On Religiosity and Super-religiosity (I): Measures of Radical Religion

Abstract

This essay submits a thesis on radical religion, discusses the measures of religion, and proposes the concept of "super-religiosity." This will be followed by a second essay (in Numen vol. 60, issue 4, 2013) that presents a contemporary case to which the analytic model of super-religiosity is applied. Though the two essays systematically relate to each other and are complementary, they can be read independently of one another. The theoretical core of the essay addresses the issue of the measurability of religiosity. It supports the recent claim that religion in general and religious extremism in particular, is not so much a matter of behef or experience but rather that it is essentially a matter of performance of the self and the group. It then argues that advancing our understanding of religious extremism requires turning the spotlight from an externally oriented performance towards a religion's environment to an inward-facing religious performance. It further maintains that religious extremism's center of gravity is the ingroup dynamics of competition over religious excellence rather than (rational choice) competition over external resources. Finally, the paper proposes a measure of religiosity: that used by the practitioners of religion themselves.The religious group that constitutes the empirical focus of the essay is the ultra-Orthodox Jews in contemporary Israel known as Haredim. More precisely, the essay describes and analyzes the hard core of the Haredi society that manifests religious extremism. It offers a comprehensive and methodic picture of Haredi society based on a critical survey of the literature, combined with an examination of updated data into which findings of an extensive field research are integrated. The discussion of the Haredi world is harnessed to the effort to deconstruct and reevaluate the prevalent concepts of tradition and fundamentalism, and suggests a new perspective on scaling religiosity and on high-scale religiosity.

Training for total devotion: emotionality and narrativity in Deuteronomy

“…While acknowledging the importance of aspects such as costly sacrifice and identity fusion, anthropologist Gideon Aran has suggested that emic understandings and performances of high-intensity religiosity deserve more attention, as they form the 'center of gravity' in violent, radical religion (Aran 2013, 155-156), playing important roles as motivational forces for the performance of super-religiosity and for staying in the group (Aran 2013). Pieter Nanninga has also indicated that pull factors should be studied more closely (Nanninga 2013).…”

“…A key factor in staying-in could be about inward-facing ideals of devotion that mobilise group members via emotionality and narrativity. Ideals of devotion can play out as inward-facing religious performances of the self and the group and can offset internal competitions over religious excellence (Aran 2013;Juergensmeyer and Sheikh 2013;Nanninga 2013 5 ). The practice and performance of total devotion could then be as much about living up to shared ideals as about exterior relations.…”

‘Generic’ Versus ‘Mature’ Measures Of Christian Religiosity: Comparing Two Quantitative Measures of Religiosity

“…(ARAN 2013, 165) This issue is further complicated by the fact that some dimensions of religiosity may be highly correlated (i.e. scoring highly on one scale dimension is correlated with scoring highly on another scale dimension of religiosity) (HOOD et al 2009), while other dimensions may not be highly correlated and seem to be separate constructs (ARAN 2013;MCGUIRE 2002). This leads to methodological questions regarding how to capture information on who is 'most' religious within a measure of religiosity.…”

“…Generic religiosity scales focus on measuring outward or external aspects of religion. This includes both behavioral aspects of religion, such as church attendance or engaging in regular prayer, and belief aspects of religion, such as believing in Jesus Christ (ARAN 2013). The generic approach can also involve respondents self-identifying how important faith is to their own lives, but without a specific context for understanding why faith is important or how respondents apply their religious beliefs within decision-making contexts.…”

“…PARGAMENT (1992) argues that individuals often have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for participating in religious activities, and these motivations are often intertwined with secular goals. Further, individuals are likely to differ in their interpretations of what makes someone 'religious' both within and among religious groups; some religions and religious groups have a tendency to focus on religious practices and rituals, whereas others may be more focused on internal or behavioral/consequential dimensions of religiosity (ARAN 2013). This is supported by our findings where prayer rituals were found to be an important component of overall religiosity, although questions related to prayer were excluded from the mature religiosity scale.…”