{"id":139,"date":"2004-03-10T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-10T20:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=139"},"modified":"2012-05-22T16:31:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T22:31:26","slug":"episodic-religisity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=139","title":{"rendered":"Episodic Religiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cultural anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse<\/a> divides modes of religiosity into “episodic” and “doctrinal.” One relies on dramatic ritual experiences, the other on creeds, sermons, texts, exposition, etc.<\/p>\n

In his book Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity<\/em><\/a>, he writes that in small, tribal, or breakaway groups, “religious life is focused around very infrequent, traumatic ritual episodes.” “Traumatic” seems rather strong, unless, of course, you’re thinking of adult circumcision, the knocking out of teeth, scarification, tattooing, etc.–and a lot of Whitehouse’s field work was done in Melanesia, where some of these practices are or were common.<\/p>\n

But now here<\/a> is an example of a traumatic initiation ritual. If there were other candidates besides the late Mr. James, we can be sure that they will never forget their initiation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cultural anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse divides modes of religiosity into “episodic” and “doctrinal.” One relies on dramatic ritual experiences, the other on creeds, sermons, texts, exposition, etc. In his book Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity, he writes that in small, tribal, or breakaway groups, “religious life is focused around very infrequent, traumatic ritual episodes.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,30],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-anthropology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2f","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6232,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6232","url_meta":{"origin":139,"position":0},"title":"Contemporary Pagan Studies Group’s Call for Papers","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The process to submit papers for the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group's sessions at next November's American Academy of Religion meeting is now open. The submission deadline is March 3, 2014. More information and links can be found here. Call for Papers We invite individual papers, papers, sessions, and roundtable proposals\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":700,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=700","url_meta":{"origin":139,"position":1},"title":"Post-ritual trauma","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"At Non-Fluffy Pagans, a great thread on \"post traumatic ritual disorder.\"Pointy-hat tip to Fiacharrey.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":339,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=339","url_meta":{"origin":139,"position":2},"title":"Midnight (imagistic) Mass A few\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Midnight (imagistic) Mass A few nights ago, M. and I were sharing reminiscences of Christmases long past, including the experience of Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. It wasn't the content of the service that mattered, but the experience: the waiting all evening, driving to the church through quiet streets, the explosion\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1266,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1266","url_meta":{"origin":139,"position":3},"title":"Cue the tablas and whale music","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My title is lifted from Charles Blow's column in the New York Times, noting that the recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report on American religiosity shows that things are pretty darn heterodox in the pews (no pun intended).When 28 percent of Roman Catholics say that they believe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7706,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7706","url_meta":{"origin":139,"position":4},"title":"Contemporary Pagan Studies 2016 Call for Papers","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is our call for papers for the next annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, which will be November 19-22, 2016 in San Antonio, Texas. For all the calls, go here, just in case you are interested in \"Vatican II Studies.\" Statement of Purpose:\u00a0 The Contemporary Pagan Studies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3617,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3617","url_meta":{"origin":139,"position":5},"title":"Why I Feel Sorry for Christians at Christmas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"So here it is, two days before Christmas, birthday of Christ the Savior, etc., and I am feeling sorry for the Christian clergy, at least some of them. Along with Easter, this is their big religious holiday. The Incarnation of God\u2014in their theology. And they have to beg people to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4287,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/4287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}