Unplanned, both my classes are reading from Meredith McGuire's Lived Religion this week! In both, we're not only getting to know a recent direction in research, but pushing back against narratives which presnet current American pluralism unprecedented. McGuire refers to work by historian Peter Burke, who draws on Bruegel's "Fight between Carnival and Lent" to argue that pre-Reformation European Christianity had a much broader understanding of religion, one encompassing feasting as well as fasting in prescribed rhythms. Way fun to have that image overlooking our class discussion!
In "Theorizing Religion" we also watched a witty video by the young scholar who produces the series "Religion for Breakfast," one of whose exhibits is an amulet from late-Roman Anatolia which happily mixes together Christian and non-Christian images; the class really got into it when I pointed out that such an amulet won't just have been an individual's syncretic secret but produced on a wider scale for many people. Both helped the class see beyond individualistic conceptions of private spirituality. As McGuire puts it:
[I]ndividual religion is, nevertheless, fundamentally social. Its building blocks are shared meanings and experiences, learned practices, borrowed imagery, and imparted insights. (Lived Religion, OUP 2008, 13).
