{"id":15930,"date":"2018-01-18T12:53:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T20:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15930"},"modified":"2018-01-18T12:53:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T20:53:06","slug":"sacred-constructs-and-new-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/sacred-constructs-and-new-forms\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacred Constructs and New Forms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

In his classic polemical-historical book, \u201cImagined Communities\u201d, Benedict Anderson goes deep and wide to explain and explore the rise of \u201cnationalism\u201d as a new \u201cimagined community.\u201d The line often cited to sum up his work is that the nation must be, \u201cimagined<\/em> because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Since people within a nation or community can never really \u201cknow\u201d everyone else, it is necessary that we \u201cimagine\u201d or \u201cbelieve in\u201d the reality of the group.<\/p>\n

Anderson explains that historically there have been three main sacred constructs that held societies together and gave them shape. The first is the religious or sacred community (such as Christendom or the \u201cUmmah\u201d of Islam), along with the ontological truths that it contained and mediated. He writes that, \u201cin Western Europe the eighteenth century marks not only the dawn of the age of nationalism but the dusk of religious modes of thought.\u201d[3]<\/a> The erosion of trust in religious, absolute \u201ctruth\u201d, is closely tied to the second \u201csacred construct\u201d, which is that all of society is built around that truth.<\/p>\n

So, for example, the King or Monarch is in place because there is a Divine source of power, and those entrusted to a high place in society are there for a reason. As Stephen Heathorn puts it in his review, \u201csociety was naturally organized around and under high centres\u2014monarchs who were persons apart from other human beings and who ruled by some form of cosmological (divine) dispensation.\u201d[4]<\/a> It follows that if the essential truth of religious communities (whether Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist) is undermined, then the social structures around them will also be questioned.<\/p>\n

The third sacred construct that Anderson identifies is a changing notion of time or temporality. He writes, \u201cthe medieaval Christian mind had no conception of history as an endless chain of cause and effect or of radical separations between past and present.\u201d[5]<\/a> This meant that the \u201ccosmic\u201d and the \u201cpresent-day\u201d were essentially the same. However, in the 19th<\/sup> century and beyond, a new sense of \u201chistory\u201d as a concrete set of events was growing. This meant that something \u201cnew\u201d could emerge, and that the past did not have to dictate the future.<\/p>\n

So, the mental shift that was happening, especially in the 19th<\/sup> century colonial world, grew out of the change that was happening with the \u201cGreat Powers\u201d of Europe. As those European empires shifted from seeing themselves in the traditional way (ie: holding ontological truth, with society organized according to this truth, with history and cosmology tightly welded), toward the language of a \u201cnation-state\u201d, it opened the possibility for a kind of secular nationalism that could rise in far-flung parts of the world.<\/p>\n

One powerful critique of Anderson\u2019s book is brought by Partha Chatterjee. She essentially labels his perspective as overly European\/American-centric in its categories. She writes, \u201cIf nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain \u2018modular\u2019 forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?\u201d[6]<\/a> Or to put it another way, are post-colonial nations still essentially under the mental domination of Europe, if they must only \u201cimagine\u201d using the categories and ideas that they have inherited and been given?<\/p>\n

In part to address these concerns and others, in 1991 Benedict Anderson released a newer edition of his book with expanded and additional chapters. One of his new findings is that while \u201ccolonial states were typically anti-nationalist, and often violently so\u2026\u201d[7]<\/a>, that beneath the surface, colonial states often used nationalism and encouraged it in a certain way.<\/p>\n

The most compelling portion of this book to me is the chapter entitled, \u201cCensus, Map, Museum.\u201d From Biblical times (as cited above), the census was a form of state power, not only to tax and conscript (for labor or military service), but also to categorize and identify. As Anderson shows in this chapter, the colonial states used the census to actually \u201ccreate\u201d national identities. This was a form of control and categorization, that ironically later led to \u201cnationalistic feelings\u201d that were part of the un-doing of colonialism itself.<\/p>\n

This past week, I had a census taking experience of my own in my church. We were trying to gather demographic data on our church members, especially pertaining to race and ethnicity. We had submitted a denominational form last year, where all data about ethnicity was left blank, and so the conversation was around how to accurately think about the ethnic make-up of our church.<\/p>\n

Some people within the leadership were wary of actually gathering this data, or of giving it any credence. Perhaps their fear is that once identified into a \u201cgroup\u201d, there might be \u201cgroup feelings\u201d or separation that could be artificially created. Another concern that was raised is that \u201crace is a construct\u201d, and we are all really just part of the \u201chuman race\u201d, so why would we gather this kind of information?<\/p>\n

In my own reflection, I am also aware of the propensity of those in power (ie: colonial states, or church leadership) to gather and use census data (or demographic information) for its own purposes. Anderson gives ample examples of the ways that European explorers and colonizers misunderstood their surroundings and applied artificial categories to try and make meaning of what they were seeing.<\/p>\n

This is a powerful takeaway for me from this book. That any community, whether a nation-state, an ethnic group, or a church, has to be \u201cimagined\u201d into existence. The ways we talk about ourselves and think about who we are will matter for how we act and treat each other and the kinds of things we will do. I wonder whether I am too eager of a census-taker? Is there still a \u201ccolonial-mindset\u201d that is in me, which seeks to categorize and control the people in my midst? Are the fears and feverish-imaginings of my fellow leaders, like those of Pharaoh in the Exodus story, as he looked out and saw the numerous Hebrew people?<\/p>\n

In a way, every generation of the Church must do the work to imagine itself in a new way. And yet, this is also a self-conscious task. Where we build on the legacy of what has come before, where we see ourselves more truly and clearly for who we are, and where we seek to be faithful into the future. And in all of this, we trust the God who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Luke 2:1 (New International Version (NIV)).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Benedict Anderson,\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>\u00a0(London: Verso, 1991), 6.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Benedict Anderson,\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>\u00a0(London: Verso, 1991), 11.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Stephen Heathorn, review of\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections n the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>, by Benedict Anderson,\u00a0Method and Theory in the Study of Religion<\/em>\u00a06, no. 1 (1994): 105, http:\/\/web.b.ebscohost.com.georgefox.idm.oclc.org\/ehost\/pdfviewer\/pdfviewer?vid=12&sid=25555597-bca0-47ac-ad93-4531e1e98f7d%40sessionmgr102.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Benedict Anderson,\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>\u00a0(London: Verso, 1991), 23.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Partha Chatterjee, review of\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>, by Benedict Anderson,\u00a0Journal of International Studies<\/em>\u00a020, no. 3 (1991): 216, http:\/\/jan.ucc.nau.edu\/~sj6\/Chatterjee%20Whose%20Imagined%20Community.pdf.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Benedict Anderson,\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>\u00a0(London: Verso, 1991), 163.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.\u201d[1] In his classic polemical-historical book, \u201cImagined Communities\u201d, Benedict Anderson goes deep and wide to explain and explore the rise of \u201cnationalism\u201d as a new \u201cimagined community.\u201d The line often cited to sum up his work is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[775],"class_list":["post-15930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-benedict-anderson","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15931,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15930\/revisions\/15931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}