Robert Bellah
My copy of Michael H. Barnes’ In the Presence of Mystery: An Introduction to Human Religiousness finally arrived from the equally mysterious and always entertaining Amazon Used and New Book Store. Purchasing a used book from an Amazon Seller is an adventure! One never knows for sure what the packaging holds until it finally arrives and is opened. It’s a gamble; it’s a game. For example, when I opened the package holding my copy of Barnes’ In the Presence of Mystery, I discovered that a book with a big, obnoxious, white circle glued to its front cover was inside. To make matters worse, the big, white circle was decorated with bold red text that unceremoniously spelled out the words: “DESK COPY.”
Ah, DESK COPY! The fact that someone sold me a free book doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I don’t care. The white circle glued to the book’s front cover is, however, an unacceptable aesthetic complication. Purposely placing a permanent blemish on a book’s front cover like that is sacrilegious, in my opinion. Happily, this aesthetic mess isn’t a total wash. The body of the book itself is in excellent condition. It contains no markings, highlights, or unidentifiable stains. Wonderful. I’ll ignore the terrible cover and its big white circle and focus upon the content of the book itself. It’s solid.
The book is worth the read. I was provoked in thought before I even made it through the book’s introduction. Barnes introduces his readers to Robert Bellah’s “Theory of Progressive Forms” in his intro. Bellah, a sociologist, held to a theory built upon the idea of a developing religion that evolves alongside the personal cultural, conscious and spiritual development of the individual. Said differently, religious evolution mirrors the lives of the individual adherents of the religion, according to Bellah. So, as an individual moves through his or her own developing religious expression — beginning with Primitive and maturing through Archaic, Historic, and, hopefully, Modern stages — the larger religion to which they belongs matures alongside of them.
It’s an interesting theory and I think it is true in that human beings are the authors of religion. It’s not clear to me, however, that it actually works out, as far as religious progress and evolution are concerned. I mean, a lot of people would have to simultaneously process through the stages together before real, influential change could be introduced to an established religion, religious system or even a Christian denomination. It seems to me that those who do process through these stages finally end up leaving whatever religion, system or denomination they were part of because they no longer can honestly function within it. In other words, they out grow it. It seems to me that the people who do manage to process through Bellah’s Stages are so outnumbered by the people who do not process through that they are forced to depart and search for a community that fits. They start over.
So, the question I am left asking has to do with our human patterns, historically speaking. It seems as if we – humanity – used to operate according to Bellah’s Theory of Forms, but did we stop for some reason? Are our religions still developing as we consciously and culturally evolve and we are just missing it? If we are not evolving, what happened? Why did we suddenly stop doing it like we have always done it? Maybe we are living in the midst of a huge and developing process and don’t realize it? Do we care?
STAGES OF CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT
4.) MODERN: Complex civilization, most aware of the ultimate mysteriousness of the universe and life; approaches ultimacy with hope and openness; symbolic and tentative theology; a concern for the worldly well-being of others and trust in the future; basic value morality.
3.) HISTORIC: Highly complex civilizations in which people search for the ultimate single Power or Being that encompasses all else; comprehensive and dogmatic theology; hope for a perfect other-worldly existence; universal laws morality.
2.) ARCHAIC: Towns with class structure in a larger world, with great and distant gods demanding worship; grand myths; dreams of idealized earthly life; acceptance (and taboo) morality.
1.) PRIMITIVE: Small groups living in a one-possibility local world, with magic and spirits at hand all around; folktale-myths; a concern to live happily; taboo (and acceptance) morality.
Each new stage incorporates previous ones in various ways, all building on the same basic human intelligence, moral capacity, and emotions. So, while it is true that individual development tends to follow patterns similar to these, it should be noted that real life is much more irregular, complex and messy than this neat schema.
(Michael H. Barnes, In the Presence of Mystery: An Introduction to the Story of Human Religiousness [Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1984], 6.)
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