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1 The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies is both informative and provocative, introducing readers to key debates in the contemporary study of religion and suggesting future research possibilities. A group of distinguished scholars takes up some of the most pressing theoretical questions in the field. What is a religious tradition? How are religious texts read? What takes place when a religious practitioner stands before a representation of gods or goddesses, ghosts, ancestors, saints, and other special beings? What roles is religion playing in contemporary global society? The volume emphasizes religion as a lived practice, stressing that people have used and continue to use religious media to engage the circumstances of their lives. This underlying conviction provides a realistic perspective on religion, and the volume s chapters engage with real-world religious practices. The chapters should prove valuable and interesting to a broad audience, including scholars in the humanities and social sciences and a general readership, as well as students of religious studies. Robert A. Orsi is Professor of Religious Studies and History and Grace Craddock Nagle Professor of Catholic Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of several prize-winning books, including The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, , 3rd Edition (2010); Thank You, Saint Jude: Women s Devotions to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes (1996); and Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (2005).

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3 Cambridge Companions to Religion This is a series of companions to major topics and key figures in theology and religious studies. Each volume contains specially commissioned chapters by international scholars, which provide an accessible and stimulating introduction to the subject for new readers and nonspecialists. Other Titles in the Series AMERICAN JUDAISM Edited by Dana Evan Kaplan KARL BARTH Edited by John Webster THE BIBLE, 2nd edition Edited by Bruce Chilton BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Edited by John Barton DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Edited by John de Gruchy JOHN CALVIN Edited by Donal K. McKim CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE Edited by Colin Gunton CHRISTIAN ETHICS Edited by Robin Gill CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY Edited by Charles Taliaferro and Chad V. Meister CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THEOLOGY Edited by Tim Winter JONATHAN EDWARDS Edited by Stephen J. Stein FEMINIST THEOLOGY Edited by Susan Frank Parsons THE JESUITS Edited by Thomas Worcester JESUS Edited by Markus Bockmuehl LIBERATION THEOLOGY Edited by Chris Rowland C. S. LEWIS Edited by Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward MARTIN LUTHER Edited by Donald K. McKim MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman MIRACLES Edited by Graham H. Twelfthtree MODERN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Edited by Michael L. Morgan and Peter Eli Gordon MOHAMMED Edited by Jonathan E. Brockup THOMAS MORE Edited by George M. Logan POSTMODERN THEOLOGY Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer PURITANISM Edited by John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim THE QUR AN Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe THE TRINITY Edited by Peter C. Phan KARL RAHNER Edited by Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines REFORMATION THEOLOGY Edited by David Bagchi and David Steinmetz FREIDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER Edited by Jacqueline Mariña SCIENCE AND RELIGION Edited by Peter Harrison ST. PAUL Edited by James D. G. Dunn THE TALMUD AND RABBINIC LITERATURE Edited by Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Edited by Edward T. Oakes and David Moss JOHN WESLEY Edited by Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers

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5 The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies Northwestern University

6 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny , usa Information on this title: / Cambridge University Press 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data The Cambridge companion to religious studies / edited by Robert A. Orsi. p. cm. (Cambridge Companions to religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn (hardback) isbn (paperback) 1. Religion Study and teaching. 2. Religion Research. I. Orsi, Robert A. bl41.c dc isbn Hardback isbn Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

7 Contents Notes on contributors page ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Robert A. Orsi Part one Religion and religious studies: the irony of inheritance 1. On sympathy, suspicion, and studying religion: historical reflections on a doubled inheritance 17 Leigh E. Schmidt 2. Thinking about religion, belief, and politics 36 Talal Asad 3. Special things as building blocks of religions 58 Ann Taves 4. The problem of the holy 84 Robert A. Orsi Part two Major theoretical problems 5. Social order or social chaos 109 Michael J. Puett 6. Tradition: the power of constraint 130 Michael L. Satlow 7. The text and the world 151 Anne M. Blackburn 8. On the role of normativity in religious studies 168 Thomas A. Lewis 9. Translation 186 Martin Kavka 10. Material religion 209 Matthew Engelke vii

8 viii Contents 11. Theology and the study of religion: a relationship 230 Christine Helmer Part three Methodological variations 12. Buddhism and violence 257 Bernard Faure 13. Practicing religions 273 Courtney Bender 14. The look of the sacred 296 David Morgan 15. Reforming culture: law and religion today 319 Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 16. Sexing religion 338 R. Marie Griffith 17. Constituting ethical subjectivities 360 Leela Prasad 18. Neo-Pentecostalism and globalization 380 Marla F. Frederick 19. Religious criticism, secular critique, and the critical study of religion : lessons from the study of Islam 403 Noah Salomon and Jeremy F. Walton Index 421

9 Notes on contributors Talal Asad is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. His publications include Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford University Press, 2003); and, most recently, On Suicide Bombing (Columbia University Press, 2007). Courtney Bender is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. She is author of The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 2010) and Heaven s Kitchen: Practicing Religion at God s Love We Deliver (University of Chicago Press, 2003). Anne M. Blackburn, Associate Professor of South Asian Studies and Buddhist Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University, is author of Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture (Princeton University Press, 2001) and, most recently, Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka (University of Chicago Press, 2010). Matthew Engelke is a senior lecturer in anthropology at the London School of Economics. His book A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church (University of California Press, 2007) won the 2008 Clifford Geertz Prize from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion and the 2009 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing. Bernard Faure is Kao Professor in Japanese Religion at Columbia University. His books include The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton University Press, 1998); The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender (Princeton University Press, 2003); and Double Exposure: Cutting Across Buddhist and Western Discourses (Stanford University Press, 2004). Marla F. Frederick is Morris Kahn Professor of African and African American Studies and a member of the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. She is the author of Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith (University of California Press, 2003). R. Marie Griffith is the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor and Director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, Washington University ix

10 x Notes on contributors in St. Louis. Her books include God s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (University of California Press, 1997), Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (University of California Press, 2004), and American Religions: A Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 2007). Christine Helmer is Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of German at Northwestern University. She is the author of The Trinity and Martin Luther (Zabern, 1999) and has published numerous articles and edited (and coedited) volumes in the areas of Luther studies, Schleiermacher studies, biblical theology, philosophy of religion, liberal theology, and constructive theology, most recently The Global Luther: A Theologian for Modern Times (Fortress, 2009). Martin Kavka is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. He is the author of Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2004), which in 2008 was awarded the inaugural Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Jewish thought and philosophy by the Association for Jewish Studies. He is coeditor of Tradition in the Public Square: A David Novak Reader (Eerdmans, 2008) and Saintly Influence: Edith Wyschogrod and the Possibilities of Philosophy of Religion (Fordham University Press, 2009). Thomas A. Lewis is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University. His publications include Freedom and Tradition in Hegel: Reconsidering Anthropology, Ethics, and Religion (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005); Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel (Oxford University Press, 2011); and numerous articles on methodology in the study of religion, religion and politics, liberation theology, and communitarianism. David Morgan is Professor of Religion at Duke University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies. His most recent book is The Lure of Images: A History of Religion and Visual Media in America (Routledge, 2007). He edited and contributed to Key Words in Religion, Media, and Culture (Routledge, 2008). Robert A. Orsi is Professor of Religious Studies and History and the Grace Craddock Nagle Professor of Catholic Studies at Northwestern University. His most recent book is Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton University Press, 2005), which won the 2005 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Constructive- Reflective Studies Category, from the American Academy of Religion. Leela Prasad is Associate Professor in the Religion Department at Duke University. Her book Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town (Columbia University Press, 2007) was awarded the 2007 Best First Book in the History of Religions Prize from the American Academy of Religion. Michael J. Puett is Professor of Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Chair of the Committee on the Study of

11 Notes on contributors xi Religion at Harvard University. His books include To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China (Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2002), and he is coauthor, with Adam B. Seligman, Robert P. Weller, and Bennett Simon, of Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity (Oxford University Press, 2008). Noah Salomon is Assistant Professor of Religion at Carleton College, where he teaches courses in Islamic studies and theory and method in the study of religion. He is the author of recent articles on Muslim piety movements in contemporary Sudan and is preparing a manuscript, In the Shadow of Salvation: Sufis, Salafis and the Project of Late Islamism in Contemporary Sudan. Michael L. Satlow is Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University. Among his books are Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2001) and Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice (Columbia University Press, 2006). Leigh E. Schmidt is the Edward Mallinckrodt University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of numerous books, including Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 2000), which won the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in Historical Studies and the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association; and Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (HarperOne, 2005). Winnifred Fallers Sullivan is Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Religion Project at the University of Buffalo. Her publications include The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton University Press, 2005) and Prison Religion: Faith-Based Reform and the Constitution (Princeton University Press, 2009). Ann Taves is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and holder of the Virgil Cordano O.F.M. Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies. Her book Fits, Trances and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton University Press, 1999) won the 2000 Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy and Religion. Her most recent book is Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things (Princeton University Press, 2009). Jeremy F. Walton is Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow in New York University s Religious Studies Program. He is currently at work on Horizons and Histories of Liberal Piety: Civil Islam and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey and is coeditor of Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency (University of Chicago Press, 2010).

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13 Acknowledgments I have been fortunate in spending much of my life talking about the challenges of studying religion with an extraordinary community of fellow scholars, many of whom have become friends as the years have piled up and conference has followed conference. I owe a tremendous debt to all of them, for their support, encouragement, and criticism, but most of all for their friendship and for all that I have learned from them. This book began in a conversation with my wife, Christine Helmer, in a cabin we were renting in Maine for a couple of weeks one summer, with our little son, Anthony, sleeping in the next room, and my father, Mario, doing Italian crossword puzzles on the couch. One of the great delights of our marriage is a shared fascination with religious practice and imagination and the many long dinnertime conversations this provokes. I have learned a great deal about the study of religion from Christine, not least a robust understanding of Friedrich Schleiermacher s centrality to the making of Western religious theory. I am especially grateful to her for encouraging me to take on this project and then for her guidance in seeing it through to the end. Our son Anthony and my daughter Claire are an endless source of joy and sustenance. Claire remains one of my most cherished and trusted intellectual partners. The conversation continued in the hallways of the Barker Center at Harvard University, when I was chair of the Study of Religion. Here I was fortunate to be part of an invigorating everyday discussion of the issues that found their way into this volume. I owe a particular word of gratitude to Ann Braude, David Hall, Tal Lewis (who since has moved to Brown University), Parimal Patil, Michael Puett (then chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations), and Ronald Thiemann. Carole Bundy, Kit Jaeger (and their dogs), and Katherine Kunkle made the Study of Religion a warm and welcoming place. The Committee on the Study of Religion is what serves as a religious studies department at Harvard in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Religion Colloquium in the Study of Religion was a wonderful venue xiii

14 xiv Acknowledgments for generating and exploring ideas about religion and religions and about methods and theories. I record here my gratitude to the graduate students and faculty who faithfully participated in these meetings several evenings each semester. Over the years, students in classes on theory and method in the study of religion, first at Indiana University, then at Harvard, and now at Northwestern University, have challenged and enlightened me on the topic of the study of religion; the learning that took place in these classrooms was always shared. I remain grateful to these successive generations of students. They are now respected scholars and teachers themselves (or on their way to becoming so). May they be as fortunate in their students as I have been in my students, which is to say, as I was (and am) in them. I want to remember and thank here too the extraordinary undergraduates who took my theory and method seminar at Harvard in 2006 as their sophomore tutorial. These students not only brought an exuberant curiosity about religion and an impressive openness to critical inquiry to our conversations, they were among the most gracious and generous group of students I have ever taught. My understanding of the historiography of the study of religion developed over two decades of conversations and many long evenings of food and drink with my good friend Leigh Eric Schmidt. Andy Beck, then an editor at Cambridge University Press, was enthusiastic about this project from the start. Brian Clites and Matthew Cressler, graduate students in religious studies at Northwestern University, checked and rechecked every citation and quotation in every chapter in this volume, working under time pressure with energy, creativity, and focus. They also helped me assemble the index. Another graduate student at Northwestern, Matthew Robinson, assisted with the initial formatting of the individual chapters. Finally, I owe my greatest debt to the contributors to the volume. All were involved with major projects of their own when I approached them in s from out of the blue about joining me in putting together this book. I was fortunate that they also believed that it is an exciting and challenging time in the history of the study of religion and I very much appreciate their enthusiasm and their support. I found our backand-forth exchanges over the months about their chapters exhilarating and inspiring.