On Smith, Van Voorst and Masuzawa

In general, this week’s readings all addressed the idea of the relation between the concept and the object of study. In the field of religious studies especially, the concept of an object changes the object, or in fact constructs the object altogether. We have examples like Edward Said’s discussion of Orientalism, wherein he points out that the “Orient” is a discursive tradition created by the West in order to justify their imperialism, and to serve as a backdrop against which the West looks better in comparison. This idea is very much carried on in the Invention of World Religions, and I will return to it later.
Smith opens with the idea of the problematic construction of the category of religion. As many of us may have experienced, most classes begin with a discussion of this category (or they ought to!). In fact, much of the Western tradition of the study of religion can be understood as the effort to come to an understanding of the proper object of our study, namely, what is religion in and of itself? If we cannot agree on the province of the word itself, scholars will not be able to engage in debate. Instead the field degenerates into taking pot-shots at each other’s inadequate definitions. On page 3, Smith draws attention to how, even within Christian circles, agreement on the nature of religion does not come easily.
On pg. 273 Hume correctly points out that religion as an anthropological category must reflect all the contradictions and particularities that exist among people. I find it interesting how Hume does not mention the experience of the supernatural or the sacred, yet this aspect becomes part of the definitions in the 20th century. He also shows how the study of religion gradually changes its perspective, from being a critique of religions from without, to an attempt to understand the religion from within, beginning notably with Geertz.

In the Van Voorst article on page 3, Van Voorst mentions how Cantwell Smith wanted to study scripture as it was actually used in religious practices. But what if the study of scripture itself, and the literature published about it, affects the way is scripture is seen and used? Can scholars really study a phenomenon without affecting it? Their “objects of study” can read what is written about them and are often moved to write apologetics. Indeed many religions are defined by their reactions to perceived misunderstandings about them. Protestantism did not come to a clear doctrine until Calvin defended Protestantism against the claims and criticisms of the Roman Catholics and the Anabaptists.
On page 4 the comment about ‘scipturalness’ being a category that is subjective, and often constructed in retrospect, is bang on. English Literature deals with the same question: whom do we canonize? The same questions arise in most aesthetic disciplines.
Van Voorst makes clear that the value/authority/sacredness of the scripture does not reside solely in its words. The object of the text, including its outward form and binding becomes an object of worship that can bring good fortune and ward off evil. In English literature, there is a strain of criticism called “book history” wherein the outward form of the book is studied as having a critical impact upon the way a book is absorbed and understood.

I take issue with Masuzawa’s introduction on page 2 in The Invention of World Religions: I don’t think that the term ‘religion’ is still a category that is resistant, essentialized, or unhistoricized. That happens when you postulate essences, and the idea of an essence of religion does not have the same currency as it once had in Eliade’s time. This is not to say that the desire to continue to do so is not still pervasive in Religious Studies dept. but there have been critiques, and there are ways of historizing religion.
On page 11, it is an interesting point that ‘world religions’ is a term without a history. It begins to appear and is taken for granted from the get-go. Later on in the book, Masuzawa points out that at the attitude of being a ‘sympathetic insider’ is de rigeur for any religion scholar, and yet, to date, this attitude has not been properly critiqued. Simply because the word sounds like a good idea should not exempt it from being examined and quantified. On this point, on page 13 also, there is the critique that ‘pluralism’ has become a dominant idea and yet remains only vaguely defined. Again, just because the notion sounds like a good idea is no reason to analytically ignore it.
The idea of speaking about other religions and later on, the field of comparative religion, arose in a period of insecurity and upheaval for the West. Masuzawa remarks that this has marked western scholars with a tendency towards protectionism and towards an aggressive outlook towards the Other (pg.20). In a sense, much of the early discourse about other religions arose not as a way to better understand them, but as a way to better understand how we were NOT them. The vast catalogues of the Other’s ceremonies, religion and culture are there for ridicule, or for disparaging comparison with the West’s innate superiority. As Said said in his book Orientalism: “Orientalism is- and does not simply represent- a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with “our” world” (12). Substitute the Other, for Orientalism, and we have the gist of the argument in Masuzawa’s book. The comparative study of religions arose not from a desire to objectively understand the Other, but to enshrine the Other as Other, and thereby justify our high estimation of our own cultural and religious practices.