Masuzawa, Smith and Van Voorst: The Questions

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Defining “Religion, Religions, Religious”
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As Tomoko Masuzawa and Jonathan Z. Smith point out, the meanings of the term “religion” are various (Masuzawa 60; Smith 270). While Smith in particular offers several critical analyses of some of the ones that have been posited (see pages 280-281 for two such examples), the definition that he himself offers is for me, the most thought provoking. He says, “‘Religion’ is not a native term; it is a term created by scholars for their intellectual purposes and therefore is theirs to define” (281). Arising out of this short (and seemingly transparent) sentence is a host of difficult issues that leave me with difficult questions. If Religion is in fact a term that is “imposed from the outside on some aspect of native culture” and can differ as often as each scholar’s “intellectual purpose” differs, then what exactly is the value of the term, “Religion”? Can the academic really use this term to signify his/her own academic agenda? Does this change what individuals and communities can mean when they refer to themselves as “religious” even if they constitute a native culture (i.e. are “insiders” of a particular faith group) rather than an outside, purely scholastic entity? Are they too capable of imposition in the way that Smith discusses it and if so, what exactly are they imposing and on what?

Evidently, the problem of defining Religion introduces certain methodological issues for individuals engaged in its study. The fact that I find Smith’s suggested reading of the term challenging in what it implies/potentially makes possible does not change the fact that I also find it helpful and (perhaps ironically) compelling. In thinking about my own areas of research, I find Smith’s definition describes a practice that I have already chosen to adopt. My interest in how popular icons are directly/indirectly fostering religious experiences in a secular environment is loaded with categorical problems. To talk intelligently and intelligibly about this topic, I need to define what it is that I mean by “religious experiences” and “secular environment” and to do this, I will ultimately have to state what it is that I mean by Religion. I will have to impose my own “intellectual purpose” on it. But what bothers me now is to what or to whom will I be held accountable in formulating these definitions? If every scholar engaged in religious studies is able to come up with their own meanings for these terms, who or what regulates what does and does not legitimately fall under the discipline of Religious Studies? I know that Smith states that Religion is an anthropological category and not a theological one but, then, what is the underlying “thing,” for lack of a better word, that will identify my work as predominantly “religious” and not “anthropological” (269)?

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The Problem of “Insider/Outsider”
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Van Voorst’s essay and Masuzawa’s chapters prove interesting in their discussion of “insider/outsider” relationships with respect to the study of religion. Framing his analysis within the context of Eastern Scripture and some of the disadvantages facing North American readers, Van Voorst writes that “we [North American readers] lack the living context of scripture when we encounter only its textual form [… We] cannot directly see the broad ways that scripture is reflected in religious life, or the more specific ways it is used in worship, devotion, or law” (12). I find this a particularly interesting observation as it relates to geography and notions of being an “outsider.” Related to my particular area of interest is the idea that North American Christianity is in someway distinct from the Christianity being practiced overseas. Despite so often being labeled as a “Western religion,” Christianity originated in the East. Is the New Testament an Eastern Scripture then? And if it is, are North American Christians (in being geographically separated from the East), somehow “outsiders” as far as readership goes even in spite of their being privy to Christian reflections in “worship, devotion and law”?

Speaking specifically about “insiders and outsiders” as initiates or non-initiates of a particular religious tradition, Van Voorst suggests that academics adopt both perspectives in studying religious traditions. He advocates that we read scriptures “as outsiders, in an objective, scholarly, noncommittal way” but then also attempt to read them “as much as possible as insiders, with the eyes, minds, and hearts of those for whom these texts are much more than the object of scholarship” (16). This dual-approach strikes me as valuable in its “holistic” aims: it seeks to accommodate the scholar with objectivity, the particular religious community with sympathy and the actual texts with both of these strengths.

I do wonder how these two sides of scholarship are to be harmoniously integrated in one study though. Van Voorst posits this dual-approach in terms of what to do first and what to do second: our interaction with a text as an outsider should precede our reading of it as an insider (16). But this model suggests that the two categories can be easily separated in all cases, as if the only thing required to make a shift between the two is a change in one’s state of mind. Taking the case of an insider, for example, I wonder whether or not s/he can ever be an outsider in the “noncommittal way” that Van Voorst talks about. Can we really shut off and turn on parts of ourselves in this way? If we can, how will the questions that we ask of texts be changed and how will this effect what answers we choose to accept or reject?

Related to this same question of the “insider and outsider” relationship to religious studies, Masuzawa says that the reader automatically tries to assess the scholar’s “status” (i.e. insider or outsider) in order to evaluate the extent to which his/her argument is credible (69). She goes on to largely dismiss this pursuit by saying that “even if such a measurement should prove reliable, it can reveal the nature of the writing only in one register” (69). Initially, I was assuaged by this comment in the way that it undermines the importance of a scholar’s status as being nothing more than revelatory of one aspect of his or her writing (69). Yet, as I revisit it, I find that my interest in this question is not so much about how people’s “insider/outsider” perspectives affect their writing as much as it affects their research and choice of methodologies. I look forward to discussing this more in class with everyone.