16 Dec 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture 5
I. Three theoretical insights into the nature of religious authority:
1. Authority is…
- Historical product of social processes;
- Presented throughout institutional infrastructure
- Present in private/public, small/large settings
(Talal Asad)
- Authority gets upheld by multiple laws (Pope -> priests, bishops, cardinals ->
churches -> community
2. Authority may be bureaucratic or charismatics (Weber); authority is layered, much like
a political system = maintaining the status quo; inertia. Bureaucratic authority is
meant to keep things the way they are.
- Oriented toward change, explicit of discourse/discussion, tends to be embodied by
an individual, whereas the other is embodied by the office/procedures itself where
various people fil them (people change but positions/roles stay). CA depends on
individual and their ability +to persuade their audience to make changes
(CA=charismatic authority) -> PROBLEM: entirely based on the persuasive powers of
that individual, but if that individual dies or is imprisoned, there is no institutional
backbone in place.
3. Authority’s poer is poerful and ontestale: onstrutie and orrosie disourses.
(does not go through theological lens)
- Constructive = uphold authority, tries to construct it.
- Corrosive = the ways in which we challenge authority; sometimes this is done
anonymously – through music, rap, song, even video/art.
II. Locations of religious authority
1. Religious specialist (who?)
- priest (not talking about Catholic, fulltime; hierarchal bureaucratic – support
themselves)
- shaman (regular people endowed with regular powers, also need to fulfil special
roles; uses altered states of consciousness, trances
2. Ritual authority (how?)
Ritual’s 5 coo traits
Ritual’s function with authority
1. It is distinct from everyday life – it’s ot what we always see
2. Marked by procedural – a process
3. Multisensory and embodied – engaging in a bodily way
4. Ritual is highly communicative – says something meaningful to an audience
5. Ritual is performative, not just reflecting
How do religious rituals uphold religious authority?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com