Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

406â Key topics in the study of religions

reinterpretation. The role of tradition, too, has been discovered to be anything but simple. In 1983 Hobsbawm and Ranger edited a remarkable book showing that so many ‘timehonoured’ and ‘immemorial’ traditions have been rather recently invented. They describe the overmastering impulse, beginning about 1870 and peaking around 1900 and spreading right across the world, to invent traditions in every aspect of national life – in politics, education, recreation as well as religion (again we meet a phenomenon broadly cultural rather than narrowly religious). National festivals, stamps and statues, anthems and flags, uniforms, military parades, monuments and jubilees are all quite modern. The creation of national symbolism where none before existed was not unconnected with the changing context. In the West there arose an urgent need to popularise traditional institutions as politics became mass politics. (The ritualism of the British monarchy increased in inverse proportion to the political power of the sovereign.) ‘Traditions’ were taking hold quite widely; around that time the British began to invent native ‘African traditions’ such as tribal divisions and customary law. Hobsbawm and Ranger’s book focused on a particular period and Britain primarily, but it made a serious point of wide application; so often, in claims about the past, far more is going on than meets the eye. Very often the claim ‘this is our tradition’ is not a statement about the past at all (just as the claim ‘our scripture says’ is not necessarily a statement in any strict sense about the meaning of a document); it is a statement about the present – most often a statement of what the present might, or even should, be.

Charisma

I have spoken above of the living community, without specifying how a community operates. Here, obviously, due allowance must be made for the influence of the gifted individuals within a community, and we naturally move to our third focus of religious authority, charisma (from the Greek charis, ‘grace’ or ‘favour’, although the word is not widely found in profane Greek, the roots of our concept being in St Paul). The currency of the concept in contemporary study of religion comes from Weber, who treated the phenomenon at length (Weber 1978). Weber’s concern was to distinguish types of leader: traditional, rational-legal and charismatic. The third type is based upon the perception of followers that an individual is endowed with exceptional (even divine) qualities. (Thus the concept of ‘charisma’ is just as much a relational term as ‘scripture’.) Weber’s ideal-type charismatic leader possesses authority based on his own qualities rather than on tradition or rational considerations. He offers a new revelation and way of life, demands obedience to his mission, and imposes new obligations. Charismatic leadership is unpredictable, personal and unstable, and hence normally must become ‘routinised’ if the mission of the originator is to persist.

This kind of authority is found most purely in shamanism or primal religions generally. In many religions of Africa, the most obvious religious figures are the healer-diviner, the witch and the medium. Some healer-diviners may be considered to have come by their skills through learning from their predecessors, but usually all three are considered to derive their exceptional gifts from the spirits. Some, particularly the spirit mediums, can even be taken over by their indwelling spirits in ecstatic trances. It is this possession that gives the charismatic religious figure his or her authority. Although charismatic authority is regarded with some suspicion in the increasingly bureaucratised West, it should not be thought that charisma is restricted to ‘primal’ religions. For one thing, for many scholars of religion it is the founders of the world religions that are the classic examples of this phenomenon. In Jewish tradition, Moses has been considered to have been endowed with the prophetic

Religious authorityâ 407â

gifts to such a degree that he was ‘the greatest of the prophets’. Jesus taught ‘as one having authority, and not as the scribes’ (Mk 1,22). Muhammad is understood to have possessed more barakah (blessing) than any other man. (‘Barakah’ is an important Islamic concept generally.) The Buddha was said to have had an aura surrounding his body, bringing all he met into submission. For another thing, it is the charismatic leaders of New Religious Movements (NRMs) who constitute a key focus of contemporary religious research.

Frequently charisma links with the other sources of authority considered above. As noted earlier, charisma must become routinised into standardised procedures and structures if the group is to persist beyond the life of the figure who triggered it, but in themselves charisma and tradition tend to tug in different directions. So charisma and tradition inevitably enjoy a somewhat conflictual relationship. With scripture, however, charisma often has an almost symbiotic relationship. Many charismatic leaders of NRMs ground their authority in texts. Someone like David Koresh of the 1993 Waco tragedy, in which 86 people died in a stand-off with US law enforcement agencies, possessed authority not just because of personal qualities, but because he was able to convince others that he was part of the end-time events supposedly predicted in scriptures. (His Branch Davidians were an offshoot of the millenarian Seventh Day Adventists.) American televangelists, the focus of so many studies of charisma, depend upon their own gifts but at the same time take care to anchor their authority in scripture. Scripture actually functions to reinforce their personal charismatic authority. Gurus of many religions win and hold their following to the extent that they are seen to reveal the ‘real’ meaning of scripture.

An example

As a concluding illustration of several of the foregoing points, consider Sikhism. The founder of Sikhism was Guru Nanak (1469–1539 ce), who was succeeded by nine other Gurus. The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh (1675–1708 ce) decreed that the line of Gurus would stop with him, ultimate authority being shared thereafter by both the Panth (community) and the Adi Granth (also known as the Guru Granth Sahib, the collection of writings of the Gurus – and some precursors – assembled essentially by the fifth Guru but given final form by the tenth).

Historical criticism shows that Guru Nanak, the undisputed founder of the religion, discounted outward observance, teaching that true religion is interior, and liberation is achieved through inward meditation directed to Akal Purakh (the ‘Timeless Being’) who reveals himself in the nam or divine name, and brings liberating karma, when transmigration comes to an end. This is achieved through nam simaran, a regular Âdiscipline of inner meditation that focuses on the omnipresence of the divine name. Such teaching was current among the Sants of North India at the time, thus ‘effectively destroying any claims to significant originality’ (McLeod 1989: 23). However, over time circumstances transformed Sikhism. The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, institutionalised the community in the Khalsa in 1699, and began the formation of its special code of conduct (Rahit), which evolved throughout the eighteenth century. Over this time what had been a religion of interiority assumed an ever more exterior identity, marked particularly by uncut hair and the bearing of arms (militancy had first developed under the fifth, ninth and tenth Gurus especially). Under British occupation, a reform movement begun in the late nineteenth century attempted for the first time to distinguish Sikhs from Hindus. The self-understanding and marks of identity established over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are still determinative today.

408â Key topics in the study of religions

The Sikh scripture, the Adi Granth, is given enormous respect. Its mere presence constitutes any room or building a gurdwara (temple). No one may sit on a level higher than the lectern on which it is placed. Sikhs marry by circling it four times. Daily prayers are derived from it. Yet paradoxically, ‘Within the Panth itself knowledge of the actual contents of the Adi Granth is very limited’ (ibid.: 88). A second work, the Dasam Granth, had in the eighteenth century almost the same respect as the Adi Granth; now ‘the Dasam Granth as a whole is seldom invoked and little understood’ – probably because ‘the material which dominates the narrative and anecdotal portion … is scarcely consonant with the preferred interpretation of the Sikh tradition’ (ibid.: 90–1). On yet a third level of scripture are works by two distinguished Sikhs of the Guru period, Bhai Gurdas and Bhai Nand Lal. Both ‘are explicitly approved for recitation in gurdwaras and as such they constitute a part of what we may regard as an authorized Sikh canon’ (ibid.: 92). In practice, however, both are ‘seldom read or heard’ (ibid.: 94), probably because their spirit and content are so different from what the Khalsa came to be. A further class of scripture comprises the Janam-sakhis, cycles of narratives of the first Guru, very hagiographical, often miraculous. ‘Although they have never been accepted as sacred scripture, their immense popularity has conferred on them a major role in the sustaining and transmission’ of the Nanak tradition (ibid.: 97–8) – in our sense, made them enormously authoritative. Still another set of works, known as the Gurbalas, concentrates on tales of the two warrior Gurus, the sixth, Hargobind, and particularly the tenth, Gobind Singh, whose ideals inspired the eighteenth-century Khalsa. There is yet other literature, notably of the Singh Sabha or nineteenth-century reform movement, that offer the traditions reinterpreted in the light of Western ideals, but there is no space to elaborate on them here. I have merely outlined this history and this range of texts to illustrate the complex ways in which the community has regulated itself and (something slightly different) claimed it was regulating itself. The community has transformed itself over time. The ‘traditional’ practices and self-understanding have evolved in accordance with changing conditions. Revered and theoretically decisive scriptures are unstudied and neglected, because of their lack of harmony with later tradition; other books, not part of any canon, are far more influential or authoritative in determining the life of the community, because so compatible with later tradition.

Sikhism is a religion that is quite specific where authority lies: it is virtually undisputed that the mystically present Guru persists equally in the Panth and the Adi Granth. This theoretically precise doctrine, however, leaves much unresolved. Radical ambiguity persists in the translating of mystical authority into actual decisions. The Adi Granth provides ‘little specific guidance on issues relating to the Rahit, and differences of opinion quickly emerge whenever the attempt is made to apply its general principles to particular cases’ (ibid.: 75). However, in practice, the Panth has learnt to live with ‘a radically uncertain theory of ultimate authority’ (ibid.: 77). Undoubtedly there are stresses and strains, and certain issues continue to trouble the Panth, but the evolving tradition in most cases offers sufficient guidance to preserve an ongoing identity. We might complete our illustration by noting that it is the historical approach that enables scholars to establish the community’s development (we have here followed McLeod, but our point about authority within a community is not narrowly dependent on his reconstruction), and to understand individual books in the light of particular contexts; yet Sikhism itself tends to reject this approach. However, the young Sikhs of the Western diaspora increasingly find such a historical approach unavoidable.

Religious authorityâ 409â

Conclusion

Religious authority, in practice, is thus a very complex reality. Understanding its various forms is rendered more difficult because so often the accepted theory does not so much reveal as obscure what is going on. We have drawn attention to three aspects or elements: scripture, or sacred books; tradition, or the living community itself as it survives through time; charisma, or exceptionally gifted individuals. Although it is legitimate to consider these separately, we have discovered so often an extremely complex interplay, not made less complex because so often the religion itself claims that there is in question a simple and transparent process. Here, as frequently elsewhere, theory can be one thing, practice another.

Summary

All human groups need some generally accepted means of resolving major questions, and for religious groups scriptures or authoritative texts, tradition or accepted precedents, and charismatic or gifted individuals have generally performed precisely these functions. These elements operate in very complex ways, often working together. They often function at considerable variance from the ways in which a religion claims they operate. The rise of historical consciousness over the last few centuries has revealed both the complexity and the variance. This chapter outlines the complicated and interrelated workings of scripture, tradition, charisma, with some examples from major religious traditions.

Bibliography

Barton, John, 1997, People of the Book, London: SPCK.

Farley, Edward and Hodgson, Peter C., 1985, ‘Scripture and Tradition’, in Peter C. Hodgson and Robert King (eds), Christian Theology: an Introduction to its Tradition and Tasks, Philadelphia PA: Fortress Press.

Graham, W.A., 1987, ‘Scripture’, in M. Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, New York: Macmillan; and London: Collier Macmillan.

Hastings, A., 1979, A History of African Christianity, 1950–75, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (eds), 1983, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

McLeod, W.H., 1989, The Sikhs: History, Religion and Society, New York and Guildford: Columbia University Press.

Mayr-Harting, Henry, 1990, ‘The West: The Age of Coversion (700–1050)’, in John McManners (ed.),

The Oxford History of Christianity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Müller, Max, 1879–94, The Sacred Books of the East, 50 vols, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Nineham, Dennis, 1976, The Use and Abuse of the Bible: A Study of the Bible in an Age of Rapid Cultural

Change, London: Macmillan.

Paine, Thomas, 1798, Rights of Man, London: Wordsworth Classics.

Plato, 360 bce, Philebus. Trans. Robin Waterfield, 1982, London: Penguin Books. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 1993, What is Scripture? Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Weber, Max, 1978, Economy and Society, Berkeley: University of California Press, especially I, 241–5; II, 1111–56.

410â Key topics in the study of religions

Suggested reading

Barton, John, 1997, People of the Book, London: SPCK.

A brief treatment of many of the issues, focusing on the Christian tradition.

Graham, W.A., 1987, ‘Scripture’, in M. Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, New York: Macmillan; and London: Collier Macmillan.

Succinct summary of the issues.

Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (eds), 1983, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shows the problematic nature of ‘tradition’.

Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 1993, What is Scripture? Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press. A magisterial treatment of all the issues involved, covering all traditions.

Weber, Max, 1978, Economy and Society, Berkeley: University of California Press, especially I, 241–5; II, 1111–56.

The classic treatment of charismatic leadership.