Coming to Terms with the Cognitive Study of Religion

One of the things that came out of my recent visit to Krakow, as a delegate to the 25th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religion (doesn’t that sound grand, and rather nineteenth century?), was a clarity on what my next book (perhaps two books) might be. I spent much of my spare time, when not attending seminars or exploring the churches, city and landscape of Krakow, reading the final version of my book on myth, The Story in Religion, which I sent to the publishers in draft form earlier today. I have now written four books that are all part of my plan to produce a Grand Theory of Religion.

I have already written books on ritual, on belief, on the way people talk about religion, and on myth (or story). I have always thought that the next book should be on religious experience. I know the core message, that has always been clear: there is no such thing as ‘religious’ experience, only experiences that different religious discourses present in ‘religious’ terms, or, to relate it to the current book, through ‘religious’ stories. My problem, however, is that I am an anthropologist, with a strong interest in discourse and text, but with no knowledge, or any expertise, in the field of psychology. How on earth am I going to tackle the question of experience? Given the fact that most of the work I have so far read on religious experience has been somewhat trite, and of very little interest to me, I had no idea how I was going to get into this next book.

We had two keynote addresses at the conference, both on ritual. Neither was brilliant (one was really bad) but both referenced what has become known as the cognitive study of religion. This is one of those approaches to religion that immediately divides the crowds, especially at a conference on the study of religion. Like marmite you either love it, or you hate it. The first keynote, by an American scholar who has just won prizes for a book on ritual that, quite frankly, I could have written in my sleep (but not felt to be even worth writing) shows the negative side of the cognitive study. This takes the experimental element of psychology and applies it to religious contexts, in this case communal rituals. By measuring heart rates and other natural responses, the presenter claimed to have shown that rituals really do bring people together and helps them to breath as one (that is perhaps being a little too simplistic, but the argument was not far from this). This is rooted in Durkheim, Turner and others who have always noted that people, in crowds, begin to think as one and that the experience of the crowd is an essential part of the experience of the ritual.

The other keynote looked at ritual and play, something that is much more congenial as far as I am concerned, although nothing very new here either. The lecturer went back to the Greeks and the Romans and had some interesting things to say about the Persians, but it was his reference to a series of authors who I have always admired that rather stopped me in my tracks. He referred to the work of Marilyn Strathern, who led the department of Anthropology at Manchester when I was a student back in the 80s, Dan Sperber and Roy Wagner, whose work I have used consistently for the last forty years as the basis of my own ideas. These, the lecturer told us, were the founders of the ontological turn in anthropology and the cognitive study of religion. If that is true, then I must also be writing in the field of the cognitive study of religion without even realising it. I can certainly see the link to the ontological turn (although this is the first I had ever heard of it) as my current book talks about the importance of entering other worlds and the creation, sustenance and challenge of religious worlds through stories. I had not thought of my emphasis on discourse, or more accurately, on how religion works, as part of the cognitive study of religion, but I guess it must be.

And so, to the next book (having got the current one off to the publishers this morning, I am already thinking ahead). Recognising that the cognitive study of religion contains both simplistic empirical psychology and sophisticated structuralist approaches to cognition (and much else besides) then I could perhaps frame the book on religious experience as a review and a critique of the field of the cognitive study of religion. I would want to draw on a wide range of theories on experience and alternate chapters on core experiences (communitas, possession, altered states of consciousness, ultimate calm and awe etc.) with investigations of specific theories within the field, including Sperber, Bouyer and others (and there is still some work to do there…). It might just work!

I mentioned two books, so what of the other one? Well, that will be a novel, with the title ‘Dragons’. I know the opening lines, but little else…

‘Do you believe in dragons?’ Nadia was pleased with the rather shocked and curious response to the opening question of her presentation at the Twenty Fifth World Congress of the International Association of the Study of Religion. Most people were surprised when Nadia, a young hijab wearing Muslim woman, said that her field of study in religion was not Islam, or even feminism, but post-soviet East European paganism, but that was the point. She did not want to be pigeonholed, or typecast…

And, of course, there are dragons under the city of Krakow…

On Being a Beekeeper

Today is apparently World Honey Bee Day. This is also the time of year when the beekeeper is busy, manging the hives and making sure that the bees have the necessary frames to build their stocks of honey. As I was cleaning out the garage, therefore, over the weekend, I noted the absence of all the supers and frames that usually fill the space. My partner, who is the beekeeper, had moved them all off to supplement his various hives across North Worcestershire. This made me think back to a presentation that I gave, as Head of College, to the senior leadership team almost ten years ago when I was working in Birmingham University.

The talk was remembered by my colleagues for the fact that I illustrated part of it with images from Peter Greenaway’s Pillow Book and they were somewhat taken aback that I was illustrating a talk on the future and vision of the College with images of naked men (albeit that they were painted with text, and it was the variety and multiplicity of textuality that I was actually trying to illustrate). For me, one of the more fruitful images came at the end when I was talking about the role of Head of College. Having set out a vision of interdisciplinarity and cross cutting themes across the College, I suggested that the role of the Head of College was to be that of the beekeeper, an image of leadership that I am not aware of coming across in any other context.

The principal point of the beekeeper in this image, at least in my presentation of it, was that the beekeeper does not attempt to direct the activity and purpose of each and every bee. A hive contains a community, a range of different roles, each working together focused on their own particular activity to achieve a common goal, the production of honey and the maintenance of the hive over winter. A beekeeper does not tell any of the bees how to do their job, or direct specific groups of bees to do this, or do that. A beekeeper cannot even tell the foraging bees where to go to find honey. The hive can be placed in such a way that certain blumes are more likely to be foraged or control the timing of the addition and removal of frames such that they coincide with the blossom of individual trees. However, to achieve a specific kind of honey – lime honey, cherry blossom honey, or whatever – is very difficult in the natural environment and takes a particular kind of skill.

The role of the beekeeper, therefore, is not to micro-manage. The beekeeper primarily controls the environment for the bees, maintains the hive, expands the number of supers as they are filled, remove them as the season ends. The beekeeper protects the hive from predators and, by careful observation, controls the work of the queen and other members of the bee community. It is this ‘framing’, or ‘facilitating’ work that is key to the role of the beekeeper. It is also their job to find a market for the honey and to let the world know how wonderful the product of this, or that, particular hive might be, to prepare honey, wax and other products for shows, recognising that the work they are promoting is not their own, but that of bees who have a mind, or minds of their own.

As with the beekeeper so with the Head of College, or Faculty, in the academy. Their role is not to micro-manage, to tell each academic what they are supposed to do and how they might achieve it. The role of the Head of College is to provide the right environment, to set the scene, to enable and facilitate, to make possible the collaborative and creative work of the academic community for whom they are responsible. This takes a particular series of skills from financial management, quality control, support for grant applications etc. etc. The specific set of tasks is probably endless and often does involve working with estates to provide the right physical environment as well as a space that is conducive to work.

The Head of College must also be aware of the relations between the different elements of the wider academic community and cannot neglect any one of them. Whether it is the academics, or the students, or the professional services staff, the most esteemed professor, or the departmental receptionist. Each has their own unique, but special, contribution to wider productivity and it is the Head of College’s task to be aware of the specific needs of each one, providing the right environment for all of them to flourish.

It is often the task of the Head of College, like the beekeeper, to have a special responsibility to market or promote the work of the hive, the community as a whole. It is the Head of College’s role to represent the College at meetings of the University’s senior team, and to represent the University position to the College. However, even beyond that, the Head of College should be involved in promoting the work of the College (and all its various members) to the widest possible audiences; other academics, potential students, the wider public and perhaps even the media. The work that is being promoted, like the beekeeper, is not that of the Head of College, but that of all the individual, and collective, members of the College, with no one individual excluded or preferred.

That, I suggested, was why I would always liken myself, in that role of Head of College, to the beekeeper. An interesting allegory, but like all metaphors, probably one that it would be unwise to push too far…

Leo: What’s in a Name?

When I was much younger, merely a child, I collected lions. They might be small sculptures, toys, pictures, whatever. It was one of those things that meant that my many aunts never had to decide what to buy me for Christmas, or a birthday. They simply found a lion, or sent me a card with a lion on it. I lost the collection a long time ago. I also spent some time just looking up all the different words for lion (probably not as many as I had thought) in different languages. I had always thought that should I ever have a son (never high on my list of priorities) I would call him Leo, or perhaps Simba (the Kiswahili word for lion).

It was with real interest, and curiosity, therefore, that I heard that our new Pope had chosen the name Leo: Leo XIV. There has, of course, already been much written on this choice and what it might mean. Pope Leo himself has drawn attention to Leo XIII, the Pope at the end of the nineteenth century who challenged the capitalism of his day and supported labour movements and the plight of the those excluded by the industrial revolution. We are now entering what has been called the fourth industrial revolution, one driven by AI. As with all changes in social and economic structures there will be winner and losers, and Pope Leo XIV is very firmly placing himself on the side of the losers, those who will be alienated and disenfranchised by this new industrial revolution.

There were, however, twelve other Leos who have held the position of Pope, and like any relatively random selection of Popes from history they were probably a very mixed bunch. Leo XIV does also reference the first Leo, Pope in the middle of the fifth century. He, among other things, reached out to Attila the Hun who was marching on Rome. Here we see the peace-making theme, something that has already been an important, and necessary, part of Leo XIV’s early sermons and statements. Leo I was also known as Leo the Great, the first Pope to be given ‘the great’ as an addition to his name. What that might say for the current Leo I am not so sure.

As a liturgist my reference here is to the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, one of the earliest documents in the development of the Roman liturgy. It is a series of prayers for use at the mass and was almost certainly not compiled by Leo the Great, although some of the prayers could well have been written by him. Who knows? Taking the name Leo the Pope has associated himself with that tradition, and perhaps more importantly, with ‘tradition’. This is a name that goes back to the earliest years of the Roman church, that is part and parcel of the history of the papacy over the years and is rooted in the worship of the church. That might just be fanciful thinking on my part, but I do sincerely hope that he has something of the tradition in his thinking and is more open to the traditions of the church, and particularly the traditions of the church’s worship, than his predecessor. 

My other reference for Leo is Leo Africanus. This Leo was not a pope, although he is named after one. In fact, he was born a Muslim, in Granada at the end of the fifteenth century. Like many others at that time and place he converted to Christianity, whether willingly or not is still a matter of debate. His family moved to Fez when he was young, and he joined his father in travels to Timbuktu and the court of the Songhai empire in West Africa. He travelled widely across North Africa, on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople and probably a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was captured and imprisoned on Rhodes before being sent to Leo X, then Pope, where he was baptised in St Peter’s Rome. He is best known for his writings on his travels in Africa and the important geographical and historical material it contains.

Pope Leo XIV traces his own heritage to Spain, Italy and France, and he has devoted much of his life, and ministry, to the people of Peru and Latin America more widely. He has chosen a name, however, with strong connections to Africa. He is an Augustinian Friar and Augustine of Hippo was also of African heritage, although from the northern city of Hippo, the modern city of Annaba in Algeria. What Leo brings together, therefore, is a global perspective, a European heritage, a North American birth, a South American mission and an African name. This again is important and significant in the contemporary climate and something that we should be celebrating.

My fascination with lions, and with Leo, also goes back to Africa, the place of my own birth and my own fascination with the continent and people of Africa. There are so many reasons, therefore, that a new Pope who chooses Leo as his name must, for me, be a good thing, with great possibilities for the future. I guess we can only wait and see just how this plays out and what this new Pope Leo has to offer the world, and the church.

The Re-Emergence of Class

Reflecting on the local elections last week I have felt – for the first time in my adult life, that is since the late nineteen seventies – the need for an analysis based on class. What might we mean by ‘class’ in 2025? It will be very different from the structures of class smashed by Thatcher in 1979. It is class, however, employment status, economic outlook, values, worldview, that, for me, makes most sense of the new order revealed in last Thursday’s elections. This cuts across any other residual identities that have, perhaps, been more important in the last fifty years. Once again, I would argue, the class that we belong to, or the class that we identify with, is more significant in determining our voting patterns than any other factor.

I would suggest that in 2025 there are five dominant classes, and two residual classes.

Tribal, Collectivist, Pro-Worker

This is the traditional working class that Labour have lost, and Reform has courted, and, perhaps I might say, re-created. These are people with lower paid jobs, many of which are highly skilled. They value the collectivism of work, shared values with fellow workers, and have pride in both their work/skills and in their country. I describe them as tribal. For many that is xenophobic (which is probably more accurate today than racist), and they want to see an ‘England First’ economic policy, supporting English industry (power, steel, manufacturing, farming). They are anti big government and distrustful of state institutions that are seen as wasting taxpayer’s money and working in other people’s interests. They are generally less well educated, but more importantly, they do not see any intrinsic value in education and tend to shun it. They vote Reform and are generally pro-Trump (not necessarily ultra-right wing or fascist). It is worth noting, however, that the leaders of this party may not (as always in the past with worker’s parties) be of this class, they simply pretend to share the values of this class.

Social, Professional, Democratic

This group are the teachers, the health workers, the social services, those who are essentially committed to the idea of shared values, redistribution of wealth through taxes, the rule of law and the idea of ‘society’. Their outlook is social rather than individual and they believe in the state supporting their citizens irrespective of income or social background. Many in this group are well educated and place a high value on education although they would never describe themselves as among the educational elite. In international relations they believe in the co-operation between states, the advocacy of democracy and the importance of international institutions such as the UN and all its various offshoots. They are strong supporters of the welfare state and find the individualism of all the other classes (including the pro-workers above) distasteful. They are usually pro equality, diversity and inclusion, but often see it in an intellectual or bureaucratic fashion. These have become the core Labour voters, although the bulk of this group, and many in the Labour party, believe that Labour should be supporting the more traditional ‘workers’.

Entrepreneurial, Managerial, Corporate

Both the traditional self-employed, or self-made, and the managers of larger companies come into this group. There is a strong emphasis on the individual, on hard work and on the ability to succeed. The values are those of the corporate world: brand identity, loyalty, company first, often transferred to the state, so essentially patriotic. They believe in low taxes, small government, the limiting of legislation, and yet they also recognise the value and importance of legal protections and can end up being very bureaucratic, multiplying legislation to protect their own (business) interests and to create a ‘level playing field’. They have more faith in insurance than welfare and tend to have access to private health care and private education. They do, however, see the need for, and value, a safety net for the ‘poor’. Their international outlook is not dissimilar to the professionals, placing a strong emphasis on the international order and collaboration between states. There is a recognition of the importance of international treaties and organisations, but only if subordinate to the nation states and if they are committed to the interests of those in this managerial group. They are also the traditional Conservative voters and may continue to vote Conservative. However, their world is shrinking as international business is being taken over by the tech giants with very different values and working practices.

Liberal, Inclusivist, Internationalists

I am using liberal here in both of its traditional senses. There is a strong commitment to liberty and individualism, especially when it comes to economics, but also to equality, diversity and inclusivity, welcoming everybody irrespective of background. These are people who we might think are self-made, dominating tech and internet-based companies of all sizes, from the small creatives to the large multi-national and multi-billion-dollar outfits. However, few of these people are ‘self-made’ and there is often independent wealth in the background, whether from family or previous work in the financial sector or law. Effectively, they are wealthy enough not to have to worry about questions of equality, social mobility or even, perhaps, government, although they are fully committed to all three. They are, above all, internationalist in outlook, citizens of the world, with a strong commitment to free movement, free flows of wealth and the downplaying of national identities (their families are often very mobile and living in many different countries). This group is also highly educated, I might even say the educated elite, even if individuals may have ‘dropped out’ of education and returned. This is the prosecco drinking crowd that we are told is now voting Liberal Democrat.

I would add two other groups to this classification: The Radical Idealists who are committed to causes, most importantly global warming and other climate related issues, but who also take proactive, often disruptive, action for other causes. They could come from any of the classes above but tend to be younger and reject the whole class-based analysis, and they vote Green. Finally, there are the Excluded and Disenfranchised, probably a sizeable proportion of the electorate but, despite some from the professional and liberal groups claiming to advocate on their behalf, they are highly unlikely to vote and have no party to support their interests.

How these groups are distributed in English society (this analysis does not work for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) can be seen very clearly in the voting patterns in last Thursday’s election. How well the groups are prepared to work together to form a working administration is, however, a very different question and one that might be particularly important if the voting patterns we saw this week are reflected in the next general election.

Would the Fairies like Elon Musk?

As I was reading round material about myth, fairy stories and the use of story in religion I came across a comment that suggested one of the purposes of fairy stories was to ridicule the rich and powerful. One particular butt of the stories was the traditional figure of the miser. This is a character, that outside of Scrooge in Dicken’s Christmas Carol, has very little place in our contemporary stories. Given the wide disparities of wealth in our society (growing year on year) this seems rather strange.

The miser, the individual (usually male) who makes lots of money and make a deliberate choice to keep it all to himself, even if he is never going to use it, is a stock figure in European folk tales and fairy stories. There is also a strong tradition of similar characters in other traditions. In Africa, where sharing with family and community is essential, the one who hoards wealth and refuses to share is among the worst of the social pariahs and comes in for serious hatred and violence, not only in stories. African accusations of witchcraft often revolve around the assumption that wealth is being hoarded inappropriately.

Fairies we are told are particularly vicious to those who hoard and do not share, with many stories about such individuals having their comeuppance and coming to a very nasty end. Among the mythical creatures it is dragons who are perhaps the most commonly associated with hoarding and sitting on their mounds of gold – just think of Tolkien’s Smaug in the Hobbit – although in the stories dwarfs are not far behind. We all know what happens to dragons in the stories from the European tradition.

One of the difficulties we face today with the image of the miser is the fact that in previous centuries the figure has been merged with antisemitic images of Jewish money lenders. The differences between the miser and the Jew have often been blurred. In a society that is, rightly, very conscious of antisemitism it is often difficult to use traditional images of the miser without crossing significant lines. However, it must be noted that the image goes well beyond the Jewish stereotype and the hatred of the miser, as miser, is well ingrained in the folk traditions of Europe and many other parts of the world.

So why do we not see so many stories, or even cartoons and jokes, about misers, and the wealthy in general, within our contemporary society? There are series like White Lotus that pokes gentle fun at the goings on amongst the rich and famous, and other satires of celebrity culture. However, there is little with the real viciousness and anti-hoarding values of the fairy tale tradition. We would almost think that contemporary fairies would be very at home in the six-star hotel, with the latest fashions and all the necessary luxury accessories, including a twenty-four-hour social media presence.

Perhaps! And I would probably speculate that it is social media, over and above all else, that provides the context for our somewhat ambiguous relationship with wealth. Social media both flaunts wealth and the influence it brings (or perhaps the wealth that influence brings) while stoking both our envy/jealousy and our illusions that perhaps, one day, we could also be wealthy, if only we had the right connections or the right number of followers/likes. There is a desire for wealth, a sense that perhaps we could all be wealthy in the right circumstances, even an admiration for wealth (if it appears to have been generated from nothing – which in reality is seldom the case) rather than a social expectation that wealth should be shared and that the wealthy should be brought down a peg or two.

We do admire philanthropy and the first generation of tech billionaires, including Bill Gates and others, have gone out of their way to plough their wealth back into medical research, education and the eradication of malaria across the world. This is admirable and has, to some extent, blunted our critique of the wealthy. A person who spends, who shares their wealth, especially through philanthropy is not, perhaps, thought of as a miser. What of the person who spends their money on space rockets and wacky ideas about sending human beings to Mars. Musk would probably claim that this is philanthropy, for the greater good of humanity. In this sense Musk is not a miser in the traditional sense of the word. But is this really good enough?

In a sense it is not the individual, whether the hoarder of medieval Europe, the dragon sitting on their gold, or the African chief who does not follow custom and share their wealth with the family, who is the ultimate target of the stories about misers and the fairies who despise them. The target is the disparity in wealth and the unwillingness to share. That is still with us, and Musk, and Trump, and all the rest of them, are both examples, and symbols, of such disparity and the corruption and rot that this can lead to. We need new stories, not perhaps about fairies and misers, certainly not perpetuating the anti-Semitic stereotypes, but certainly about the real dangers, the fundamental evils, of disparities of wealth and the unwillingness to share that wealth with society.

Elon Musk, watch out, the fairies are coming…

Facing a ‘Pandemic’ of Sexual Abuse

A speaker on the radio earlier last week, discussing the recent review of child sexual abuse across the UK and the recommendations contained in the report, claimed that we are facing a pandemic of sexual abuse. I was horrified by this statement, not because of the situation it purported to describe, but because of the hyperbolic language that the speaker chose to use. I do not find such language helpful, and I have been becoming ever more frustrated by the language associated with sexual abuse, whether in the church, in gender-based violence or in the questions raised by grooming gangs in some of our towns and cities.

I have also been reading around the idea of myth and story as part of my work on the book that I am writing. The most recent reading has been a popular text on the history of fear, and it is in the context of this book that I have found myself placing the current language around sexual abuse within a wider historical context.

Among other things, the author of the book is aiming to show how moral panics are often associated with fear and with horror. He goes back to the Middle Ages and on through the Elizabethan era, the Restoration, Revolution and Romanticism. It is, however, the section on the Victorians that forms my starting point. In dealing with Alistair Crowley, the author highlights how the shock of sexual license and sadomasochism underpinned both Crowley’s life and his writings. Crowley was set apart as a person who had rejected the civilized norms of society and had embraced ‘evil’. He was, however, portrayed as a unique and particularly depraved individual. The fact that he collected to himself a series of disciples and, perhaps more importantly, proved to be a very popular and widely read author was often overlooked. Evil and sexual depravity was constructed at the time as the province of specific individuals, it was not recognised as being widely present within society and the very idea that ordinary, decent, Christian individuals would get some kind of thrill from reading about such depravity was never really questioned.

Jump to the middle of the twentieth century, leaping over several other examples that the author dwells on, not to mention the impact of two world wars, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Holocaust, and we arrive at the sexual liberation of the 1960s. Another report on the radio referenced a programme investigating the work of those who advocated for sexual relations between men and boys in the 1960s and in subsequent decades. The emphasis in the programme is on the damage that was done by these campaigners and, as with the contemporary grooming gangs, the language was one of horror and condemnation. There was, however, a strong movement in the 1960s that saw sexual liberation as something that included children. Recent reports in France, where this was particularly prevalent, have clearly shown the damage such a position led to for the children involved, often against their will. At the time, however, this was a sincerely held position with a strong moral philosophy behind it.

Later in the century, to get back to horror and fear, we had the Satanism scares where whole communities were vilified as potential hotbeds of satanic rituals, complete with child abuse and even child sacrifice. Much of this was ultimately rooted in hysteria and fanned by media reports. These were the classic examples of moral scares that emerge from time to time and, in hindsight, are often seen to be baseless, or as having far less substance than the media at the time gave them credit for. I can clearly remember when the first reports of grooming gangs in Rotherham and elsewhere began to emerge, some in the media immediately put these down to another ‘moral scare’. This had nothing to do with racism, it was a classic case of having heard the cry of ‘wolf’ once too often. Race probably did have something to do with why the situation was not investigated as quickly or as thoroughly as it might have been, and it has since become very clear that these examples are far from the baseless moral scares of some earlier examples.

It has probably been the case that a significant number, maybe even a majority, of men fantasise about violent sexual engagements, or even sex with minors. In most times these fantasies are not acted on. It takes a level of social permission, or opportunity, to take this further. The example of the Pelico trial has shown that, if given permission (although not from the woman in this case), then a surprising number of men will act out their fantasies, and the internet is another element that makes this possible. The evidence from the police, however, tells us that the majority (just over 50%) of sexual assaults on minors are perpetrated by other minors, and here the internet and social media must be looked to for an explanation. However, a significant number of the rest, including among the 3% that are carried out by grooming gangs, are within the family. This is probably as it always has been, although that should not tempt us into inaction.

To talk of a ‘pandemic’ of child sexual abuse, however, suggests that there is something new out there and begins, once again, to suggest the moral panic of late twentieth century, or even of the accusations against Cowley, painting the situation in the gaudy colours of ‘evil’ and ‘depravity’. It is a rhetorical statement that almost appears to undermine what it is trying to achieve. I do not know whether there is more sexual abuse against young people today than there was at earlier periods, perhaps that is not the issue. The role of the internet and social media have certainly changed the context and the form in which such abuse takes place. Simply labelling it as a ‘pandemic’ however is not going to lead us to solutions, it cannot really get us beyond the moral horror and fear that the book I am reading expounds so well. I am not entirely convinced that safeguarding is the answer either. That might be necessary, but it feels too much like the kind of surveillance that Foucault warns us against to be entirely helpful.

What society needs is a change in culture, although perhaps not in the way we expect. Exactly what this would look like, and what it would take to get us there (education?) I am not entirely sure. I just feel very uneasy with where we are now and still baulk at the language of fear and of horror as used by so many, especially in the media, when talking about these issues.

Charisma, Abuse and Learning from Second Century Christians.

There were two stories that struck me from last Sunday’s BBC Sunday programme. The first, almost inevitable given recent events, was a piece on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s resignation. The programme chose to ask whether there was something specifically about evangelical theology and practice that allowed John Smyth to get away with his abusive behaviour for so long, or something that prevented those in power from asking too many questions. The answer that was given revolved around the place that evangelical practice appears to give to powerful speakers and the awe in which such people (usually men) are held within the tradition, and hence the difficulty of challenging them. There was more about the place of charisms, authority and truth, but I will come back to that later.

The second story was a report of the death of Anthony Campolo, a Baptist minister from the States who was spiritual advisor to Bill Clinton. The person interviewed went on to praise Campolo for his powerful speaking, his ability to move people to action and his closeness to people with power. Nobody at the BBC seems to have seen the irony of placing these two items so close together or suggested that there might have been an interesting discussion in looking at Smyth and Campolo through the same evangelical lens.

I see no difficulties in recognising that evangelical traditions tend to encourage powerful speakers and give such speakers considerable authority and, we might say, licence. This is hard wired into the system and has long been recognised. It has also long been recognised that while most evangelical super-preachers are upright, devout and inspiring people, with a strong message of hope and love, there are those who use, or misuse, the position powerful preaching brings them to abuse others, whether they see what they are doing as abuse or not. The potential for very serious abuse is built into the system with a strong internal motivation and justification for the abuse.

Does this mean, however, that all evangelical preaching and preachers must be treated as suspect until they are proven to be otherwise? I am not sure that is what was being suggested, but that might be a line that follows logically from this kind of analysis and might be ‘safer’ for the church rather than always assuming for the best (unfounded optimism was something that the interviewee did accuse the evangelical tradition, and the Church of England, of encouraging, and something that he found to be particularly problematic).

This is not, however, a new question. Even Paul, in one of his letters, says that it is important to ‘test the spirits’ when individuals claim direct communication, or power, from God. This came to a head in the second century, at a time when the Christian community was made up of many competing forms, when a man called Montanus, in southern Asia Minor, recognised his daughters as prophets and encouraged his followers to base their behaviour on the messages from this prophecy, as a direct command from God.

Many other Christian opposed the Montanists, as they came to be known, and argued against the possibility of new revelation in prophecy, often accusing the Montanists of abuses that would be very familiar in today’s debates. While we do not know the truth of such accusations, it is interesting to note that most scholars take them as the unfounded scandal mongering of the movement’s enemies. Given what we now know we should not perhaps jump to such simple conclusions.

The problem with the Montanist movement, as far as other Christians were concerned, revolved around the question of authority. Who had the right to speak on behalf of God? Revelation, for the opponents, was to be found solely in scripture and could only be given by those who (correctly) interpreted the scripture. For Montanus and his followers, authority lay in the direct and continuing revelation of God through prophecy. It is possible to argue that prophecy can be valid if tested against scripture (a position taken by some charismatics even today) but that still places the final authority on the interpretation of the text. Montanus and his followers lost this battle, and the result was both the emergence and reinforcement, of the authority of bishops, local church leaders, and the decline (even eradication) of the place of women in the emerging church.

Going back to the present, it was interesting to hear the commentator on evangelicalism and abuse suggesting that hierarchy, and the excessive role of bishops, was part of the problem, rather than, as with Montanus’ opponents, part of the solution. This speaker was almost arguing for no point of authority, or, in the case for an independent reviewer of safeguarding, an authority external to the church or the wider Christian community. That is a position that would have been untenable, even unthinkable, to the early church.

I am not sure I have any answers that derive from this analysis, except to highlight the complexity that comes out of trying to define and enact authority within the church. Both the individualistic power of the evangelical preacher, and the collective power of the system as expressed in bishops, archbishops and all the other paraphernalia of the church, are open to abuse, neglect, corruption, and cynical exploitation. Bishops, like charismatic prophets, are only human and, as such, capable of abuse.

No one system, I would suggest, is better or worse than another. It is the people that matter and when one individual (preacher, prophet, bishop, or whoever) is allowed to ‘go it alone’ and is no longer challenged and tested by the community, then trouble will not be very far away. In this case the praising of powerful and inspirational preachers who have influenced presidents and motivated thousands of people to commit to the poor is probably just as problematic as ignoring systematic abuse that is happening in plain sight in the name of God.

The (Latest) American Revolution

What we have just seen in the USA in the last couple of weeks is an almost classic case of a Marxist revolution, albeit one that was disguised as the election of a new president. I am no Marxist, but his analysis of the evils and dangers of capitalism was pretty accurate. Where he was mistaken, I believe, was in his solutions and in his predictions, particularly in his thoughts about who would lead the revolution. The political left, however, has also been wrong, primarily in moving away from Marx’s core thesis and seeing alienation, oppression and liberation as occurring far beyond the economic arena where Marx positioned it.

Let me begin, therefore, with the left. Marx talks about the alienation of the labouring classes from the product of their labour and, by extension, about economic inequalities and economic injustices. The economic inequalities within our current society (on both sides of the Atlantic) is as big as it has ever been, perhaps at record levels (I am not an economist). Across both countries, UK and US, there are many people who are struggling to survive and living in real, not just relative, poverty. Those numbers have also been growing recently. If many of these people are not working due to ill health or lack of jobs that does not negate their sense of alienation from the wider economic system, it simply reinforces it. Many in this group do not immediately blame the super-rich, or even the system for their situation. They project their misery onto others, scape goats, and in most cases onto migrants, those they claim are taking their jobs and reducing them to poverty. That this is not the case is, for political purposes, beside the point.

Meanwhile, however, those on the left in politics have decided that they want to support all those who are oppressed, suffering at the hands of the system, alienated for whatever reason, and lacking opportunities. They portray a society that is institutionally racist, sexist, homophobic etc. They are not essentially wrong in their analysis, but in focusing on the different forms of oppression, talking about liberation in terms of particular and specific characteristics, they are missing the fundamental, and most basic, form of subjugation, that of labour and economics, that of poverty.

Of course, many of those who are minority ethnic, women (and children), LGBTQ and so on are also victims of economic injustice, but to simply subsume this particular fact under intersectionality (however important that is in other contexts) and to underplay economic oppression while trumpeting the rights of those who are victims in other ways, many of whom are increasingly comfortable economically, is beginning to look somewhat problematic, particularly to those from the white working class who continue to suffer neglect and alienation, a position that (to them at least) is only exacerbated by the focus on those with protected characteristics. We are not all in this together!

So, what about Trump? One of the things that Marx clearly got wrong, or failed to understand (and probably even failed to reflect on) is that it is very rarely those who suffer alienation and economic injustice who lead the revolution. Leaders invariably come from privileged backgrounds although they often do all they can to disguise that privilege. We have had enough revolutions over the last couple of centuries for the mega-rich to recognise that it is probably to their advantage to lead a revolution of the economically oppressed or at least to give the impression that this is what they are doing.

The mega-rich gain credibility with the economically disadvantaged, not by denouncing capitalism, but by demonstrating how they have manipulated it and broken the rules to make it work in their favour. This is what those with nothing, with no personal investment in the system, want to hear. Thy want to know that the system can be fooled, that it is possible to beat the system, even if the means of doing that is neither legal nor moral (and perhaps even more so if it is neither legal nor moral). Above all they want to know that it is possible to get away with putting two fingers up to the system. Popularism plays on this sense of playing the system at its own game and winning, although never doing anything that would, ultimately, damage the system, as the leaders actually gain so much from it.

Trump told people they were better off under his previous administration. He played the economic card, and the fact that he, and his supporters (Musk included) are mega-rich only shows what might be possible. Those of us from intellectual, liberal, well-meaning backgrounds torture ourselves over asking why so many ordinary people are so gullible, and then feeling guilty at dismissing those who are economically disadvantaged by accusing them of gullibility. Intellectual liberals have always found it difficult not to see the oppressed as ‘ignorant’ or ‘gullible’ or whatever other term we might choose to use. The leaders of the new revolution simply tell them what they want to hear, that they are poor because of the system, and that together they can beat the system.

Meanwhile identity politics begins to look increasingly like a side show, fiddling while Rome burns as somebody has put it. It is not that the oppression of those who are different is not important, it is just that we have focused on race, gender, sexuality etc. while often ignoring the more fundamental issue, that which is most important, economic justice. In that, I have to say, Marx got it right!

Teaching Critical Thinking or Teaching Empathy

I noted over the last week that the government is suggesting that one of responses to the recent riots should be to teach young people, from the earliest possible age within schools, how to engage critically with social media and how to recognise false news. Effectively this is a call to introduce critical thinking and the hermeneutics of suspicion into the curriculum from infant schools upwards. I am certainly not against this, so long as the teaching is age appropriate. This assumes, however, that the core problem in relation to the riots are those who choose to incite others on social media, or perhaps the failure of the social media companies not to block such information. Racism and right-wing ideologies have been around much longer than social media.

What such an approach fails to recognise is that it is often very difficult to recognise false news, or at least false arguments (those which you do not happen to agree with?). At the extremes, in a small number of cases, this might be possible. However, most commentators do believe what they are writing, and do believe that they have arrived at that position rationally and through a process of critical thinking, a position that, if the other side had all the facts, they would also agree with. It is obviously the case that those who post on social media use dog whistle phrases and sensationalist statements, with little care about their veracity, to incite others and to stir up trouble. The only people who respond to this, however, are largely those who agree with the positions that the commentators are propounding.

No amount of critical thinking, without either coming from a specific (and different) perspective, or without creating a cynical attitude to all online information, can really stop any of us being attracted to those posts, and those commentators, or those arguments, that already support what we are thinking. And when we do find these posts, we are far from likely to want to engage in a critical analysis of what the writer is saying (and that probably includes those of you who are reading this and share my, rather bizarre, perspective…)

I emphasise again, the teaching of critical thinking skills, the basics of hermeneutics, and an understanding of ideology is valuable and essential. I would clearly endorse that, but I would also say that that is only half the battle.

It is well known that both the algorithms contained in social media, and individual’s natural attraction to sites and to information, mean that most of us are drawn to, and shown, primarily that material that already conforms to our own interests and values. It is also clear that we are far less critical of that material that does reinforce what we already think. Critical thinking, therefore, can only take us so far. None of us really have the detachment necessary to be critical of all that we read, and that level of disengagement is very difficult to teach, even if we think it might be desirable.

Alongside critical thinking, therefore, we also need to teach empathy. I had originally thought to say that we needed to teach ‘values’, and part of me still wants to say that. ‘Values’, however, does not fully capture what it is that I am trying to suggest. There are clear ‘values’ that underpin empathy, including openness, tolerance, respect of the other, etc. and we cannot teach empathy without inculcating these values. However, it is empathy, the willingness and ability to listen to, and to hear, the views and perspectives of the other, that I think is what we need to be teaching. Empathy, and the results of engaging empathetically, can also provide the first step in critical thinking, in recognising what a statement or post is trying to say and engaging with it appropriately.

Some people say that empathy is taught primarily through the arts and the humanities, and that this is one reason we need to sustain these disciplines within our universities. I agree with that, but I have also met many scientists who show exemplary empathy and know of many sciences that benefit from the application of empathy, including social sciences such as anthropology, but also many others. It is also the case that many products of the arts and humanities express something that is antithetical to what I might call ‘empathy’, but that is probably a different discussion. Empathy, therefore, is not the preserve of the arts and humanities, but they may certainly be a good place to start.

Finally, therefore, just a reflection on my own experience. I have found that there are two groups in society for whom it is particularly difficult, but perhaps particularly important, to teach empathy. The first are those who are already excluded and ostracised. If others do not recognise a particular group, engage with them through stereotypes and expect nothing but trouble from them, then they are far less likely to be empathetic to the ones who are excluding them, and nor, perhaps should we expect them to be so. There are, of course, many in such situation who do show exemplary skills at empathy, especially for others in a similar situation, although perhaps of a different group from themselves, but my point that it becomes so much more difficult to teach empathy for those who are not the recipients of it from others. There are many in society who fall into this category, but young men from our more deprived communities are perhaps the most obvious group.

The second group may be more of surprise. This is the group of those who are privileged. Not all privilege is white. By ‘the privileged’ I am thinking of all those who assume, without reflection, that society is organised in a way that will benefit them, those who have the knowledge, experience and social capital to expect everything to go their way. It is a very difficult concept to define, but we do all know it when we see it. Such privilege often means that those who have it do not recognise or even see those who are excluded. It is this self-containment, perhaps even self-satisfaction, the assumption that everything is as it should be simply because that is what they have come to expect, that makes it difficult to teach ‘empathy’. However, we must attempt to do this among this group, just as much as amongst the dispossessed, if we are going to begin to reduce the levels of intolerance and violence within our society.

Suffering

In working through a very wide range of disparate material to write my book on the story in religion, I have been reading some of Michael Jackson’s work. He worked in West Africa, in Australia and elsewhere, as an anthropologist but much of his work, particularly his most recent work, draws on personal and individual reflections. In his very recent work, he has also been exploring the experience of migrants, especially those journeying from West Africa to London. One of his common themes is suffering, deriving in part from his experiences in Liberia and the impact of the civil war, and in part from elements of his own life and the lives of those around him.

Like many writers Jackson is interested in the way we talk about suffering, the way in which we try to express the inexpressible. No two people can know that they experience suffering in quite the same way and so the language of suffering is rarely precise. Story is the primary means of talking about suffering. Extremes of suffering, in the brutalities of war, in the pain of depression and cancer, in the experience of migration and dislocation, often makes even the telling of stories impossible. Drawing on the work of Hanah Arendt and others, Jackson asks how we can recall, live with, and talk about suffering.

This work is vitally important, especially given the events of the last few weeks, both in the experience of the young girls, their dance teachers and their families in Southport, and in our response to the rioting that followed, drawing on messages of hate and mob violence. How to talk about pain, about suffering, about loss, without giving in to despair and losing all hope.

The most recent work I have read is Richard Kearney’s book on Strangers, Gods and Monsters. This is the last of three volumes on philosophy at the limit (the middle volume is on the story). Here Kearney is asking not just about suffering, where language fails in the face of human cruelty, but also about the other and the impossibility of talking about the other, of our tendency to construct the other, particularly the stranger, as monster, and the narrowness of the boundary in our language of the sublime, whether of monsters or of gods. It is a highly complex argument that brings together many different ideas with threads of psychoanalysis, deconstruction and apophatic theology running through it.

What this work suggests is that we cannot begin to talk about suffering without also talking about those who inflict suffering, the perpetrators as well as the victims. While the enormity of the pain is often beyond words, so also is the enormity of the cruelty inflicted by other human persons, or of our existence. The Holocaust is, without doubt, the limit case in both these discourses and is often used to conduct the debate about what is sayable, what needs to be said, and what remains beyond saying, beyond comprehension, beyond words.

We have seen the cruelty that human beings can perpetrate on each other on our streets, both in the violent and incomprehensible act of an individual wielding a knife among a group of very young girls at a dance event, and in the mass hysteria of the mob, whipped up by reinforcing messages of hate on social media. Words fail us. We cannot comprehend the motives. We have nothing to say to those who suffer and to those who survive.

There is a discourse in the academic literature about those who are caught up in a collective culture of violence, whether that is the rage of the mob or what is called the banality of evil, a widespread acceptance of hate and of violence against specific populations. A particular place in this literature is given to those, like the children caught up in the many African wars, who are victims of the violence just as much as those they maim and kill. There is also a much larger literature on those who are considered truly evil, stressing their otherness and the inexplicable nature of their actions, whether political leaders or serial killers. Finally, there is also a literature on the bystander, the ones who look on, often feeling helpless but, perhaps, not as innocent as they might believe themselves to be.

What is missing, perhaps, is another group, and one that more of us might fit into than we at first imagine. These are the people who recognise the violence around them, would condemn it if asked, but ultimately bracket it out and proceed to profit from it. There are those, very close to the suffering and violence, who do this consciously. Many in the African civil wars, trying to make a living in impossible circumstances, end up in such a place, or one very similar. For most of us, however, it is the structures of society, or the distance between ourselves and the suffering (whether mediated through electronic media or not), that enable us to get on with our lives without recognising the way in which our everyday actions support, and certainly do not aim to engage with or challenge, this violence. There is an almost deliberate ignorance, even indifference, in such a position, but it is one that those writing about suffering, or about the explicitly violent few, often fail to recognise.