Bringing Kierkegaard into anthropology: Repetition, absurdity, and curses in Fiji

Abstract

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard offers two concepts that can strengthen anthropological analyses of Christianity. The first is “repetition,” or the act of “recollecting forward,” which provides a model of transformation that depends neither on deep continuity nor on decisive break. The second is “absurdity,” the faithful but painful acceptance of paradox as irreducible to logical resolution, which challenges eudemonic understandings of Christianity as a religion oriented toward comfort and satisfaction. I demonstrate the usefulness of Kierkegaard's concepts through an analysis of indigenous Fijian Methodists’ interest in repeatedly engaging with curses from ancestors as a way to overcome them.

Becoming what you are: faith and freedom in a Danish Lutheran movement

“…Unless one's thoughts and deeds arise from doubt‐infused moments of decision‐making ( afgørelser ), then they simply do not qualify as truly ethical, let alone truly Christian. Accordingly, ‘Christian faith … requires a terrifying inward struggle’ (Tomlinson : 171). For it involves the inherently paradoxical and anxiety‐infused predicament that to truly believe one also has to truly doubt, which is why one must never tell, even to oneself, that one is pious (Kierkegaard [1843]).…”

The Question of Cultural Change in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: Notes from the Emerging Church

“…Tomlinson sees Kierkegaard's repetition as charting a third way, “not quite break and not quite continuity, but rather an ongoing act of transformative reengagement and reaffirmation” (2014:166). Repetition is “the act of ‘recollecting forward’ to reshape old things into new ones” (Tomlinson :163). It is not a stale reproduction of memory or a wholly new transformation, but an active process “that both change[s] contexts and transcend[s] contexts as they are repeated onward into the future” (Tomlinson :166).…”

“…Repetition is “the act of ‘recollecting forward’ to reshape old things into new ones” (Tomlinson :163). It is not a stale reproduction of memory or a wholly new transformation, but an active process “that both change[s] contexts and transcend[s] contexts as they are repeated onward into the future” (Tomlinson :166). Conceptualizing cultural change in terms of repetition is a matter of recognizing the possibility that durability and openness to change can operate simultaneously.…”

“…However, it may slowly work to alter the form, logic, and execution of these cultural products. Again, change is repetition: “an ongoing act of transformative reengagement and reaffirmation” (Tomlinson :166; cf. Martí and Ganiel ).…”

“…Two recent models of cultural change proposed by scholars working in the anthropology of Christianity make these priorities. Tomlinson (2014), who did ethnographic work among Fijian Methodists, asks how anthropologists might benefit by engaging with some theological concepts from Kierkegaard. He forwards one example, Kierkegaard's notion of "repetition," as productive for theorizing about cultural change.…”