More David Petts

I've finished a close reading of the short book by the archaeologist David Petts: Pagan and Christian, Religious Change in Early Medieval Europe. I had to grind my mental gears to accustom myself to the archaeological mode of writing, but I do like his conclusions. He notes that conversion to Christianity in the 6th and 7th centuries was not a clear cut process, adhering to 'book' Christianity. Mostly he focuses on Anglo-Saxon England in the early period of the spread of Christianity, but covers digs and evidence from many parts of western Europe in these early years of missionary activity.

I read this book because of debate over Christian missions in North America, primarily in the region now called Canada, in a course I teach.  The residential schools are also a popular focus of student attention. It occurred to me that I don't know how many of the children forced into these schools were already Christian. Another area of debate that arises regularly in this course is that slippery term syncretism. Just how Christian were those baptized by members of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, not to mention other Christian missionaries. This arose from a paper I gave a long time ago at what used to be called the Learned Societies Conference, now the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. It is also a central focus of David Petts's look at early medieval Europe and conversion. 

I was working at the time for an ethnohistorian from the anthropological side, Mary Black Rogers. She was completing a study of the Weagamow area begun by her late husband Edward S. Rogers, who had been Curator of Ethnology at the Royal Ontario Museum and one of the earliest ethnohistorians.  Mary allowed me to dig deeply into the evidence and studies amassed between 1958 and 1974. I focussed on a Cree (or perhaps Orkney-Cree) Anglican priest at Big Trout Lake who left a large body of records on his ministry in the Severn river area, including Weagamow. My paper found that this apparently fully converted  native person, allowed a fair degree of elasticity in practice that a later Euro-Canadian priest assigned there found dubious. 

Without going deeply into the evidence here, baptisms were eagerly followed by native peoples still living a mostly traditional lifestyle, but Christian burials were rare. More interestingly were marriages, which mostly followed Christian theology and Church of England rites. I say mostly, because I found a few instances of this Cree priest marrying men who had more than one wife 'in the custom of the country' (a phrase found frequently in the records of the Hudson's Bay Company posts). There were also a very small number of apparent marriages in the church that were according to Christian theology,  bigamous. This is difficult to ascertain clearly because of the multitude of names that Oji-Cree peoples ordinarily used. Ed and Mary had spent a large amount of their time sorting out names so I am moderately convinced that marriage customs continued to follow indigenous cultural norms while employing Church of England rites. 

Now, the Petts book. His study of early medieval Europe and the case studies he uses from Anglo-Saxon England note that burials only gradually became matters for the Christian church. Even Christian sources don't focus on burial as a religious act often in the early mediaeval period. Gradually archaeology has found Christian goods in burials, but this is not a Christian practice in 'church' terms. Christian burials theologically speaking do not include burial with other objects. Yet burial with objects is common in this period where these burials are definitely Christian. This suggests a mingling of cultural norms carried forward from pagan practices into early Christianity. In other words, what we call syncretism. 

For my teaching purposes and for my own curiosity, the seemingly partial conversion of Oji-Cree peoples in the Severn River region has a strong mate in early Christian Anglo-Saxon England as well as in much of western Europe. David Petts spends a part of his book discussing the differences found in historical writing concerning Christian missionary work in Europe and the evidence of grave goods. His plea is to use both kinds of evidence and not to judge this issue based only on church norms. Rather, the growth of Christianity involved the maintenance of pre-Christian practices within a new Christian context and not the complete abandonment of former societal practices along with conversion. 

Language and Religion

I am in the process of reading a short book (long article?) by an archaeologist, David Petts, Pagan and Christian:  Religious Change in Early Medieval Europe.

He raises the idea that liturgical language needs to be viewed differently than has been the usual way it is interpreted. For example, the use of Latin by the Church in western Europe up to the Reformation, despite most people, including priests, not understanding the language. I recall reading somewhere a few years back that the last place where Latin was a commonly used language was in a part of northern Italy in the 9th century. I would assume this was not the classical Latin I was taught in High School or university (most of which I have forgotten). Probably it was a vulgar Latin where much of the complex grammar of Cicero was flattened out and made more easily used in conversation. The last evidence of even this form of Latin dates from the 9th century.

David Petts's thesis is that holy or sacred languages such as Latin in the medieval church did not have the purpose of communication in the sense we use language today. This Latin was not used to communicate facts or ideas. Rather this Latin communicated the sense that listeners were now in the presence of the divine rather than the ordinary or secular world.  In one of the courses I teach, I have students read a description of the emotional impact of the Mass on late medieval hearers. Students almost universally are surprised that people attending could not understand the language, yet still seemed eager and even passionate about attending. The thesis that David Petts advances explains this passion for hearing an incomprehensible language. The language is not incomprehensible, but communicates on a deeper and emotional and spiritual level.

Beauty

Years ago Richard Dawkins, while debating the Archbishop of Canterbury, was asked what he would miss if religion had not existed. His reply was Buddhist and Hindu temples because of their beauty.

I meditated long on this and believe that religious architecture in general comprises the most beautiful architecture humanity has ever produced: no matter the religion.

Secularization Revisited

I came to my often neglected blogger blog because yesterday I watched a short, 15 minute TEDx talk on secularism and why religion will not recover. I began thinking about the place of religion in society back when there seemed no threat to religion as a functioning, normal aspect of society (1964). The fellow who gave the talk is an English Sociologist who taught for a time at the University of Essex, although he lives in the United States now. He presented as cool, soft spoken reason personified. His talk was carefully organized, with points on a screen, built logically and using evidence, (well, if statistics can be considered evidence when presented alone).  A brief bit of research into his background reveals a scholar who has focussed his career on the sociological study of religion through the lens of statistical analysis.

I posted a few comments to the effect that what has replaced religion as a societal basis was chaos not order. I mentioned particularly the culture of entitlement which I hypothesize as being the new foundation of modern society - if that can be considered a foundation upon which to place our common house. I mentioned also the collapse of reasoned discourse as a norm and its replacement with a 'the loudest win the debate' ethos. Most of the other comments were of the celebratory, 'religion is dying at last' sort, with a few Christians citing scripture. There seemed to be no reasoned critique of his talk.

For those who accept the arguments of the New Atheists, the debate is over, or to borrow from Climate Science, 'the science is settled'. My thoughts posted on that TEDx talk and here in my own blog are at no such complete and dogmatic state. I am at the stage of  early hypothesis. What surprised me about the talk was the underlying implication that the victory of secularism in the western world is a case of 'the science is settled' amongst sociologists. Yet I know from my preliminary reading that there is no such consensus. At present I am reading slowly and carefully through a book entitled, Rethinking Secularism, a collection of essays on this topic edited by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer and Jonathan Antwerpen. The introductory essay, written by the three editors, shows no such unity of analysis on the state of the 'science'. The essays that follow are by historians, philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and one expert in International Relations. They come from a variety of backgrounds. Most teach in U.S. universities although not always American born and trained. One writes from India, one from the Netherlands and there is one Canadian (whatever we are these days!). I read the book quickly a while back and recall the chapter on India as the most interesting for its very different view of the role of religion in society and its critique of the very term 'religion'. This was one lacuna I noticed immediately in the TEDx talk:  there was a very loose use of the term 'religion' as though those listening would know immediately what that is. He implied that 'religion' is the institutional church with its buildings, and rituals and preaching. I found that very curious indeed. I insist from my students that they define the terms they are using and not expect that every reader will know what is meant by a term as though there were no debate on its use.

The speaker, David Voas, has excellent credentials and a highly successful career in the statistical analysis of religion. I was surprised that he seemed unaware of equally erudite critiques of the secularization thesis.

Here is the talk:  Why there is no way back....by David Voas

Dreams

I am nearly finished grading a student assignment in one of the history of religion courses I teach. I came across the idea of dreams as inspirations, in this case a bishop named Aubert had a dream in the year 708 that Michael the Archangel told him he should build a church. The small church that resulted was the foundation of Mont St-Michel Abbey.

I wonder at dreams as inspiration.

The literature on dreaming is vast, encompassing scientific research, philosophical thought and religious beliefs.

Dreams as in the tale I opened this post with are the typical asleep dreaming ... usually I forget mine, but many people have vivid well-remembered dreams on a regular basis. I don't. This could be because my dreams happen while I am awake. This was an elementary school sin..."Stop day dreaming!"  I day dream as much as I live in whatever this place called the 'real' world is; my mind is always going off in directions alternate to the physical space. I might be standing in line at a supermarket or walking my dog Toby and my mind is floating off to the side or up and back or living in an alternate universe while my body continues on its linear trajectory.

Perhaps mystics are those who live more in this dreamscape than in the physical landscape.

Definitions

Something occurred to me just now: our Western propensity to define things, religion in this case. To define means at root, to draw a boundary around something so one knows not only what it is, but what it is not. I wonder why we need this? Perhaps to impose order on chaos (one element of a definition of religion). Somehow i doubt this reflects reality.

Can religion be considered something apart? Or is it an element of entanglement? There seems to me to be a degree of artificiality in Western Civilizations need to assign definitions of categories, rather than view reality holistically.

Religion the Foundation Stone?

Originally I planned two blog posts here, but as my brain kicked into gear, I realized these are part of the same thought. I was going to write about an hypothesis that Christianity is the foundation stone of Western civilization. I have heard this discussed and the idea interests me but I haven't thought deeply about it, or looked for evidence pro and con. I was going to write a second post about the closure of a single church near my home. The essence of this second post was to be the decline of Christianity in the West. Further thought on this made me toss around the idea that we are seeing a change in Christianity rather than a decline. I decided that these thoughts are connected.

Is the decline of Christianity in the West merely part of the ages old dance of religion within society? Will the product of this dance, once the music stops, be an entirely different civilization? This lead to the further thought, was there ever a single 'Western' civilization?  And if so, when and how did it begin? Historians have delighted in dividing history into eras. Apparently we are entering or are already in 'post-modernity'. Modernity is held to have got going in the 15th century, so is about 500 years old (give or take a century or so). Prior to that was the mediaeval period and prior to that the 'ancient' world, or 'classical' civilization. All these periods belong to what is called Western civilization. This overarching theme (if I may call it that) is accorded a start with ancient Greece and the ideas of philosophers there and a form of early democracy, especially as found in the city state of Athens. Rome conquered the Mediterranean world and what is now western Europe (from which comes the label 'Western') and in its organized commercial and legal world spread these Greek ideas and thus was the midwife of 'Western civilization'. Western ideas died for a time when the Roman empire collapsed in western Europe and the western Mediterranean but revived in another sub-period labelled 'The Renaissance', the rebirth. The technology of movable type added a volatile fuel to this movement, et voilà Western Civ.

Where does religion lie in all this?  Both the ancient Greeks and Romans were pagans of similar hue. The Greek gods and goddesses were more petty and human than the more powerful Roman versions, perhaps reflecting the differences in political power of the two cultures. Religion both reflected and supported the overall culture. But Christianity, a very different idea about the nature of existence was born and nurtured, albeit often violently in the Roman world. This is a mystery despite the number of studies done on this topic. History is mostly a story of gradual, glacial change, but every so often an event occurs that is seismic rather than organic. Christianity survived its first three centuries as an outsider faith where it was periodically and violently attacked by both state and populace. Yet it emerged as the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Nietzsche once famously pronounced the death of God. A fourth or even fifth century Nietzsche would have proclaimed the death of gods as Christianity gradually supplanted the old gods even among the general populace.

I don't really know what Nietzsche meant and I am not alone in that,  but the image below of pews being sold off in a Presbyterian church in Canada in 2018 gives a hard face to the surface meaning of his comment. This congregation was formed in 1905 and they built a very plain, serviceable building for their worship and for the community that is at the core of all Christian groupings. Dare I say, community is at the core of most religions, though not all. Certainly it is for the 'peoples of the Book' (to borrow from Islam): Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Even those religions where community is not emphasized by their religious professionals, the ordinary followers organize themselves into small communities: the Buddhists, Taoists, neopagans and so on. Christianity too has a foundation stone called the equality of the individual person before God, regardless of social status.  Yet people are social animals and we need fellowship. As this blog post is about Western Civilization and thus Christianity, I will reel my thoughts into focus here. As I started this paragraph, this church community began in 1905. In 1921, they expanded and renovated their building, then in 1967 built a new place beside the old. It is the new  you see being disassembled in the photo below.

I mentioned that history usually changes organically but sometimes with an earthquake. This congregation had the money and the optimism to build an entirely new church in 1967. At that time in Canada, the generation who had fought the second world war were at the apex of their earning. The economy was booming with low unemployment and low inflation. Wages were going up at a greater rate than costs. This congregation used their old building as a Sunday School and for meetings and communal activities such as pot luck dinners and scouts and guides. This was also the era of the baby boom. Churches were filled with adults and even more so with their children.  Families often had three, four, five or more children. Yet just over fifty years later, there were only a few adults remaining and even fewer children. One generation is all it took for Christianity to collapse into insignificance in Canada. This congregation has moved in with another and sold their buildings to a developer. For three hundred years Christianity grew slowly from a breakaway sect of Jews in the ancient world, to becoming the officially sanctioned religion of the entire Western world. Over the next five to six hundred years it came to encompass the tribal societies that had displaced the Roman empire in the west. There it consolidated for another five hundred years. Then for four hundred years Christianity expanded with European commerce and military might based on technology to all parts of the world.

In fifty years, this all dissolved. And here is a picture of a small part of that dissolution.