When I started this program last year, my primary training had been in philosophy. My view of the study of religion consisted primarily of the study of what W.Z Smith’s calls systems. As such, I actually thought that my time in the program would consist of intimately learning about the various systems of ideas (whoops). The ensuing reality has been quite a departure from this earlier perception.

An influential axiom from undergrad was Aristotle’s dictum that “without the same set of definitions, nothing can be agreed upon.” As such, a universal definition of “religion” is highly desired. Such a definition would make the study of religion all the easier. W.C. Smith does a good job outlining not only the commonly used definitions of religion, but also outlining a history of the development of those ideas in the “West.” However, as W.C. Smith points out, any such definition of religion encounters problems. Not only is the term polyvalent and therefore without careful distinctions there is confusion, but also the hard categories ascribed within the term often do not correlate with what others would call “religion,” indeed, if these others even have a similar term in their language. In ancient Rome, religion primarily meant something like “duty” and this duty to the gods was not for personal gain, but rather for the good fortune of the community. Similarly, the closest term to religion in Sanskrit is “dharma” and while its meanings are more polyvalent than the West’s “religion,” none of the possible reasons closely resembles the definitions ascribed within the term religion. After all of this (and more) is considered, there is no easy, hard definition of what religion is, this leaves in its wake a considerable conflict with this paragraph’s opening dictum.

Not only are there the pragmatic concerns with the defining of religion, there is, in addition, moral concerns that need to be addressed in the creation of the definition. Primarily, there are moral implications of the effects of the definition on that which is defined that have been and easily can be overlooked. The process of the defining religion inscribes it with certain attributes. When one then studies the “religions” of other peoples, these certain attributes are then inscribed onto the people studied. This inscription of attributes onto the essences of other peoples raises white flags. What if these inscriptions are rejected by the people they are inscribed upon? What if no one bothers to ask them if they accept or reject these attributes? How does one name the other? Does one ask the subaltern for their permission? These are still do’s and how’s. There are still should’s that need to be considered. If one says that an atheist couple is performing a religious function when they are getting married at the courthouse and if you were to ask them and they deny it, what happens then? Are they merely deluded, fools, or worse? Is W.C. Smith right? Should one disavow the term religion?

Despite the above problems, it would be hasty to drop the term completely. While W.C. Smith is correct in saying that the term has a slippery definition, he is not correct in calling for its removal. The need for careful distinctions, subtlety, and nuance with a term is not warrant for dropping it from use. That is tantamount to intellectual laziness. J.Z. Smith rightly notes that religion is a term that describes a particular aspect of what the scholar is studying, not a wholly independent category. Operating from this approach allows the scholar engage people in a much more valuable manner.

I have been re-hashing some of my lecture notes from my class on the Reformation last semester lately. Here are five things I learned, in no particular order of importance.

1) Theology in the Catholic Church was incredibly diverse and tolerant before the Council of Trent… for in house disputes Before Trent, the Catholic Church’s theology was incredibly diverse. As a moderately educated protestant, I had always assumed/heard that the Catholic Church always had a strict, uniform theology and that was one of the things that Luther was rebelling against. Hardly the case. Luther got most of his theology from other Catholics; as a matter of fact, one of Luther’s most trusted mentors was a Catholic through and through. The Augustinian Order maintained a very similar theology as Luther did, but they never made the dispute a public matter. The Catholic Church was a watershed of differing theologies. There were constant, fierce debates on major theological issues. All of the theological differences were, of course, in house disputes, much like the Calvinism/Arminianism debates of today. As long as these disputes were kept “in house” then there were no charges of heresy. It was only when a disputed theological position was taken to the uneducated people, whom were not able to deal with the nuanced arguments and therefore were susceptible to being snatched away by the devil, was a person and idea considered heretical. Trent changed all of this. The council decided that one of the things to blame for what happened in the 1500’s was the lack of enforced unified doctrine. So they corrected this flaw in their system. Some people call Trent the end of “Catholic Reform,” the universalization of doctrine and practice ending the methods of traditional Catholic reform.

2) Man is born in filth, lives in filth, and dies in filth. Actually, filth is too much of a euphemization, properly stated, filthh should be sh!t. While I hesitate to use that more accurate word because I am afraid some will bypass the content and only glare at the cultural taboo, I include it because that is the closest word we have to how they characterized it. As crude as this sounds, there was a weird preoccupation with fecal matter, to euphemize the term even further. It was the predominate metaphor for the human condition. Sanitation systems were non-existent compared to today’s standards. Humans lived in filth. They used this term and the ideas connected with it to describe the human condition. Just about every writer, Luther, Erasmus, etc used this term constantly.

3) Human behavior, for Luther, could not be improved Luther thought that humans were so morally corrupted by the “sh!t of sin” that they could never become clean in the world. Justification was another matter, but when it came to morally lived lives, it was impossible. There was absolutely no possibility for an improvement of human behavior for Luther. As such, there should be no onus on the person, church, and governments to mold human behavior. Just keep the peace. This was a sticking issue with some of the other reformers, such as the hard-line Zwingli and Calvin. they believed that holiness could be successfully pursued… at least it should be. Hence, churches and governments should make people to live sinlessly.

4) For Luther, the only thing worse than a Catholic was a literalist Luther, along with Augustine, thought that biblical literalism was one of the worst ways to interpret the Bible, especially the Old Testament. I don’t know their views on Israel’s history, but I do know that both of them thought that only the foolish thought that Genesis should be taken literally. This goes for the six day creation and perhaps the flood, but I am unsure on that last point. What is funny, is that it is often the literalists that hold up Luther and Augustine as heroes of the faith even though these heroes would berate them for certain cherished positions. This is not a polemic against literalists, after all I am half of one, but more of a lesson on how divergent people can be in their views of scripture and still be Christians.

5) The Catholic Church before and during the Reformation was full of preaching One of the polemics that the Reformers leveled against the Catholic Church was its lack of preaching in the vernacular. They were so successful in this polemic that for centuries it was assumed to be true by the “winners” of the Reformation struggle, the West, the Protestants. It was only until recently that scholarship realized that this charge was polemical. Ironically, it was one of the after-effects of Trent that allowed for this discovery. With the standardization of doctrine after Trent came censures. The effect of this was the redaction of thousands of documents, including sermons. When the Vatican opened some of its vaults 10-20 years ago, they invited scholars to help categorize and index their contents. The scholars found thousands of redacted sermons that were given by Catholic priests leading up to and throughout the Reformation period. Contrary to popular conception, the Catholic parish priests, not just Bishops, were vigorously preaching in the vernacular. The Mass may have been in Latin and incomprehensible to the laity, but the sermon after the Mass was given in German, French, and Spanish. For the priesthood, it did not really matter what language the Mass was given in, for it was a ritual between the priests and God on behalf of the laity.