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The Impossibility of Religious Freedom by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
5.0
Oftentimes when it comes to legal cases of religious freedom, the state is choosing the losers and the winners, either directly or indirectly. This is because the law essentializes religion to be only one thing when it is often multiple. The modern legal system, in its empirical, positivist modes of thought, misunderstands religion. Religion is often transient and nonbinary, developed from modes of thought separate from the trajectory of the modern Enlightenment western modes of thought which formed our legal system as we know it today. Importantly, this legal system, as an inherent characteristic of its structure, cannot change itself as fast as religion does. The law must be trans-historical and stable to be applied in various cases while most contemporary theories of religion are by nature specific to a historical context.
Sullivan begins the final chapter of The Impossibility of Religious Freedom with a discussion of two seemingly opposed views which are held by the plaintiffs in the Warner trial. The decidedly religious plaintiffs simultaneously knew that “the objects they assembled” on the graves of their loved ones were “ordinary rocks and plants and cement statues, but they also knew that these things represented all that was holy.” (Sullivan, 142-143) I say that the plaintiffs were “decidedly” religious because their religiosity was ultimately (after much interrogation) declared sincere by Judge Ryskamp (Sullivan, 6). However the plaintiff’s grave decorating was seen as not necessarily required by their respective religious traditions. Therefore, in the court’s eyes, a neutral law that prohibits these practices cannot be a substantial burden on the religious practices of the plaintiffs. The court presumed that religion consists of stable doctrine and law which must be highly textual and able to be referenced. This places religious peoples as passive agents in their traditions. However, the plaintiffs understood their religion to be a formative process, formed by “a mix of motivations and influences, familial, ecclesiological, aesthetic, and political.” (Sullivan, 36) In this sense, the plaintiffs were both formed by their religion, and engaged in forming their religion through their activity in the world. It is not necessarily the symbols involved in these formative processes that religious people engage in that matter, but what people do with them. As Sullivan points out, the historical usage of the Star of David was not investigated at all in the trial, it was “simply accepted as incontrovertibly religious.” (Sullivan, 43) However, the plaintiffs were pushed until they were forced to admit that other objects they placed on graves for religious reasons were not, as objects in and of themselves, holy in any way, such as the marble chips Ms. Warner placed on her husband and son’s graves.
Speech is as much a formative process of one’s religion as any other action. Therefore, by the mere act of bringing their case into the courtroom, the plaintiffs were forced to publicly formulate their religion in real time. They were basically being asked to outline all of the various motivations and influences leading to their actions which they deemed to be religious by an interrogator who only understood legitimate religious influences to be those which are as strictly binding as legal doctrine. “The question at trial was: Did an external authority regard the plaintiffs’ actions as ‘central to’ or ‘necessary to’ their religious traditions? Were the plaintiffs ‘required’ to do what they did? As if the law could take cognizance only of what could be construed as a competing set of norms, norms finding their authority in an alternative but recognizable religio-legal structure.” (Sullivan, 111)
At what point can an action of a religious individual be said to be a religious action or not? This question is one that courts would like to avoid. It is easier for courts to simply determine if an individual’s actions can be seen to be in line with some ordained law. The City understood religion to be like secular law in that it simply involved passive religious subjects fitting their actions to a prescribed set of rules, regulations, and obligations (Sullivan, 36). It is as if the legal system would like all religions to follow the same structure as legal code and contain a canonized set of laws and orders to be followed. In this sense, “modern law wants an essentialized religion.” (Sullivan, 55) However, as most scholars of religion come to believe through their studies: there is no one true experience or expression of religion, and this is a nightmare for the court because then how can religion be regulated? This is ironic considering several religion scholars were called upon as “expert witnesses” in the trial. The court is afraid of religion being an intensely personal or private activity as this is hard to regulate. However, religion is not personal, there is a strong connection to a community, dead and alive, social and emotional. The court is afraid of an individualistic religion because in a way they have forced themselves into that definition, “constitutionally it’s impossible for courts to recognize religious authority as defining orthodox practice and that, therefore, constitutionally courts have to look to the individual. But it doesn’t mean that the individual is not seen in the context of the community” and yet, “a lack of formal authority did not sever all ties between the individual and the norms and practices of religious communities. The Warner plaintiffs, like all persons who are religiously motivated, were profoundly connected to a wider community, dead and alive.” (Sullivan, 87-88)
This does not make religion any easier to regulate though because the question then becomes: Where is this community? What do they say? These are not easy questions to answer, even for ordained religious authorities. After all, “We live increasingly in a world of diaspora religious communities in which all religions are everywhere, in which all religions everywhere are governed by secular legal regimes, and in which all religions everywhere are being reinvented by their adherents to suit new circumstances.” (Sullivan, 3) However these are questions that the plaintiffs were being forced to answer in real time in the courtroom.
Institutional powers exhibit anxiety about the anarchy which an individualistic understanding of religion ostensibly allows for. Sullivan counters that this “religious anarchy” isn’t a real danger. Whatever is meaningful to people is a possibility for thinking about religion. Sullivan sees these lived religious practices as coming out of communal relations. But at the same time, Sullivan doesn’t care about defining religion, making her completely unhelpful to the court system as long as they insist on upholding “religious freedom” as they understand it. Unfortunately, seeing as the courts are unwilling to let their idea of religious freedom go, Sullivan is unhelpful to the plaintiffs as well, and they ultimately lose the trial.
Sullivan sees religion clauses in the law as a real problem. She says people are abused by the system. How people want to define their world and what they want to do is not possible because there are some types of religiosity that are more likely to be recognized by the state than others. Sullivan’s concern with freedom of religion is that it is not free. It doesn’t protect all religion, but only some religion.
Sullivan begins the final chapter of The Impossibility of Religious Freedom with a discussion of two seemingly opposed views which are held by the plaintiffs in the Warner trial. The decidedly religious plaintiffs simultaneously knew that “the objects they assembled” on the graves of their loved ones were “ordinary rocks and plants and cement statues, but they also knew that these things represented all that was holy.” (Sullivan, 142-143) I say that the plaintiffs were “decidedly” religious because their religiosity was ultimately (after much interrogation) declared sincere by Judge Ryskamp (Sullivan, 6). However the plaintiff’s grave decorating was seen as not necessarily required by their respective religious traditions. Therefore, in the court’s eyes, a neutral law that prohibits these practices cannot be a substantial burden on the religious practices of the plaintiffs. The court presumed that religion consists of stable doctrine and law which must be highly textual and able to be referenced. This places religious peoples as passive agents in their traditions. However, the plaintiffs understood their religion to be a formative process, formed by “a mix of motivations and influences, familial, ecclesiological, aesthetic, and political.” (Sullivan, 36) In this sense, the plaintiffs were both formed by their religion, and engaged in forming their religion through their activity in the world. It is not necessarily the symbols involved in these formative processes that religious people engage in that matter, but what people do with them. As Sullivan points out, the historical usage of the Star of David was not investigated at all in the trial, it was “simply accepted as incontrovertibly religious.” (Sullivan, 43) However, the plaintiffs were pushed until they were forced to admit that other objects they placed on graves for religious reasons were not, as objects in and of themselves, holy in any way, such as the marble chips Ms. Warner placed on her husband and son’s graves.
Speech is as much a formative process of one’s religion as any other action. Therefore, by the mere act of bringing their case into the courtroom, the plaintiffs were forced to publicly formulate their religion in real time. They were basically being asked to outline all of the various motivations and influences leading to their actions which they deemed to be religious by an interrogator who only understood legitimate religious influences to be those which are as strictly binding as legal doctrine. “The question at trial was: Did an external authority regard the plaintiffs’ actions as ‘central to’ or ‘necessary to’ their religious traditions? Were the plaintiffs ‘required’ to do what they did? As if the law could take cognizance only of what could be construed as a competing set of norms, norms finding their authority in an alternative but recognizable religio-legal structure.” (Sullivan, 111)
At what point can an action of a religious individual be said to be a religious action or not? This question is one that courts would like to avoid. It is easier for courts to simply determine if an individual’s actions can be seen to be in line with some ordained law. The City understood religion to be like secular law in that it simply involved passive religious subjects fitting their actions to a prescribed set of rules, regulations, and obligations (Sullivan, 36). It is as if the legal system would like all religions to follow the same structure as legal code and contain a canonized set of laws and orders to be followed. In this sense, “modern law wants an essentialized religion.” (Sullivan, 55) However, as most scholars of religion come to believe through their studies: there is no one true experience or expression of religion, and this is a nightmare for the court because then how can religion be regulated? This is ironic considering several religion scholars were called upon as “expert witnesses” in the trial. The court is afraid of religion being an intensely personal or private activity as this is hard to regulate. However, religion is not personal, there is a strong connection to a community, dead and alive, social and emotional. The court is afraid of an individualistic religion because in a way they have forced themselves into that definition, “constitutionally it’s impossible for courts to recognize religious authority as defining orthodox practice and that, therefore, constitutionally courts have to look to the individual. But it doesn’t mean that the individual is not seen in the context of the community” and yet, “a lack of formal authority did not sever all ties between the individual and the norms and practices of religious communities. The Warner plaintiffs, like all persons who are religiously motivated, were profoundly connected to a wider community, dead and alive.” (Sullivan, 87-88)
This does not make religion any easier to regulate though because the question then becomes: Where is this community? What do they say? These are not easy questions to answer, even for ordained religious authorities. After all, “We live increasingly in a world of diaspora religious communities in which all religions are everywhere, in which all religions everywhere are governed by secular legal regimes, and in which all religions everywhere are being reinvented by their adherents to suit new circumstances.” (Sullivan, 3) However these are questions that the plaintiffs were being forced to answer in real time in the courtroom.
Institutional powers exhibit anxiety about the anarchy which an individualistic understanding of religion ostensibly allows for. Sullivan counters that this “religious anarchy” isn’t a real danger. Whatever is meaningful to people is a possibility for thinking about religion. Sullivan sees these lived religious practices as coming out of communal relations. But at the same time, Sullivan doesn’t care about defining religion, making her completely unhelpful to the court system as long as they insist on upholding “religious freedom” as they understand it. Unfortunately, seeing as the courts are unwilling to let their idea of religious freedom go, Sullivan is unhelpful to the plaintiffs as well, and they ultimately lose the trial.
Sullivan sees religion clauses in the law as a real problem. She says people are abused by the system. How people want to define their world and what they want to do is not possible because there are some types of religiosity that are more likely to be recognized by the state than others. Sullivan’s concern with freedom of religion is that it is not free. It doesn’t protect all religion, but only some religion.
Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times In Today's New York by John Freeman
5.0
this book has some of the best short story writing i've ever read and also made me realize i probably can never live in nyc because it would tear me to shreds
The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination by Courtney Bender
Bender presents her book as beginning “with a set of questions about where (and in fact whether) spiritual identities, practices, and discourses are produced in similar ways to other religious identities, practices, and discourses.” (Bender, 3 [emphasis added]) The use of “other” here implies that spirituality is in the same category as religion. Spirituality thus is seen as religious, but separated in some way. Spirituality is commonly seen as “inner” or private, but spirituality is not necessarily experienced privately. Bender wants to connect the spiritual to the seemingly more communal “religious”, to draw spirituality out of the private, textual, inner sphere and into the performative, lived, religious sphere, albeit one which is made for and within secular spaces. I say that these spiritualities are made for and within secular spaces because they are designed, consciously or unconsciously, to be culturally and socially acceptable to the secular world. These spiritualities do not face the same sorts of discrimination historically experienced by religions such as Islam, Buddhism, or Judaism because they have evolved in tandem with the contemporary moment, a moment in which the secularization thesis, despite its falsehood, has had very real ideological effects. By disassociating themselves from the label of “religion”, people who claim to be “spiritual but not religious” free themselves from the discrimination faced by religious communities while still partaking in religious activities. Spiritual communities (to the extent that they even form cohesively under one “banner”) are united by their rejection of labels and yet they dabble in various clearly defined practices (yoga, reiki, mind healing, astrology) and recognize other groups and individuals with similar interests (Bender, 6). Through rejecting singular labels, the metaphysicals free themselves to continually reformulate what it is that they believe and who they are through their embodiment of a particular way of being. This is, in a way, what all religions do, although many do not get to benefit from the lack of a singular label used to paint them all with a broad stroke.
Above, I mentioned Bender’s desire to draw spirituality out of the purely textual sphere. A good example of this is her discussion of Professor Eugene Taylor’s lecture at a Swedenborgian Chapel. Bender mentions his extended critique of Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, and how Taylor focused “almost exclusively on internecine academic arguments about James’s intellectual influences and methods.” It was only much later that Bender realized “just how religious this talk was” and “how Taylor, himself a professor, had marshaled Menand and his book as new players in an unfolding epic familiar to many in the sanctuary.” (Bender, 14) Bender uses this as an opportunity to enter into a discussion of how it is not just “experiencers” of religion, but scholars as well who construct what religion itself is. A religious academic canon of textual disputes becomes marshaled into a cohesive discourse unfolding in real time. In the case of Professor Taylor’s lecture, this discourse is spoken into existence to a clergy that can partake in religious experience while still being afforded the privileges of the secular. “Metaphysical … traditions thrive within and through practices” (such as Professor Taylor’s lecture) “that spiritualize and secularize, embody and offer escape from embodiment.” (Bender, 5) In fact, metaphysicals “often stated that they chose to meet in churches because they were … doing the same thing as religious groups” (Bender, 34)
Harking back to the idea of Professor Taylor’s lecture as playing a role in speaking a religion into existence, there is this idea of “speaking as experiencing” (a section heading on page 70). In this section, Mike, a near death experiencer, warns that speaking about his experiences is “such a powerful act that it usually exhausts him completely.” Speaking in this case is exhausting because it is formative and once talked about or written it becomes something else. Interpretation of the experience through its translation into words adds to the experience and helps make it what it is. This can be contrasted with Bender’s idea of writing as being separate from experiencing in her discussion with Eric on writing down one’s dreams. Mike’s view of speaking as experience can be connected with Eric’s view of writing as experience. This experience can be a work in progress, continually reformulated and interpreted through multiple embodiments in both speech and writing, but ultimately Mike and Eric see the act of interpretation and the experience as the same.
What we mean when we refer to “spirituality” is similar to what we mean when we refer to “religion” in that both are dependent on social and historical context. Neither are new terms and as Bender painstakingly makes clear, “spirituality” has an entangled history going back to at least the 19th century of American religiosity. The different iterations of spirituality that Bender encounters can be said to be entangled in certain ideological ways with each other as far as maybe they agree that there are overarching principles in the universe or that there are questions which physics cannot answer. But ultimately it is not so much on a theoretical level that these spiritualities are entangled, but an experiential level. Bender herself, as an ethnographer, highlights the contextuality of the specific spirituality she is referring to as she is entangled in it herself. She is engaging primarily in sociology yet is focused on historical context and on experiences without quantifying them. Spirituality is entangled with history and society and tends to be talked about as “alternative to…” and defined in terms of the “religious” or the “secular” in order to be talked about at all. It is for this reason that, in trying to find some other way to speak about the spiritual, Bender focuses on experiences in the present moment, not the quantifiable causes or outcomes, but the actual lived, formative, experience as it is experienced and articulated. Still though, by nature of being recorded, these spiritualities are entangled with the imagination of academia, however the metaphysicals are aware of this. Just like any other religious practitioner, those who are “spiritual” or followers of “spirituality” construct what it means to be who they are through their own and other’s discourse. The possible only other difference being the ways in which the “spiritual” is necessarily defined in relation to the “religious” whereas religious peoples do not necessarily need to define themselves in terms of the “spiritual.” It is for this reason, this relational degree of separation between “spirituality” and “religion”, that spirituality can be understood as a secular religion, a religion with a quantifier.
5.0
Bender presents her book as beginning “with a set of questions about where (and in fact whether) spiritual identities, practices, and discourses are produced in similar ways to other religious identities, practices, and discourses.” (Bender, 3 [emphasis added]) The use of “other” here implies that spirituality is in the same category as religion. Spirituality thus is seen as religious, but separated in some way. Spirituality is commonly seen as “inner” or private, but spirituality is not necessarily experienced privately. Bender wants to connect the spiritual to the seemingly more communal “religious”, to draw spirituality out of the private, textual, inner sphere and into the performative, lived, religious sphere, albeit one which is made for and within secular spaces. I say that these spiritualities are made for and within secular spaces because they are designed, consciously or unconsciously, to be culturally and socially acceptable to the secular world. These spiritualities do not face the same sorts of discrimination historically experienced by religions such as Islam, Buddhism, or Judaism because they have evolved in tandem with the contemporary moment, a moment in which the secularization thesis, despite its falsehood, has had very real ideological effects. By disassociating themselves from the label of “religion”, people who claim to be “spiritual but not religious” free themselves from the discrimination faced by religious communities while still partaking in religious activities. Spiritual communities (to the extent that they even form cohesively under one “banner”) are united by their rejection of labels and yet they dabble in various clearly defined practices (yoga, reiki, mind healing, astrology) and recognize other groups and individuals with similar interests (Bender, 6). Through rejecting singular labels, the metaphysicals free themselves to continually reformulate what it is that they believe and who they are through their embodiment of a particular way of being. This is, in a way, what all religions do, although many do not get to benefit from the lack of a singular label used to paint them all with a broad stroke.
Above, I mentioned Bender’s desire to draw spirituality out of the purely textual sphere. A good example of this is her discussion of Professor Eugene Taylor’s lecture at a Swedenborgian Chapel. Bender mentions his extended critique of Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, and how Taylor focused “almost exclusively on internecine academic arguments about James’s intellectual influences and methods.” It was only much later that Bender realized “just how religious this talk was” and “how Taylor, himself a professor, had marshaled Menand and his book as new players in an unfolding epic familiar to many in the sanctuary.” (Bender, 14) Bender uses this as an opportunity to enter into a discussion of how it is not just “experiencers” of religion, but scholars as well who construct what religion itself is. A religious academic canon of textual disputes becomes marshaled into a cohesive discourse unfolding in real time. In the case of Professor Taylor’s lecture, this discourse is spoken into existence to a clergy that can partake in religious experience while still being afforded the privileges of the secular. “Metaphysical … traditions thrive within and through practices” (such as Professor Taylor’s lecture) “that spiritualize and secularize, embody and offer escape from embodiment.” (Bender, 5) In fact, metaphysicals “often stated that they chose to meet in churches because they were … doing the same thing as religious groups” (Bender, 34)
Harking back to the idea of Professor Taylor’s lecture as playing a role in speaking a religion into existence, there is this idea of “speaking as experiencing” (a section heading on page 70). In this section, Mike, a near death experiencer, warns that speaking about his experiences is “such a powerful act that it usually exhausts him completely.” Speaking in this case is exhausting because it is formative and once talked about or written it becomes something else. Interpretation of the experience through its translation into words adds to the experience and helps make it what it is. This can be contrasted with Bender’s idea of writing as being separate from experiencing in her discussion with Eric on writing down one’s dreams. Mike’s view of speaking as experience can be connected with Eric’s view of writing as experience. This experience can be a work in progress, continually reformulated and interpreted through multiple embodiments in both speech and writing, but ultimately Mike and Eric see the act of interpretation and the experience as the same.
What we mean when we refer to “spirituality” is similar to what we mean when we refer to “religion” in that both are dependent on social and historical context. Neither are new terms and as Bender painstakingly makes clear, “spirituality” has an entangled history going back to at least the 19th century of American religiosity. The different iterations of spirituality that Bender encounters can be said to be entangled in certain ideological ways with each other as far as maybe they agree that there are overarching principles in the universe or that there are questions which physics cannot answer. But ultimately it is not so much on a theoretical level that these spiritualities are entangled, but an experiential level. Bender herself, as an ethnographer, highlights the contextuality of the specific spirituality she is referring to as she is entangled in it herself. She is engaging primarily in sociology yet is focused on historical context and on experiences without quantifying them. Spirituality is entangled with history and society and tends to be talked about as “alternative to…” and defined in terms of the “religious” or the “secular” in order to be talked about at all. It is for this reason that, in trying to find some other way to speak about the spiritual, Bender focuses on experiences in the present moment, not the quantifiable causes or outcomes, but the actual lived, formative, experience as it is experienced and articulated. Still though, by nature of being recorded, these spiritualities are entangled with the imagination of academia, however the metaphysicals are aware of this. Just like any other religious practitioner, those who are “spiritual” or followers of “spirituality” construct what it means to be who they are through their own and other’s discourse. The possible only other difference being the ways in which the “spiritual” is necessarily defined in relation to the “religious” whereas religious peoples do not necessarily need to define themselves in terms of the “spiritual.” It is for this reason, this relational degree of separation between “spirituality” and “religion”, that spirituality can be understood as a secular religion, a religion with a quantifier.