." Fingarette

(1963)describes it as a scheme that makes everything "hang together" in a new way.Other discussions have focused less on the cognitive aspects of meaning,but have also

stressed the idea of context. Laski's (1961)workon ecstatic experiencessuggests that

an intuitive feeling of wholeness and relatedness often accompaniesthese experiences.

Maslow (1962, 1970)has made similar claims in his work on peak experiences. Frankl(1963, 1969)emphasizes the concept of purposein his work on meaning,but the role of

purpose is primarily one of providing a context in which to relate more proximateactivities to one another. In all these approaches meaning connotes context. The

necessary condition for understanding the meaning of a symbol is to know what

context or frame of reference the symbol connotes.

Given this contextual conceptionof meaning,it is then importantto recognizethat

contexts can be differentiated in terms of scope or comprehensiveness.Some symbols

point to narrow realms of activity, give meaning only to the activities within that

realm,and derive their meaning entirely within this narrowcontext. Narrowmeanings

and contexts, however, require larger contexts in order for them to be integrated (cf.,Berger and Luekmann, 1966).Thereis, in other words, a kind of hierarchyof contexts

for which meanings can be sought. Moreover,as one moves toward larger and more

encompassingcontexts, a limiting point is finally approached n whichquestions about

the meaningof the whole of reality must be addressed. These includequestions suchas:

What is the meaning of life? What are the ultimate conditions of existence? How did

reality begin and how will it end? What absolutes can be identified within the whole of

reality? Such questions, addressed tacitly or explicitly, have been the focus of the

world's religions. In the wholistic tradition, therefore, the distinctive feature of

religious systems came to be identified as symbolism that attempted to evoke

meanings embracingthe whole of reality.

Equating religion with wholistic symbolism proved to be an effective way of

protecting religion from the reductionistic tendencies inherent in the dualistic

tradition. It was Wittgenstein (1974) who, though inadvertantly, articulated most

clearlythe reasonwhy. Defining the "world" n his famousfirst propositionas "allthat

is the case," Wittgenstein went on to assert that "the meaning of the world must lie

outside of the world"or, in his morepoetic assertion, "the solution of the riddle of lifein space and time lies outside space and time." Put'differently, the meaning of thewhole of reality is itself not a part of the world of facts. Symbols that point to the

meaning of the whole occupy a different plane from those pertaining to the empirical

world. The realm with which religionis concerned,therefore,is neither reducibleto the

empiricalworld nor a phenomenonthat can be investigated empirically.

21







JOURNALFOR THE SCIENTIFICSTUDY OF RELIGION

Wittgenstein himself failed to perceivethe full significanceof his formulationas an

alternative to the subject-objectconceptionof reality and reverted in his own life to a

form of private mysticism that protected his religious convictions from objective

reductionism by making them purely subjective. What his formulation provided,nonetheless, was a simple statement of a new epistemologicalview that was to have a

profound impact on the study of religion, albeit only remotely attributable to

Wittgenstein's own influence.

As with the dualistic outlook, the wholistic perspective contained within it a

distinct image of human nature and an epistemological agenda that reflected this

image. The fundamentalproblem facing humanity was no longer identified as one of

reconciling subject and object, but was defined as a search for wholistic meaning. The

quest for meaning was of ultimate concern because reality was conceived to be

fundamentallydivided, just as it had been in the subject-object split, but now divided

between part and whole (in this sense it is appropriateto say that a basic dualism layalso at the core of the wholistic tradition). The gap between part and whole left the

events of life that the individual inevitably experiences as parts of a larger drama of

existence fragmented and lacking in meaning because the meaning of the whole

context of which they were a part could not be grasped either cognitively or

experientially. Yet, with the exception of treatments attempting to resolve this

problem simply by denying the possibility of finding ultimate meaning, the prospectthat the gap between part and whole could be mediated was held open. Symbols were

the key. Rituals, transcendent experiences, art, religious liturgy and doctrine were

recognized as means by which faith in the existence of wholistic meanings could be

inspired and communicated. The role of scholarship, therefore, was not so much toarrive at a cognitive understanding of the meaning of existence, but to clarify the

meanings that were conveyed by transcendent symbols.The wholistic tradition de-emphasizedbelief and cognition, focusing instead on

symbols as the defining element of religion.The source of knowledge of greatest value

to the resolutionof the human dilemma within this tradition was no longerthe knowing

subject but the symbol within which lay meanings that could only be grasped

intuitively. Emotion, will, and experiencewere as importantto this quest as cognition.

Nonetheless, the wholistic tradition also gave cognitive knowledgean importantplaceinsofar as this knowledge enhanced the capacity to understand the mannerin which

symbols functioned.The majormethodologicalapproachesthat emergedwithin the wholistic tradition

werephenomenologyand hermeneutics. The former,particularlyin Heidegger's work,was preoccupiedwith the question of being in an ultimate or wholistic sense, focusingon the manner in which symbols convey meanings about the nature of being.

Phenomenology fit compatibly within the epistemology of the wholistic tradition in

that it stressed the exploration of the meanings that were associated with symbols.Hermeneutics also provideda methodologythat gave supreme mportanceto the studyof symbolism,particularly n its quest to reconstruct the meanings intended in written

texts by their original authors and audiences.

Both phenomenology and hermeneutics provided particularly attractive

methodologies for the study of religion since each explicitly denied the possibility of

22








reducing religious symbolism to any other aspect of reality. Unlike the dualistic

tradition, phenomenology and hermeneutics treated religious symbols as objective

realities (whenceBellah's term, "symbolic realism";1970:254), and stressed the value

of examining the meanings attached to these symbols. Neither of these approaches,however, proved to be particularly successful in establishing a solid basis for the

scientific study of religion. Whereas the dualistic tradition provided a rationale for

assuming that generalizationscould be made about the relationshipsbetween religiousbelief and social conditions and suggested that such information was of value,

phenomenologyand hermeneuticsboth fell shy of supplying a method for discovering

generalizations about the meanings of symbols. For its part, phenomenologyfaltered

because the meaning of a symbol, understoodcontextually, must be studied in relation

to the specific context in which someone uses it. Any symbol will have as many

meanings as it has contexts, eachuser interpretingit in relationto the context in which

he or she employs it. To fully understandthe meanings of a symbol in all the richness ofdetail and empathy that the phenomenologicalmethoddictated, therefore,provedto be

an impossible task. Hermeneutics founderedon a related problem.While its quest to

reconstruct the originalmeanings of religious texts provedvaluable for the purposeof

textual criticism,no satisfactory methodexisted in many cases forverifying that these

meanings were in fact the originalintentions of the authors of the texts. Moreover,the

reconstructive method did not provide a satisfactory solution for dealing with the fact

that texts and other symbols acquire quite different meanings in different contexts.

Because of their limitations as directives for empiricalresearch, phenomenologyand hermeneutics came to serve the study of religion primarily as a theoretical

rationale for the importance and nonreducibility of religion, while the dualistictradition continued to supply the major definitions and concepts used in research

investigations. Not surprisingly, observers of the field have commentedfrequently on

the breach between theory and research. Less often have they perceived the deeper

epistemological differences contributing to the perpetuation of this breach.

Consequently, efforts to bridge the gap have generally been constructed with ad hoc

borrowings from both traditions and with patchwork conceptual compromises, but

seldom with explicit acknowledgmentof the fundamentalassumptions differentiatingthe two approaches.

III

An understanding of the assumptions underlying the dualistic and the wholistic

traditions provides a basis for clarifying the ambiguity that has surrounded he studyof meaning systems and of religious symbolism more generally. Discussions of

religious meanings have generally associated the concept of meaningwith symbolism.

Religious symbols exist in the form of written texts, verbal utterances, rituals, social

institutions, and stylized behavior and events. As concrete objects they can be

examined empirically. One set of symbols can be compared with another and the

behavioral, attitudinal, and emotionalpatterns associated with the use of each set can

be assessed. Evidence can be obtained by examining texts, rituals, and other symbols

directly orby questioning individuals forwhom symbol systems aremeaningful.In the

23







JOURNALFOR THE SCIENTIFICSTUDYOFRELIGION

latter case, as in the former,the unit of analysis is the symbolor cluster of symbols, not

the individual as is the case in standard social psychological research.

Confusion has often been present in discussions of religious meaning because the

idea of meaning systems, itself a product of the wholistic tradition, has not beendistinguished carefully from concepts rooted in the dualistic tradition, such as world-

view and belief system. The distinction is far moreimportantthan one of merestylistic

preference.A meaning system refers to the dominant meanings in a culture that are

associated with a particularset of symbols. Its distinguishing feature is an identifiable

set of symbols with which interpretations,feelings, and activities can be associated. A

world-viewor belief system, in contrast, consists of all the beliefs that an individual

holds about the nature of reality. An individual's world-viewcan thus be comprisedof

beliefs about any numberof different symbols, but a meaning system, by comparison,

pertains to one set of symbols, even though these symbols may be used in a numberof

different texts, settings, or collectivities. The two concepts are also differentiated interms of the importancethey attach to the role of cognition. World-viewsarecreations

of thinking individuals;it is the knowing subject of the dualistic traditionwho reflects

on the world and who holds beliefs about this world. Or, as Bainbridge and Stark

observe, the idea of a world-view mplies that individualsare amateurphilosophers,an

assumption compatible with the Enlightenment image of humanity. The conceptof meaning system necessitates no such assumption, however, only a willingness to

treat symbols as objects in their own right. Meanings evoked by symbols occurat the

emotional and volitional levels as well as at the cognitive level. A symbol provides a

bridge between raw experienceand some sense of a larger reality. But this sense may

be as much felt, intuited, worshipped,held in awe, acted upon, hopedfor, trusted in, or

tacitly accepted as codified conceptually, understood cognitively, or articulated

verbally.The vast majorityof studies examiningreligious phenomenausing survey research

techniques have focused on belief systems or world-views rather than on meaning

systems. These studies have chosen the individual as the unit of analysis and have

attempted to identify patterns of belief within the social psychology of the individual

survey respondent. Among the conclusions that can be drawn from these studies are:

(1) the number of factors or dimensions of individual belief is nearly as varied as the

number of samples and sets of items employed; (2) beliefs measured by items with

highly similarwordings often cluster together, but the relationships are often weakerthan expected and, moregenerally, the humanpsyche displays a remarkable olerance

of inconsistency and ambiguity; (3) responses to these cognitive items are predictedbest by cognitive variables such as education and religious training; (4) individuals

with greaterexposureto certain kinds of cognitive trainingshowgreaterconsistency in

their beliefs than do others; and (5) the relationship between beliefs and social

conditions is much less determinantthan once predictedby the classic theorists of the

dualistic tradition (cf., Converse, 1964).Studies in which religious symbols, rather than individuals, serve as the units of

analysis, have been relatively uncommon and have been conducted almost entirely

outside the confines of quantitative sociology. Levi-Strauss' (1963)work on primitive

myths, Ricoeur's(1967)examination of the symbolism of evil, and Weber'swell-known

24








discussion of theodicies represent some of the few examples of social research

concerned explicitly with the study of symbolism. In these cases data were drawn

exclusively from religious texts. Examples of data drawn directly from the users of

symbolism arevirtually nonexistent outside of anthropology(onesignificant exceptionis Bainbridge's [1978]valuable discussion of symbolism in a satanic cult).

The Bay Area survey on which the ConsciousnessReformationwas based was an

attempt to examine and comparethe implicationsof severalsymbol systems that have

enjoyed prominence n American culture. Moreover, t did so not by studying symbolsin the abstract but by soliciting data directly from individuals. The purpose of the

study was to identify people who found each of these symbol systems meaningfuland

to comparethese peoplein order to examinethe behavioraland attitudinal orientations

associated with each symbol system. To this end, persons interviewed were groupedinto seven categories on the basis of a numberof survey items, such that each group

consisted of persons who used one set of symbols, or combination of symbols, moreoften than any other set. This procedureallowedcomparisonsto be made among four

major sets of wholistic symbolism - theism, individualism, social science, and

mysticism - as well as three mixed sets. Comparativeanalysis of these categories of

respondents permitted conclusions to be drawn about the kinds of activities, values,and specific attitudes associated with each symbol system as it existed in the Bay Area

in 1973. The study provided a comparative look at the meanings associated with

specific clusters of symbols in an empiricalsocial context. It representedan effort to

examine problems long held to be importantwithin the wholistic tradition- but using

empiricalmethods.

Bainbridge and Stark's analysis of the Bay Area data and of their data fromUniversity of Washington students represents a concern, not with symbol systems,but with the content of individuals' belief systems, as suggested in their introductoryremarkson world-views.The problemwith which their analysis is concerned is rooted

in the epistemology of the dualistic tradition, particularly in its emphasis upon the

subjective quality of individual religious beliefs and in its assumptions about the

predominately cognitive character of religious belief. This problem falls squarelywithin the tradition of research mentioned above that has been concerned with

patterns of individual belief. It is, however, as I indicated in the original study (1976:

189-190),quite different from the problemwith which that study was concerned.That

the two problems derive their epistemological justification from two traditionsdiffering in so many respects should be sufficient to suggest that moreis at issue than

the mere manipulation of statistics.1 Nor does this criticism apply uniquely to the

1. At the methodologicallevel I find it curious that Bainbridgeand Stark's attempt at replicationand

reanalysis (1)used only half of the original Bay Area sample,thereby greatly reducinglevels of variationin

meaning systems; (2)based this decisionon the desireto avoidweighted responses,but failedto recognize hat

all nondescriptive esults reported n the original studywerebased onnonweighted esponses; 3)did not use the

original question wordingsor responsecategoriesbut relied on untested Likert-type tems; (4)did not employthe exact combination of items used in two of the original scales; (5) did not publish their proceduresfor

handlingmiscellaneousresponse categoriesand missing data; (6)analyzed only twelveof the original28 items;

(7) chose only one method of factor analysis and did not defend this choice;(8) ignoredthe argumentsfrom

historicalandsurveyevidenceregarding he multidimensionalityof the variousmeaning systems and the needto combinespecific tems to delimitthe content of eachmeaningsystem;(9) gnored he multivariateanalysesin

the originalstudy that demonstrated he independenteffect of eachmeaningsystem controlling orthe others,

25







JOURNALFORTHE SCIENTIFICSTUDYOFRELIGION

Bainbridge-Starkessay, because one of the most curiousfeatures of the scientific study

of religion is that virtually all of its major conceptualizations of religion focus on

symbols, while empiricalstudies have been concerned almost entirely with beliefs.

A second point that can also be clarified with reference to the differentassumptions inherent in the dualistic and wholistic traditions concerns the tendency,not only in the present case but in a number of similar discussions, to confuse the

concept of consistency with that of coherence.Consistency is an attribute of the beliefs

of a specific individual. It is a measure of the extent to which beliefs - presumed

(usually by the social scientist) to be compatible with one another - in fact exist

simultaneously within the individual's cognitive world-view.As an empirical problem,

consistency is admirably suited to standard survey research procedures where anynumber of statistical measures are available for determining the extent to which

particularbeliefs go together with one another in a sample of individuals.

The difficulty with studies concerned with consistency arises howeverwhen, fromthe degreeof consistency, an inference is made about the degreeto which a person'slife

has meaning or the degree to which a particularsymbol system provides meaning (a

major argument in the Bainbridge-Stark discussion). This inference rests on the

assumption that meaningpresupposes a sense of coherence.The concept of coherence,

however, implies something quite different from consistency. The two derive from

different epistemological traditions.

The concept of consistency reflects the subjective, individualistic view of religion

implicit in the dualistic tradition and this tradition's historic emphasis on rationality.The fully-functioning subject is expected to have a view of the world that is accurate

and internally consistent. Inconsistency is tantamount to unsophistication,maladjustment, improper cognitive socialization or, as in Freud, symptomatic of

repressed drives. Even though the assumption that people strive to attain cognitive

consistency has been challenged repeatedly by empirical findings (an excellent

discussion is foundin Westie, 1965),the emphasis placed on rationality in the dualistic

tradition has made this assumption difficult to abandon.

The concept of coherence,by contrast, derives from the concernwith the meaningof reality, expressed in the wholistic tradition. Whereas consistency is an attribute of

an individual's belief set, coherence s an attribute ascribed to reality. Reality is said to

have meaning if some sense of coherencecan be attributed to it; that is, if it appearsto

hang together in such a way that its elements bear a relation to one another. Thus,when Berger(1969)describes religionas nomizing,he is referringto order or coherence

sensed as an aspect of reality, not to a pattern of consistency among an individual's

beliefs. Wilfred Cantwell Smith's (1979: 133) characterizationof the modern skeptic"for whom life consists of a congeries of disparate items among which they find no

coherence" clearly refers to an attribute ascribed to reality, rather than a lack of

and for a variety of cognitive, political, and religiousfactors; (10)ignoredthe conceptualdistinction between

items dealingwith generalizedmeaningsand items dealingwith specificactivities;and(11) gnored he fact that

religiousnonparticipationwas defined as a type of religious experimentationbut that items measuring t were

included n only one of the five experimentationndexes. In short, theirargument s built on a highly selective

pass throughthe data that in no way replicatesthe original study. It should also be noted that the logic oftypologicalconstructionandanalysis, including ts dissimilaritiesfromunidimensional caling techniques,was

discussed at length in the appendixof the originalvolume and need not be repeatedhere.

26








consistency among beliefs. Moreover,such discussions have explicitly rejectedthe idea

that a consistent cognitive world-view is a preconditionfor perceiving coherence and

meaning in reality. Geertz (1968: 97) describes religious traditions as "collections of

notions" ratherthan well-formulated ets of beliefs. Dumont (1977:20)asserts that thecoherenceimplicit in ideologies lies primarilyin "unstated views." Foucault (1972: 37)

argues for treating systems of knowledge as a "dispersion of elements" rather than

conceptual unities. Smith's (1979)distinction between faith as a dimly felt perceptionof coherence and belief as an attempt to articulate faith also reflects this point of view.

Bainbridge and Stark fail to distinguish clearly between coherence and

consistency. Their discussion of the different levels of consistency and inconsistencywithin individuals' belief systems does not provide a sufficient basis for their

assertions about the ability of different symbol systems to lend meaning or coherence

to life. The sense that life is meaningful- that there is coherenceto existence - can be

provided by a single symbol system or by symbols drawn from a combination ofsystems. The hallmarkof a pluralistic culture, in fact, is the number of such symbol

systems from which to choose. Mary Douglas (1973: 82) states the point well in her

discussion of individuals' world-views:

A classificationsystem can be coherentlyorganized or a smallpartof experience,and for the rest it

can leave the discrete items janglingin disorder.Orit can be highlycoherent n the ordering t offers

for the whole of experience,but the individualsfor whom it is availablemay enjoyaccess to another

competing and different system, equally coherent in itself, from which they feel free to select

segments here and thereeclectically,not worryingabout the overalllack of coherence.

She alsopoints

out that somesymbol systems

blendeasily

withothers,

while other

symbol systems requireexclusive adherence.

One implication of the Bay Area research is that the more recently emerging

meaning systems, namely social science and mysticism, appearto be more capable of

tolerating a variety of simultaneously held symbols than do traditionaltheistic sources

of meaning. Bainbridge and Stark's investigation provides additional support for this

idea.2It should not be concluded, however,that belief consistency will necessarily be a

mark of theism more than of other symbol systems. Much depends on the degree to

which tolerance of diversity is institutionalized. A recent study of Lutherans, for

example,found that less than threepercentadheredconsistently to all of the ten beliefs

theologians of the denomination had prescribedas normative tenets of the Lutherantradition (Wuthnow,1980).The Lutheranemphasis on faith alone mitigated the abilityof the churchin this case to requirestrict consistency of belief. Nor can it be argued,as

Bainbridge and Stark seem to suggest, that consistency is necessarily a product of

interaction within a "network of faith." A recently completed study of nearly a

thousand membersof sixty urbancommunes has replicatedthe meaning system items

used in the Bay Area study (Aidala, 1979). The study was able not only to reproduce

2. I do not consider their findings a valid criticism of the methodology originallyemployed,however. The

original analysis was quite explicit in documentingthe multidimensionalityof the various meaningsystems.Indeed,the choice of items for the constructionof empirical ndicators was dictated by the desire to measure

meaning systems representing the confluence of several distinct ideas. The methodology was one ofconstructing typologies capable of sorting out specific combinations of responses, not one of identifyingunidimensionalscales.

27







JOURNALFOR THE SCIENTIFICSTUDYOFRELIGION

the originalmeaning system measurebut to: (1)examine combinationtypes in further

detail, (2)demonstrate that these symbol systems were differentially and predictably

espoused in different types of communes,and (3)show that a numberof attitudes and

activities were associated with the different symbol systems. The study found littleevidence,however,to suggest that the close interactionof communememberswith one

another led members to adopt highly consistent world-views. Perceptions of

consistency appeared to vary more than actual levels of consistency. The evidence

demonstratedthat communesespousing certainsymbol systems as an officialideologywere more tolerant of inconsistencies among the beliefs of their members than were

communesespousing other symbol systems.This finding brings us to a remaining presupposition in contemporaryreligious

research,also illustrated in the Bainbridge-Starkessay, that requires clarificationin

light of the dualistic and wholistic traditions. Bainbridge and Stark suggest that

interaction is the necessary ingredient sustaining the plausibility of belief systems(also see Stark & Bainbridge, 1980). In various forms this notion has become quite

popularin recent years. Berger's (1969) idea of "plausibility structures" is a kindred

notion, suggesting that definitions of reality are convincing only when supported bywhat Berger calls "conversation." Roof (1978) draws on this idea to explain why"localistic"churchmembershold moretenaciously to traditional orthodoxbeliefs than

do cosmopolitans. Greeley (1976) has pointed to the "communal"basis of religiouscommitmentamongCatholics,arguingforthe importanceof "belonging"as areligiousneed equal to that of "meaning."The importance of group interaction has also been

stressed in the great numberof studies of new religiousmovements that have appeared

in the past few years.The rediscovery of the group is a welcome correctiveto a field in which the social

psychology of the individual has long reigned supreme. The difficulty with this

emerginginterest is that only one view of the roleof the group,rootedimplicitly in the

epistemology of the dualistic tradition, has been articulated. The result has been a

rebirth of sociological reductionism, this time in the subtle guise of what might be

termed "sociometric reductionism." This new reductionism rests on the traditional

dichotomybetween subject and object. Whilereligiousbelief continues to be treated as

an attribute of the subject, interpersonalbonds have become the new element of the

objective worldwith which to explain these beliefs. The existence of subjective beliefs

is presumed to depend on the prior, more objective existence of an interpersonalnetwork.

The new sociometric view also attaches undue importanceto the primarygroup.

Bainbridge and Stark suggest that religion is a viable meaning system because it

involves interpersonalbonds, whereassymbolismof otherkinds, such as individualism

or social scientific symbolism,cannotpossibly be a source ofmeaningbecauseit fails to

correspond with interpersonal networks. This argument appears credible with

referenceto a highly communalisticmeaning system such as Christianity (Gager,1975;

Roof, 1975),but is clearly unsatisfactory as a generalunderstandingof symbolism.To

suggest that close interpersonalbonds are a necessary condition for symbols to be

communicatedmeaningfully is to deny the symbolic character of most of the majorsocial institutions shaping modern culture and to go against the most insightful

28








analyses of these institutions (e.g., Sennett, 1976; Foucault, 1979; Polanyi, 1957).A closed socialnetwork that forms its own definition of reality may find it easier to

instill these definitions into the cognitive orientations of the group.But this argumentfails to reckonwith the

complexitiesof modern

society.Whilemodern societies can be

regardedas exchange systems, as Bainbridge and Stark argue, systems of exchangeare, as Durkheim knew, rooted in noncontractual relations of contract, in symbolicdramatizations that render contractual exchange legitimate, and are present as an

analytic dimensionof all social exchange. Within the wholistic tradition it has alwaysbeen recognizedthat these dramatizations need not be codified in articulate creeds to

be effective. Indeed, they arelikely to be morepowerfulif they communicatemeaningsthat are simply taken for granted and, thereby, enjoy the de facto status of taboo.3

IV

The foregoing has distinguished the main assumptions of the two traditions of

influence in the development of the scientific study of religion, indicating some of the

weaknesses of each tradition, and discussing the confusion over meaning, belief,

consistency, coherence, and plausibility structures which arises from an uncritical

blendingof the two traditions. In my view, muchof the apparent disparitybetween myresearchon meaning systems and Bainbridgeand Stark's essay is attributable to the

fact that the two discussions are concerned with quite differentproblemsgroundedin

two quite differenttheoreticaltraditions. I have also suggested that greaterconceptual

clarity can be attained by recognizing the assumptions implicit in each tradition.The

criticisms directed at both traditions, however, suggest that neither provides anentirely adequatebasis for the scientific study of religion. It is necessary, therefore,to

complete this discussion by pointing briefly to what appears to be a promising third

alternative. This emerging framework,most clearly evidenced in the work of Roland

Barthes (1967, 1972), Mary Douglas (1966, 1973, 1979),Jurgen Habermas(1979),and

MichelFoucault (1965, 1970, 1972, 1979),offers a methodof structuralanalysis for the

investigation of symbolism, including religion (see Pettit, 1975, for a generalintroduction to the method).

Structuralanalysis, to give this perspectivea name,takes symbolismas its domainof inquiry.Unlike the dualistic tradition,it treats symbols as observableobjects, rather

than presuming to tap into the subjective realm of individual attitudes and beliefs.

3. Bainbridgeand Stark also question whether or not each meaning system studied in the Bay Area is"distinct."My criteria for arguingfor their distinctness were:(1)the historicaluniquenessof their originand

development, ncludingthe differentinstitutionalbases originallypromulgatingeach meaning system, (2)thedistinctiness of the content of the major orienting symbols employedin each, (3) differencesin the sociallocationsof personsespousingeachas a dominantmeaning system, (4)differencesnthe attitudes and behaviorassociated with eachmeaningsystem, and(5)the capacityof eachmeaning system to effectvariationsin social

experimentationcontrolling for all the other meaning systems simultaneously. If Bainbridgeand Stark'sassertionswereto be supported,controlling or the effects of theism should havewipedout the effects of all theother meaning systems on the experimentationvariables. The evidence on p. 254 disconfirms this claim,demonstratingthe independenteffects of eachmeaning system on each experimentationndex,controllingforthe effects of the othermeaningsystems. Nowhere,moreover,did I assert that the differentmeaning systems

could be distinguishedby high statistical associations among items used in the construction of the meaningsystem typology. Items were selected preciselybecauseof their ability to delimit the content of the symbolsystems underconsideration.

29







JOURNALFORTHE SCIENTIFICSTUDYOFRELIGION

Symbols include acts, objects, events, and utterances. A response to a survey item,such as "I believe in God,"is treated as an objective utterance,a symbol, rather than a

mere indicator of an internal but unobservable orientation. Unlike the wholistic

tradition, structuralanalysis is concernedwith identifying the conditions that make asymbol meaningful not with describing in elaborate detail what these meanings are.

This distinction sets structuralanalysis apartas a method capableof going beyondthe

descriptive technique of phenomenology. The value of this distinction has been

demonstrated in linguistics.Modern linguistics advanced beyond philology primarily by abandoning its

predecessor's preoccupationwith the meanings of words and by focusing its attention

on the problemof what made words meaningful.Chomsky (1965)was able to identify

generative rules of grammar explaining the conditions under which it became

meaningfulto utter a statement such as "The salt is on the table," while avoiding the

endless task of describingall the connotations of these words to each speakeror hearer.Structural analysis extends this logic to the examination of symbols more generally,

arguing that rules conditioning the meaningfuluse of symbols can be identified, while

recognizingthat the specific meanings conveyed will vary from one situation orpersonto the next.

Structural analysis is built on the recognition that conditions affecting the

meaningfulness of symbolism consist of several types. Habermas (1979), followingSearle(1969),suggests that symbols are morelikely to be regardedas meaningfulif the

following correspondences can be shown to exist: (1) between the symbol and the

internal state of the speaker- sincerity;(2)between the symbol andreality - truth;(3)

between the symbol and rules of language - comprehensibility;and (4)between thesymbol and the social environment- legitimacy (also see McCarthy,1978).This last

correspondencerepresents the properdomain for the social scientific investigation of

symbolism, but it is acknowledgedto be only one of the conditions renderingsymbols

meaningful.Thereis, in otherwords,a conscious rejectionof sociologicalreductionism.

It is symptomatic of this awareness that recent examples of structural analysis have

been sharply differentiated from Levi-Strauss' earlier"structuralist" approach,which

claimed to be capable of unmasking the true meanings contained within bodies of

symbols (see Leach, 1974; Burridge, 1967; Douglas, 1967).Theoreticaland empiricalwork reflecting this, still poorly articulated, orientation

have adopted a variety of different approachesin searchingfor the specific conditionsor rules affecting the meaningfulness of symbols. One of Levi-Strauss's (1963)lastingcontributions to this effort has been the idea that meaningful symbolism is often

patterned after the major varieties of social exchange existing in a society. Parson's

(1978)discussion of "gift of life" imagery in Christianitydrawsheavily on this insight.

Mary Douglas (1966, 1973, 1979) has been concernedchiefly with the correspondencebetween body symbolism and the organization of social collectivities. Her work

suggests that the symbolization of boundaries is vital to the maintenance of order

within social life and to the meaningfulness of symbolic codes. In her view, the nature

of symbolic classifications is an importantconditioninfluencingthe meaningfulnessof

specific symbols. Foucault (1965, 1970) has also dealt with the relation between

categories and symbols and in his morerecent work has examined the ritual dimension

30








of social acts, such as imprisonment, punishment, and factory work, that dramatize

modes of social organization (1979). Searle (1969), focusing on promises as a type of

symbolic utterance, has examined the manner in which the arrangement of words

themselves contribute to the meaningfulness or "illocutionaryforce" of the utterance.Otherapproachesstress the role of social factorscontributingto the meaningfulnessof

symbols. For example, the structural perspective has been adopted to develop

hypotheses about the relations between the structure of ideologies and social

environments characterizedby different types of resources(Wuthnow,1981).Common

to all these approaches is the assumption that patterns - structures - can be

identified among symbols themselves, including the symbolic dimension of all social

activity, fulfilling the requirements necessary for any particular symbol to

communicatemeaningfully.The method of structural analysis thus offers promising opportunities for the

scientific study of religion,particularly n its circumvention of the problematicdivisionbetween subject and object in the dualistic tradition and in its formulation of a

researchagenda going beyond the wholistic tradition by shifting attention away from

the description of symbolic meanings to the identification of conditions that make

symbols meaningful.Most of the work neededto articulate, to test, and to extend this

perspective still lies ahead however.

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Documents