Religious practice: who, where, what? Modes of religious practice as modes of religion.

One of the papers discussed at the OTSEM conference in Göttingen was Anne Katrine Gudme’s ‘Modes of Religion: An Alternative to ‘Popular/Official’ Religion’. She has been inspired by Stanley K. Stowers (Brown University) who developed an idea of ‘modes of religion’, based on cognitive theory, focusing on religion as a ‘human cognitive-practical phenomenon’. His work on this is still to be published, but Gudme got acquainted with his ideas through attending conference papers (one paper, although not for circulation, is available at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies).

Gudme’s aim with her paper is to get beyond the binary distinction between popular (or mass) and official (or elite) religion. Stowers and Gudme distinguish two types of religion: religion of everyday social exchange and religion of the literate cultural producer. The former involves the gods as person-like agents with whom people interact. These interactions are localized at particular places and times. Such practices are not systematized, but exist because they ‘work’ at a specific place. This mode is loaded with uncertainty about the practices and their effectiveness. Because they seem to work they receive a certain measure of (empirical) credibility.

The second type, the religion of the literate cultural producer, hides its location in time and place and aims to produce generalized and universal knowledge applicable in all places and times with a more abstract (or general) idea of the divine. Still, also this mode is also about personal religion. On the one hand, this second mode includes a group which advocates a kind of religion less focused on self and more on establishing true beliefs and uprightness. On the other hand, a less entrepreneurial group also belongs to this mode. These scribes serve the needs of others, a king or a patron, and deal with the meanings of rituals. Writing as such is not distinctive, as votive inscriptions can be part of the first mode.

Both modes can have a so-called ‘overlay’ (two additional modes) in which they receive political dimensions. For the first mode this is the institutionalization of everyday religion, for example in a temple cult; the second mode’s political overlay (not discussed by Gudme) happens when the state (or possibly another body) recognizes the literate specialist religion (Stowers refers to political reception of Paul and its institutionalization; note that in the case of the Old Testament temple and royal authorities are much closer to the writers).

This cognitive approach to modes of religion which centres on the practice helpfully notes that so-called ‘popular’ religion (i.e. religion of everyday social exchange) was practiced by both the elite and ordinary of society (as Gudme illustrated with Jeremiah 44:21). If the religion practiced by officials becomes prescribed religion (which is helpfully seen to be the politicized version of the religion of the cultural producer) it is not far from being so-called ‘official’ religion. If the normative element of the second mode would bring them so close, we should still not return to the old binary opposition (or a new opposition between practical and intellectual). Gudme tries to avoid this for Ancient Israel by proposing that the Hebrew Bible came into existence as the product of ‘of the religious practices of the literate cultural producers’. Although the distinction between the modes focuses on writing, the question arises whether the production of images initially involves a similar distinction, whereas the ‘use’ of images might diminish the distinction between the two modes.

Stowers made his proposal to understand sacrificial practices and also Gudme makes the first mode an object of study (in her project on votive inscriptions). It is to be applauded that more light is shed on the nature of (ancient) religious practices, as it provides a solution for an important epistemological problem by touching on the relation between our written sources and the ancient practices. As such, “these modes can provide useful contexts for thinking about ancient ritual.” (so Stowers). This focus on understanding ritual, however, limits the application of the new model. It would be proper to acknowledge this focus on practice and therefore speak about modes of religious practice instead of modes of religion.

This initial epistemological issue may be dealt with satisfactorily, but obviously questions about religion remain which touch on other elements than who practices what. We may magnify the practice, but we will always need to reflect on context. Including more aspects of agent and location in our attempts to approach ancient religion may help us find ways of comprehension. We may find us challenged to consider the relevance of e.g., scale in group (individual, family, people), in value (of tools or gifts involved), in geography (the area involved in an event and the proliferation of the practice); kinds of people (function; age; gender; elite: literate; powerful; agricultural, juridical and other needs; etc.); form of transmission (habits, customs, oral tradition, images, or written scripture); normativity; and ideas about the divine (nature – culture, level of abstraction) to construct modes of religion benefiting from these modes of religious practice (rather than modes of religion!), as presented by Stowers and Gudme.

Taking into account different of the above mentioned factors may assist understanding and comparison (aware of the danger how categories generalize), as this invites us to consider religion at different levels of abstraction (concepts which foster different practices in different contexts), on different geographical levels (e.g. the proliferation of a certain type of god and local differentiation in regard to the other factors), etc. Such an approach to religion will also show how much the different modes of religious practice interact, partly peacefully, but also in tension with each other. What the king practices as head of the royal family or even as head of a clan or tribe may be similar to what men do in their own households, but still both may be criticized by literate specialists, for instance for issues related purity, value, divine concepts, or improper gender role. Another example: How would fit Michal’s critique of David dancing in front of the ark fit the modes of religious practice and the above sketched parameters for modes of religion? And if 2 Samuel 6 is only taken as a literate expression, what does it convey?