The Place of Religion within History.pdf

8/11/2019 The Place of Religion within History.pdf

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-place-of-religion-within-historypdf 1/10

Wesleyan niversity

Modernity between Us and Them: The Place of Religion within HistoryAuthor(s): David Gary ShawSource: History and Theory, Vol. 45, No. 4, Theme Issue 45: Religion and History (Dec., 2006),pp. 1-9

Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3874093 .

Accessed: 29/01/2014 19:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and Wesleyan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History

and Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Wed, 29 Jan 2014 19:28:59 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wesleyan

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3874093?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp





http://www.jstor.org/stable/3874093?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wesleyan

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black



History

and

Theory,

Theme

Issue 45

(December

2006),

1-9

?

Wesleyan

University

2006 ISSN:

0018-2656

MODERNITY

BETWEEN US

AND

THEM:

THE PLACE

OF

RELIGION

WITHIN HISTORY'

DAVID

GARY

SHAW

Perhaps

the boldest

argument

advanced

in

this Theme Issue

is that

history

and

religion

are

so close

in their culturalfunctions

that

they

may

be

substituted,

one

replacing

the

other

as

the most

authentic

form of

reconciling

human

beings

to

their freedom

and their

limitations.2

Another

claim,

not as

different as

it

might

at first

seem,

is that

history

works

against

religion,

as its other

and

opposite,

but

that

this

is

not as

it

should

be.3

The

opposition

is an artifactof

modernity.

ndeed,

throughout

hese

papers

the theme

develops

that

modernity

is

the obstacle

or

prejudice

hat

standsnot

just

between historians

and

the

people

of

the

past,

but also

between

historians

and

many

religious people

today.

These

are

among

the latest

insights

in a

very long

line of

deep

reflection

about the

link between

history

and

religion,

two monsters

among

concepts,

having

many shifting

meanings

between

them and

sharing

one of

the oldest

and

most

complex

semantic

nteractions.

Around

he

globe,

the connection

between

history

and

religion

arose at the start

of some of our

most

productive

raditions.

Gods

and human

beings

have

mainly

been

part

of

a

zoological package,

found

together

almost

everywhere.

Thus,

one

sort

of

early historiography

merged quietly

in

the Hebrew

Bible,

teased out

by

its

early

redactors,

ven

as

they

simultaneously

displayed

and constructed

eligion

in

the same

texts

and incidents.

Perhaps

the

moment

is

anticipated

at Genesis

9:1,

where God

tells Noah

and

his

sons to

startthe

collective,

to

be fruitful

and

multiply

and

replenish

he

earth,

o

constitute

he

group,

but it

is

surely

begun

by

the next

chapter

where the

job

of

populating

is

done,

and the

peoples,

lineages,

and cities of

the world are

created,

already

too

ambitious,

and

consequently

scattered

by

God into

a

great

inguistic

diversity,

the

nations.These

several

pages

from

Genesis

9

through

Genesis

12

reflect

one

early origin

of

history,

extruded,

like

magma,

by

religion.

1.

I

wish to

thank the editors

of

History

and

Theory,

especially

Julie

Perkins,

for

organizing

with

me the

November 2005 conference

that was the foundation for

this issue.

I

also

want to thank the

following

Wesleyan colleagues

for

advice aboutthe field

and

suggestions

of

good

people

to invite

to participaten that conference:Ron Cameron,RichardElphick,Steve Horst,Bruce Masters,Vijay

Pinch,

Michael

Printy,

and

Magda

Teter.

2.

See Constantin

Fasolt,below,

History

and

Religion

in the Modern

Age,

History

and

Theory,

ThemeIssue

45

(2006),

10-26.

3.

See

C. T.

McIntire,below,

Transcending

Dichotomies

in

History

and

Religion,

History

and

Theory,

Theme ssue

45

(2006),

80-92,

and Mark

Cladis, below,

Modernity

n

Religion:

A

Response

to Constantin

Fasolt's

History

and

Religion

in the Modern

Age,

History

and

Theory,

ThemeIssue

45

(2006),

93-103.







2

DAVID

GARYSHAW

One

might say

something

similar

about

early

Greeks

such as

Homer

and

Hesiod,

who

also show

the human

among

the

divine,

and

history

emerging

from the

religious

world.

Early

Greek

historians,

however,

differed on

whether

to relate

religion

and

history, initiating

a

split

significant

through

much

of

the

European

traditionever since.

Possibly,

this was so

just

because of

history's

religious

or

godly

origins.

Over the last

three

hundred

years

most

historiansand

their readers

have been

closer

to

Thucydides-a

modem man

come

early-than

to

the

senior Herodotus

on this

as on

other matters

of

method. Like

Thucydides,

modern

historians

have

eschewed the

gods

as

part

of the

landscape

of

objects

with

which

they

needed to deal.

Too

often,

they

offered

only neglect

or some

form

of

reductionism

or

contempt

when

something

needed

saying.

Herodotus

depicted

a

different

sort of

world,

but one

with

a

family

resemblance

both to

other

early

traditions

and

to

later

thinkers. He saw

few seams

between

the world of

people

andof the

gods,

of

religion

andthe secular.

Many

medieval

chroniclersand

millions

of

postmodern

men

and

women around

he

globe

today

could

sympathize

with

the

outlook

exemplified

in

this

story.

Following

his

great

success

at the

Battle

of

Marathon,

he

Athenian

general

Miltiades

attempted

o

subdue he

city

of Paros.

During

the

siege,

he

received the

assistance

of a

prisoner

named

Timo,

who had

been a

minor

priestess

in

the

temple

of the

infernal

goddesses.

She

directedhim

to

try

somehow to

utilize and

apparently

iolate

the

temple,

but

when

he did

so

-entering

a

precinct

of

Demeter-he

became

terrified

and

fled,

hurting

himself

while

running

away.

The

wound and

his luck

turned

nasty;

he lifted the

siege

andreturned o

Athens,

where

he died of

gangrene,

his

reputation

n

sharp

decline. The

Parians

wanted

to execute Timo

for her

treachery

against

their

temple

and

city,

but

obviously

had

doubts

as

to how to

proceed.

They

consulted the

god

at

Delphi,

the

most

famous

oracle,

but

The

Pythoness

forbade

[the trial],

and

said,

'Timo was

not in

fault;

[it]

was

decreed hat

Miltiades

should

come to an

unhappy

end;

and

she was

sent to

lure

him

to

his

destruction.' '4

Timo was

doing

history's

work.

Apollo

watches,

knows,

and

eases

history's way

forward,

throwing

a

little

light

on

the

obscurity

at

times,

giving people

some

understanding.

n

Herodotus,

Apollo

is

not doubted.

He is a

player

in

events.

In

such a

world,

there is no

religious-secular

or

religion-history binary

to

divide

human

affairs.5

Yet,

even

for

Herodotus--as

for

most

other

early

religious

historians--the

gods,

their

saints,

or their

oracles

typically

entered

the scene

only

to

help

direct

and

illuminate

human

actions. So

even

these first

European

historians

moved

beyond

a

vision in

which the

gods'

own

interactions tood

at the centerof

causes.

Herodotus

oved the

doings

of

people,

the

stranger

he

better,

and

confirms

the

value

of one

traditional

view,

namely,

that

historiography's

pecial

role is to

study

humanity,

ts

notable

people

or

groups

of

people

and their

actions. If

this

is

so,

the

relationship

between

history

and

religion may

contain some

fundamental

tensions

of

orientation,

for

religion

very

often

asks,

as does

astronomy,

about

4. See

Herodotus,

The

Histories,

transl.

George

Rawlinson

(New

York:

Knopf,

1997),

501-502.

5.

This is not of

course

to

plumb

the

matter of

mysteries,

such as

Timo was accused

of

sharing

with

Miltiades. For much

more on

this,

see

McIntire,

below,

Transcending

Dichotomiesin

History

and

Religion,

80-92.







MODERNITYBETWEEN

US

AND THEM

3

worlds

beyond,

and it

may

only

be

our

selfishness that

has let

us

forget

how little

religion

needs to be about

us.

By

contrast,

or

many

and

for

a

long

time,

history

was

essentially

a

turningaway

from

religion,

an

agnostic pursuit,

and an effort to

focus

attentionon the

purely

human.

Even

so,

there has

always

been a

problem

for conscientious historiansto

face,

especially

those with

skeptical,

critical,

and

Enlightenment ympathies:

how

to

deal

with

religion

within

history?

There

are at

least two

crucial

aspects

to this.

What

are

we

to do with the

great

core of

religious

life,

with

the

supernatural

world,

where humans

may

not dominate

causality?

This

is

an

especially large

problem

when historians

disagree

with

their

subjects

as to

the

possibilities

of

supernatural eings

or

supernatural

ctions,

that

is,

when there

is

deep

ontological

dissonancebetween historians

and

the

past.

The

other

key

aspect

to

the

question

is

determining

how

religion

fits within

the

long-term

development

of

history, including

the current

culture that

encapsulates

the historian and

may

provide

his or her

posture

towardthe

past.

Both issues turn the

question

toward

the

meaning

of

history

itself;

both are well

represented

n

this Theme

Issue.

We

appear

o be at

a

moment when

we need new intellectual and

professional

approaches

o

deal

with

religion.

Accounting

for

our own

position

is

tricky,

but

always

worthwhile,

f

only

to

try

to

appreciate

our

prejudices

and

assumptions

n

advance

of

doing

our

scholarship.

But

reconsidering

our

professional approach

to

religion

may

also

lead toward the

larger

issue

of the

extent to

which

our

commitments imit our

ability

to understand

he

past

and,

if

so,

whether

anything

can and should be done about

it.

This

is the

hermeneutic

problem

of the creative

historian,

the

apparent

creator of

any

specific

history,

who is full of

apparently

unavoidable

prejudice

and

opinion.6

George

Marsdenhas

been

the

most

explicit

in

raising

this concern

and

taking

it to another

extreme,

arguing

n

effect for the

utility

andvalue

of

religiously

committed

scholarship

but

insisting

as

well thatthis

need not

conflict

with such work

being

of

the

highest

academic

quality:

standards

must

hold.

Yet,

because

of

its

forthrightness,

ommitted

scholarshipmay

have

an

advantage

over the insincere

neutrality

hat is the

scholarly

norm.7

For a

variety

of

reasons,

the unease that

many

scholars

feel about Marsden's

approach

is

not

going

to

recede

quickly,

even

if

the

argument

in

favor of

open

commitment has some

logical

force. Yet the relevance of the issues that

Marsdenraises is

a

sign

of

change

in

the culture of

historiography.

Professional

historiography

has

often

kept

religion

at arm's

ength,

albeit

occasionally

making

great

use

of

the

religious

as a

marker

of

culturalor social

change,

as Jon Butler's

paper

reminds

us.8

Generally,

the

religious

was neither

essential nor taken for

granted

as

part

of

the

historian's

perspective:religion

was

a

social or

political

force,

one

among

many,

and

subordinate

o

most. While

this is still

the

case,

this

Theme

Issue shows

historiansand

others

concerned

with the

study

of

religion

to be

at a

6. For the classic discussion of this idea and problem, see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth

and

Method,

2d ed.

[1962] (London:

Continuum

International,

1989);

see also Charles

Taylor,

Comparison,History,

Truth,

n

Philosophical

Arguments

(Cambridge,

MA: Harvard

University

Press,

1995),

146-164.

7.

George

Marsden,

The

Outrageous

dea

of

Christian

Scholarship

(New

York:Oxford

University

Press,

1997).

8. Jon

Butler,

below,

Theory

and

God in

Gotham,

History

and

Theory,

ThemeIssue 45

(2006),

47-61.







4

DAVID GARYSHAW

sort of confessional

watershed,

a

moment of

collective

acknowledgment

hatthe

interaction

between

religion

and

history

is not

at

the

position

that most historians

have

thought,

especially

when we fall back

only upon

our

own learned

memories,

graduate

raining,

prejudices,

or

our

grand

narratives

of historical

development.

The Issue's

papers

pulse

with the sense that

religion

has turnedout in a

variety

of

ways

to be more

important

nd a more

clearly permanent

actor n

history

than

our

paradigms

had

supposed.

The

consequences

of this

include

a need to reassess the

historian's attitudestoward

religious phenomena

and

religion's trajectory

within

the mass of

forces

we

call

historical.

The

recognition

of

religion's

continuity

n

our historical world takes

decidedly

different forms. For

some,

the issue focuses

on

the

question

of

challenging

and

reorganizing

he

meaning

of

modernity, eligion's

supposed

cultural

opposite

and

opponent.

For

others,

the

challenge

is

mainly

at an even

higher

evel

of

generality,

although

with clear relevance to the issue of

modernity: they

ask,

can we re-

arrange

our

conceptualizations

of the

religious

and the

secular,

of our own

vision,

and the

paradigms

hat

organize

our

knowledge,

so that we

can

see our

way

to

a

more

productive

and

less anxious

relationship

between

secular

eyes

and

religious

topics?

As

important,

however,

are the

questions

of the

practical consequences

that

historians

might

face

in

trying

to

deal

with

the

religious

in

their work. There

are less acute forms of the Marsden

challenge,

in

other words. How do

we

relate

to

and write

best

about

people

who have

some

importantly

different

beliefs from

ours

or those of the

contemporary

world about the

essential

ordering

of

things?

The methodsthat historiansuse

may

need revision or defense if

they

are to

cope

productively

with

believers

past

and

present,

even

if we can

disregard

what

historians hemselves believe.9

Opening paths

for

rethinking

religion

and

history

is

one

of the tasks that this

collection

of

essays

successfully

undertakes.The articles do so

by uncovering

our

questionable

assumptions

n a

variety

of

forms

and

across numerous

hemes,

but

they

have

a

focus

around

he

concept

of

modernity.

The reasons

for

modernity's

importance

are

compelling:

religion

within our

grand

historical stories was an

anti-modern

lement,

and discussions

of

early

modern,

modern,

and

postmodern

history

tendto assume

religion's

attenuation,

ompartmentalization,

r decline.It

is a

major

theme

within

the social

sciences,

where Talal

Asad,

for

instance,

has

been

testing

the

meanings

of

modernity

n relation

o

secularismand

religion.

It is

part

of a

master

narrative

of Western

Europeandevelopment

that has been carried

to the rest of the world.

The

fact that this

paradigm

now

appears

alse,

a

story

told

with

more comfort

by

religious

studies scholars

than

by

historians,

s of

the

first

importance:

a

paradigmaticprofessional

narrativeneeds

to

be re-examined.Asad

recently

could

summarizeas

uncontroversial

he

key

view

that

religion

s

by

no

means

disappearing

n the

modemrnorld. '1

As

I

have

alreadysuggested,

that re-

examinationmust include not

only

the historicalevidence but

also

the

prejudices

9. See Brad

Gregory,

below,

The Other

Confessional

History:

On

Secular

Bias in the

Study

of

Religion, History

and

Theory,

Theme ssue 45

(2006),

132-149.

10. Talal

Asad,

Formations

of

the Secular:

Christianity,

Islam,

Modernity

(Stanford:

Stanford

University

Press,

2003),

1.







MODERNITYBETWEEN US

AND

THEM

5

and

practices

of

the historians hemselves.

Questions

will

be

raised about

how

we

understand he

past

but

also abouthow

we

understand

he

present.

CatherineBell's

pursuit

of

paradigms

n

the field

should

compel

us to

question

the

utility

of

a

cluster of

tropes

prevalent

within

religious

studies

and

common

in

religious

history.

These include the

widespread

influence of

Christianity

as

a

prototype

for

religion generally,

and the

notion that

religion

is

fundamentally

irrational.Both

of

these

clearly

ink to

the

ubiquity

of

modernity,

utthat

connection

is

less evident

in

another

paradigm

he

exposes,

namely,

the notion

that

those

who

take

religion

most

seriously

tend

to

take

religion

as

a

good,

whether

in

need

of

purifying

or not. The truth

of

this

paradigm

within

religious

studies is

underlined

by

a

major

conference,

underway

as

I

write,

whose

organizers

are

attempting

o

combat their

perception

hatfor

many

these

days

religion

is

seen as

a

force for

evil

in

contemporary

ife.

The

organizers

want to

demonstrate he benefits

of

religion

in the modern

world.'2

t

may

be that historianshave been less inclinedto see the

good

in

religion

than

have

religious

studies scholars

and,

if

so,

C.

T.

McIntire's

lucid account of the

transformation

n the

meaning

of

the term

religion

helps

to

show

us

why.

He

adds

great

historical

depth

to

Bell's

point

about the

Christian

paradigm;

however,

he

also shows

us that the

reasons for

its

large

role

are as

much

internal

to

Christian

ntellectual

development

as

they

are

a

function

of the

religious

frameworks

against

which

Enlightenment

cholars

struggled.

McIntire's

paper

argues

hat

among

the chief

paradigms

we need

to

challenge

is

the

dichotomizing

vision

that

separates

religion

and

the secular nto two domains

of life and

thought.

Here is

Thucydides'

barrierand it's

one,

McIntire

suggests,

that the historiancan

only

overcome

by pulling

down and

rebuilding

with a more

holistic

perspective.

McIntire

proposes

an instructiveandbold

thought

experiment:

imagine

a

world in which those

who

thought

dharma ather han

religion

had

dominated the

globe

politically

and

imperialistically

n

recent centuries

and

see

how differentour

paradigms

would

be.

Still,

scholars

will

need

to

examine further

his

suggestion

that

history

itself has been

framed

by

this

dichotomizing

discourse

to

be

religion's opponent,

that

Thucydidean thinking goes

all

the

way

down

as well as a

long

way

back. This

is

another

way

to

suggest

that historians will

need to reconceivethe modern n orderto understand

eligion

in this

supposedly

disenchanted

age.

Recognizing

these

problems

is of

course

the first

step

to

proposing

solutions.

Paradigms

are not

easy

to

displace,

Bell reminds

us:

they

need to

be

replaced.

There are

significant

risks

as

well. The

scholarly

methods

that

historians

have

developed

do

after

all

have

a

decent track record at

revealing

the

past,

including

uncomfortable

acts,

whereasthe

role

theory

plays by

contrast

may

be

considered

less

revealing

or even another

orm

of

mythologizing.

Butler,

Gregory,

and

David

White all

suggest

in various

ways

that

theory

has

sometimes

had trouble

getting

11.

Catherine

Bell, below,

Paradigms

behind

(and

before)

the Modern

Concept

of

Religion,

History

and

Theory,

ThemeIssue 45

(2006),

27-46.

12. A

major

conference

on

the

place

of

religion

in the world

today,

held in the fall of 2006 in

Montreal,

has

apparentlyopposite premises:

World's

Religions

after

9/11,

but it is also clear that

the

organizers,

scholars of

religion,

want

people

to have a more

positive

view

of

the

concept

and

phenomenon.







6

DAVIDGARY

SHAW

productive

raction

within

the

history

of

religion.13

utlerviews

theory's

nfluence

most often

as

tiny,

a

sort of

appendix

rather han a

helpful organ,

a situation

he

believes can be unfortunate

s

we face

the

failure of our master

narrative,

s even

modem

Manhattan

urns

out

to be a center of

religious energy.

For

Gregory

and

White,

certain sorts of

theory

are rathermore like the

appendix

that threatens o

burst and kill

the

patient. They

need to be removed.

These

scholars combine to

present

an

anti-theory

o

clear

the

path

back toward

productive

historical

engage-

ment

with

the ideas and artifactsof the

past

and

especially

with the

people

who

held them.

This

anti-theoretical

endency

sees

the

propersubjects

of

history,

the

agents

of

the

past,

as most

likely

to

be

ignored

within

the theorized

raditions

of

scholarship

and

the

practices

that flow

from them. For

White,

the

assumptions

of colonial

and

post-colonial

historians,

he

populist

ideology

of the Hindu

Nationalists

n

India,

and the theoreticalframeworksand historical

practices

of the SubalternSchool

and

its

successors,

have

all

operated

o

obscure

history

by

obscuring

the

religion

most Indians

followed. Brad

Gregory points

rather

o

deep-seated

assumptions

that

ollowed from Durkheim's nfluence

and

thatcan

be

summed

up

as

an

unfairly

influential ommitmenton the

part

of historians

o the

twin

philosophical

programs

of

dogmaticmetaphysical

naturalism

nd

epistemological

kepticism. 14

hese

are,

Gregory

claims,

unproven metaphysical

assumptions,

and their

prominence

has

produced

a secular

bias

within

historiography.

The

unfortunate ffect

is

that

it

dichotomizes-to

use

McIntire's

language--radically

separating

historians'

perspectives

from those of the

people

they study.

This can in effect cut off our

ability

to make a full

and effective account

not

just

of the

psyches

and

individuals

in

the

past,

but of

past

worlds

as a

whole.

Methodologically,

historians' characteristicattention to

past

sources and

the

search or traces

of

past

voices

is the

suggested

antidote

o excessive

metaphysical

or theoretical

commitment,

whether

by religious

enthusiasts

today

or

scholarly

secularists. White

points

out

that the mass of Indians'

historical

practices

and

meanings

may

be

revealed,

even

through ragile

sources,

so

long

as

scholars

are

willing

to follow the

skeptical

methods,

established

n

their historical

fields over

the last hundred

years,

and

especially

to

expand

their

range beyond

classical

texts

to material and

local

cultures.

Gregory

believes that once one clears

away

excessive and

sometimes

unsuspected

reliance on secular

bias,

this

will allow

historians

o

orient

themselves

along

the

axis of the

significance

of the

past

for

the

agents

who lived

it.

Historians should

yield

to

some of

their

subjects'

beliefs,

to

put

aside

their

own

ideas,

and wonder

mainly,

What

did it mean to

them?

On

the other

hand,

White

suggests

that

there are

places

where

honing

the tradition

of

skepticism

is crucial even

against

the views of

believers,

meaning

contemporary

believers. Both are moves toward the beliefs of the

past

and

away

from

those of

13. David

White,

below,

Digging

Wells while Houses Burn?

Writing

Histories of Hinduism n a

Time

of

Identity

Politics,

History

and

Theory,

ThemeIssue 45

(2006),

104-131. For

an

interesting

discussion,

however,

of the

tenacity

of certain

heories,

see Susan Rosa and Dale Van

Kley, Religion

and the Historical

Discipline:

A

Reply

to Mack Holt

and

Henry

Heller,

French

Historical

Studies21

(1998),

611-629.

I

thank

Vijay

Pinch for this reference.

14.

See

ibid.,

611-621

for

a

further

critique

of Durkheimian nfluences

in

historiography.

15.

Gregory,

The Other

Confessional

History,

148.







MODERNITYBETWEEN US

AND

THEM

7

the

present.

As

such,

they

may

unfold the

greatest challenge

of

the

new

turn to

religion among

historians:

t is a turnwithin

presentist

concerns

but not

necessarily

toward

contemporary

popular

beliefs. The

contemporaryvibrancy

of

religion

around the

globe

is

helping

to sensitize the historian to

religion's

significance,

but

good

historical work could tend nevertheless to

disrupt

the

contemporary

religious

adherent's

assumptions.

At

the level of

method,

what

Gregory

and

White

urge

is

quite

consistent with

the turn

toward

the

theory

of

syncretism

that Butler

admires

as a

way

to teach

the

historian to be alive to the

surprising

and

sometimes

explosive power

of

combination

and

recalibration hat

religious

traditions, notions,

and

practices

have. As a

general

approach

o cultural

history,

the

syncretistic

has

great appeal,

with

some

similarity perhaps

even to

evolutionary

approaches,

which

might

provide

other

ways

to see how the

different elements within cultural

complexes

might

break off and be transformed n concert with their

neighbors, originally

drawn

from

quite

different

circumstances.16

In

some

respects,

the

syncretistic

pays

more

attention to context and less to

predetermined

orm.

However,

the

challenges

that White and

Gregory

face

may

be

large,

for

they

would seem at

times

to stand

against

he flow of the wider culture

of commitment

tself.

Gregory

wants

to bracket he historian's

religious,

and indeed

metaphysical,

views

rather

than to embrace

them,

and this sounds

very

much

like a

renewed

commitment o

objectivity.

White's

pleas againsttheory

and

religious partisanship

would

seem to

do the same.

In

their own

ways,

their

views

may

be as

theoretically

unpalatable

as

any

currently

on

offer,

but

they

point again

to the

great

problem

of

gaps

in

understanding

between

scholars and the

dead,

and between

scholars

and

their

religious contemporaries.

Within almost

every

contemporary

historical account

of

religion

rests the

classical

anthropological

problem: confronting

the

seriously

other and

trying

to

find the best

way

to learn from that

encounter. How

radically

removed are

the

people

of the

past

in this

respect?

At the

present pass,

we are

perhaps

in a

position

similar to that of

the Buddhist scholars that James

Ketelaar

discusses,

who are

somehow

untimely,

on

the

cusp

of an

age,

of a

paradigm

shift,

working

hardto

bridge

some

gap

between us and

them,

between one

part

of ourselves

and

another,

between

modernity

and reconciliation. While our contributors

are

more

comfortable

blending religion

and

modernity

than

most

social

scientists or

humanists

are,

for

historians

generally,

admitting

that

religion

needs to be dealt

with

from

within

new

paradigmsmay

not be

easy.

If

the

way

has

been smoothed over in advance

it

is

partly

because the desire

to

capture

the

voice,

the

experience,

and

the

presence

of

the

past

actor

has

grown powerful

among

historiansof

all

kinds. Often the most effective

way

of

determining

he

meanings by

which

people-especially,

non-elite

people-in

the

past

have

lived,

has been

throughreligious

writings

and

practices,just

because

they

are

plentiful

and various.

Thus,

many

historians whose interests n

religion

16.

Compare,

for

instance,

to

The

Return

of

Science:

Evolution,

History,

and

Theory,

ed.

Philip

Pomper

and David

Gary

Shaw

(Lanham,

MD: Rowman and

Littlefield,

2002).

17. James

Ketelaar, below,

The

Non-Modern

Confronts the Modern:

Dating

the Buddha in

Japan, History

and

Theory,

Theme

Issue 45

(2006),

62-79.







8

DAVID GARY SHAW

are not

particularly

trong

have

lately

been

willing

to

manage religious

materials

to find historical

people.

Mystics

and Methodists

have attracted the attention

of social historians

ooking

for a

little more

interiority

among

the common run

of

people.

To some

extent at

least,

this has

prepared

he

ground

for

addressing

the even

larger

questions

about whetherour master narratives need

re-jigging

and whether our own

assumptions

need

to

be

changed.

Are

we

committed,

metaphysical

secularists?Can we

be other?

Ketelaar's account of

Meiji

Buddhist

scholarshipprovides

an

object

lesson

for us as

it

describes the efforts of committed scholars to

engage

the

intellectual

world

of

modernity

without

succumbing

to

it,

without

yielding

their

own

non-

modernity,

as he

provocatively

calls

it.

They

fought,

more

than

they

knew,

to

hold

part

of

themselves aside from

their

projects.

One

of

the

consequences

of

starting

o doubt our account of

religion's place

in

modernity

s

that

it

will

tend

to ruin our

assumptions

about

premodernity

nd the characteristicdifferences hat

exist between the

early

modern or medieval and

the

modern

or

postmodern.

The

benefits would

presumably

be

a

richer,

f

different,

account of the

contours

of the

previous

age

as

well as

the

recent.

Throughout

his

Theme

Issue

modernity's

definition as

non-religious

s

under

attack,

most

eloquently

by

Mark

Cladis,

who

thinks t would be

wise

and realistic

for

us

all,

historians

especially

I

might suggest,

to

face the

music,

to

admit that

even

in

contemporary

ife

religion

has

a

continuing

cognitive

payoff,

as

well as

a

varied institutional

presence.

He

argues forcefully

for

taking seriously

the evi-

dence of

religion

around

us,

even in the so-called secularized

parts

of the world.

In

an odd

way,

however,

Constantin

Fasolt,

against

whom Cladis

debates,

also

sees

the

continuity

of

religion

in

our

times. He sees

religion,

indeed,

as

an almost

necessary part

of human ife.

In

the

volume's

most

surprising

and

one of its most

profoundly

original

papers,

Fasolt

argues

that the

religious

niche

does

need fill-

ing,

but

that

modernity

has indeed

undermined he

ability

of

traditional

religion

to fulfill

the

role

that

the world and

humannaturehad

once

given

it. Fasolt

tells

us

that

something

may

well have

changed

with

the

coming

and

going

of the modern

age

that

has left

traditional

eligion

transformed,

ome of

its

necessary

func-

tions

performedby

other

culturalforms.

If,

as he

claims,

traditional

eligion

was

once effective

at

reconciling

the

existential

gap

between the self

and the

world,

the

self and its

limits,

then

it is certain that

for

many

people,

especially--we

might

add-in

Europe

and

among

the

highly

educated around

the

world,

this

is

no

longer

the case.

They

turn

elsewhere for

help;

Fasolt

suggests

that

they

turn

especially

to

the

new

religion

of

history-reading

and

writing.'8

These

are

very

bold

claims,

to be sure-a

different

definition of

religion,

a different sense of

its

trajectory,

a

surprising

new

form-but

even

skeptics

should

notice that

in

the

great diversity

of

modemrn

ulture,

some

people

may

well

find

the

religious

in new

places

of

high

seriousness and continued relevance.

History

happens

to be one

18. There is

perhapssomething

of Hobbes in this

account,

at least to the extent

that

religion

is

a

consequence

of a sortof defect in

the

natureof

humanity's capacities

and its needs.

See

Michael

Oakeshott,

Introductiono

Leviathan,

Rationalism n Politics

(Indianapolis:Liberty

Press,

1991),

251,

and of course Thomas

Hobbes,

Leviathan

(Harmondsworth,

UK:

Penguin

Classics,

1968),

169ff.







MODERNITY

BETWEEN US AND

THEM

9

of

the

few

scholarly subjects

with

a

large

and

steady

popular

readership

not

to

mention

its televised

and cinematic

forms).

In

this

space

of

significance,

history

and

religion

both

belong, perhaps

more

closely

associated

than we

had

supposed.

Of

course,

there

may

be

other,

even

many

other,

forms of

reading

and

thinking

that

play

a similar role to Fasolt's

historiography.

There

is another

way

to

put

some

of Fasolt's

assumptions:

what

might religion

look

like

in

a new

historicalcontext?

As

Michel de Certeau

put

it

long

ago:

We

can also wonder

whether

the same

type

of

'religion'

is

in

question

in

the

Middle

Ages

as in

the

seventeenth

or the nineteenth

century. '19

o this we

can now

add

the

twenty-first

century:

the word

religion, especially

that stubborn

positive

aspect

that

Bell noted

at

least,

may

have

a

future

as

surprising

as its

richly

con-

tested

past.

Such

a

future

rescues

the

sense

that

religion

is a

good,

but it

is such

because

religion

correlates o

parts

of human life

that

people

believe

are

among

the most

insistent,

important,

or

necessary.

Religion

follows its function rather

than its

genealogy.

Throughout

the twentieth

and

twenty-first

centuries,

interpreting

yet

hon-

oring

others has been

one

of the stiffest

challenges

in social and

humanistic

inquiry.

Fighting

off the

hard-hearted,

ometimes

simple-minded

paradigms

of

Enlightenment

certainty,

behaviorism,

and

quasi-scientisms

were

major

bat-

tles.

The need

to find

truth,

yet

to

acknowledge

ourselves,

was often drawn

into

subtle tension

with

caring

for the other.

To some

extent,

the others

within,

the

superstitious

us,

our

believing

brethren

oday,

and

our

believing past

have

been

the easiest to

ignore,

among

the last to be faced. But since

other-understanding

is

always

in a

sense

comparative, equiring

moving

back

and

forth between

what

we are

and

think and what

we

are

trying

to

understand--the

other

person

or

other

idea-the

self-conscious

reassessment

of

the

place

of

religion

in

history

is sure

to

be

productive

for historians'

appreciation

of their

craft

and the

quality

of

their

account

of the

past.20

The

consequences

may

affect some

of our

largest assump-

tions about

the

course of

history.

Seeking

new

paradigms

of

understanding

o

shape

those

consequences

is what this Theme

Issue

is

really

about,

as

it

reveals

some of

the latest and

sharpest

thinking

about the

interplay

of

religion

and

his-

tory,

one

of the richestof

humanity's

long

conversations.

Wesleyan

University

19.

Michel de

Certeau, The

nversion

of What CanBe

Thought

1969],

in The

Writing

of

History,

transl.

Tom

Conley

(New

York:

Columbia

University

Press,

1988),

141.

20.

Taylor, Comparison,

History,

Truth,

150.

Documents

The Place of Religion within History.pdf