Crisis in church? Religious authority and religious experience

Convenors:
Agnieszka Halemba (University of Leipzig) halemba@uni-leipizg.de or agnieszka@inbox.ru
Richard Irvine (University of Cambridge) rdgi2@cam.ac.uk

Abstract

Despite recurrent critiques of dichotomising categorisations, anthropologists and other social scientists time and again return to the idea that religion encompasses two very different sets of dynamics: from Max Weber's differentiation between routinisation and charisma; through Jack Goody's difference between literate and non-literate religions; Ioan Lewis's central and peripheral cults; Frederik Barth's guru regimes versus conjurer regimes; to the most recent doctrinal versus imagistic modes of religiosity proposed by Harvey Whitehouse.

One of the central features that lead researchers to create such categorisations is the relationship between the nature of religious experience and the role of religious authority in maintaining the unity and cohesion of the religious group. Certain forms of religious experience are often viewed as highly individualised. How do hierarchies or other religious structures maintain orthodoxy in the face of such these experiences? What is the relationship, for example, between the experience of mystics and the doctrinal teaching of the church? What threats and opportunities might such experiences pose for the hierarchy of a religion? It is also well known that even the most centralised religious traditions, such as Catholicism, do encompass plenty of emotionally arousing religious practices and experiences - among the most obvious here are exorcisms and visions. Our question is: how are such practices received within institutionalised or centralised religions? What is their position? Can we say that some types of religious experiences, ritual practices and religious imageries are more readily accepted by institutionalised religious traditions than others?

You can submit your paper here:

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels.php5?PanelID=612
(Deadline for paper proposals is 1st March 2010)

Please also contact the convenors directly, and feel free to e-mail them with any questions.