Ways of Seeing Ecstasy in Modern Society: Experiential-Expressive and Cultural-Linguistic Views

Abstract

Religious experience is an important but understudied aspect of religion. Sociologists need a theoretical approach that appreciates the existence of and variation in the social distribution of reli~ous experiences. Recogni~ng that theories are interpretive frameworks through which we view the world, and understanding that "every way of seeing is a way of not seeing," use examine two potential "ways of seeing" religious experience in modern society and explore their ability to shed light upon recent surveys which suggest that as much as half the United States adult population has had what can be called "religious experiences." As the dominant views in sociology largely exclude from consideration the experiential dimension of religion, we tum to perspectives that take religious experience more seriously, what Lindbeck (1984) caUs the "experiential-expressive" and "cu/turallinguistic" views. While the former is an advance over the dominant views, it too has liabilities. We advocate the cultural-linguistic theory as the most sophisticated way of seeing reli~on. Asa preliminary test of this view, we examine the relationship between "ecstatic" retigious experience and "conventional" religiosity, predicting that the most conventional worshipers will llave ecstatic experiences most frequently. Logistic regression analysis of General Social Survey data supports this prediction.In both sociology and psychology, the years between World War I and the Korean War were comparatively desolate as far as the study of religion is concemed Gorsuch 1988). This despite the fact that the "founding fathers" of sociology --Marx, Durkheim, and Weber --and the *The ideas in this aracle had the.ir genesis in Robert BeUah' s masterfid presentation o… the socioiogy o… reli~~n at the Universiry of California at Berkeley. They have come to en~rical fruition under the mindful eTe of Richard Schoenherr ac the University o… Wisconsin at Madison. We ate indebted to both. Thanks ate also due to Robert Mare and Samuel Lucas … methodological advice, to Mike Jindra and Chris Fassnacht … substantive input, and to the Sociology of Religion ed/tor and rev/ewers … their insightful comments. Ah earlier version of das article usas presented at the annual meetings of the Association … the Sociology o… Reli~n, Pittsburgh, August, I992. The research was supported by Ÿ to the first author from the American Sociolo~cal Association Minori~ FeUowship Program (N.I.M.H. grato #MH15722-13) and partially supporm~ by a grant flora the N.I.H. (#HD25592-0251). The second aurhor u, as supporte.d by a Universiry of Wisconsin Advanced Oppormniry Fe//owsh/p. We ate grateful to aU of the funding agencies. Ultimately, blame for any shortcomings m ~ ara& resta solely with the authors.

Angelic Belief as American Folk Religion1

“…Previous research has indicated that worship service attendance, frequency of prayer, and biblical literalism are significant predictors of religious experiences (Baker, 2009;Hay and Morisy, 1978;Yamane and Polzer, 1994), and it follows that these forms of religious commitment should predict belief in angels as well. Service attendance and frequency of prayer are both commonly used by sociologists of religion as measures of religious devotion or practice, and the BRS contains a third item, frequency of reading sacred texts, that captures another aspect of individual religiosity.…”

Social Influence on Paranormal Beliefs

“…For example, Kirkpatrick's (1997) study found quali ed support for a relationship between attachment styles (e.g., commitment to relationships) and religiosity, the notion being that certain religious beliefs are tantamount to spiritual attachments that may compensate for the lack of certain social attachments. Yamane and Polzer (1994) focused on a more sociological aspect of religiosity: how religious traditions create alternative realities for adherents, which in turn facilitate ecstatic experiences with paranormal characteristics. MacDonald (1995) established an even stronger tie between religious and paranormal beliefs.…”

The eventization of faith as a marketing strategy: World Youth Day as an innovative response of the Catholic Church to pluralization

“…The exponents of this paradigm endeavor to systematically apply economic market theory to religion (cf. Yamane and Polzer, 1994). They argue that, as in secular markets, people's choices of religious goods and services are guided by the economic principle of utility maximization (cf.…”