Christian SMITH: " Religion. What it is. How it works. Why it matters.

Review:

The publisher (or is it the author himself?) announces „A groundbreaking new theory of religion“. I think this claim is exaggerated. What we can expect, and what we get, is a new definition of „religion“. But that's nothing unusual since almost every scholar writing a book about religion in the last two centuries has presented a new definition. It's one of their favorite pastimes. If 20 sociologists of religion write 40 books on the topic of religion, they invent and use 30 different definitions.

The definition Prof Smith is presenting in this book (back in 2003, he used a different one) is: „Religion is a complex of culturally prescribed practices, based on premises about the existence and nature of superhuman powers, whether personal or impersonal, which seek to help practitioners gain access to and communicate or align themselves with these powers, in hopes of realizing human goods and avoiding things bad.“

This is the core, or as the author calls it: the „trunk“ of religion: People practice religion in order to get help from superhuman powers. Everything else is relegated to „secondary effects“: personal and social identity; community belonging, social solidarity, and social support; moral order, cosmic and life meaning; transcendent experiences; and so on...

The rest of the book is more or less a long commentary on this definition: Every concept or element of it is analyzed, parsed, and compared with definitions or theories from other scholars. For me as an interested layperson the discussion of theoretical details was somewhat underwhelming (e.g. why the author prefers „superhuman“ and not „supernatural“; why he subscribes to „critical realism“ and „personalism“, and why he does not like empiricism).

The problem with this kind of intellectual game is: There is no such thing as the ultimate comprehensive definition, because the phenomenon we call „religion“ is so manifold and fuzzy, that all religions past and present are merely connected by a 'family resemblance'. Each definition put forward underscores some aspects of religion while excluding other aspects. This book is no exception.

A weakness of the definition given by Prof Smith is that it is unable to distinguish religion from magic. If I nail a horseshoe above my door in order to keep away evil spirits, I try to harness „superhuman powers“, but this is not religion. Whereas magic can be performed alone in my room (I imagine Dr Faustus in his study, conjuring up the Spirit of the Earth to help him making gold), Religion is always and essentially a social phenomenon. Whereas magic is purely instrumental, people belong to, and identify with their religion, a point Prof Smith with his rather utilitarian concept of religion, where individuals use practices in order to get help from the gods, does not sufficiently take into account.

The second deficiency of the definition cited is its focus on „practices“, not religious beliefs. This seems to be very important because the author keeps repeating „practices, not beliefs!“ throughout the long first part of the book. The problem with this focus is that practices per se are meaningless.
Take the following example: In ancient times, a specific dance served a religious purpose, maybe a kind of rain dance. Then, generation after generation, the intrinsic religious meaning of the dance gradually disappeared; the tradition preserved only the form, the husk. Today the dance is a mere piece of folkloristic art, maybe performed in front of tourists, devoid of any religious dimension.

Another example could be Yoga. For person A, it's just a kind of callisthenics, to keep the joints and sinews in good shape. In contrast, person B believes that his or her body is a vessel for cosmic forces, and by doing yoga, B aligns him- or herself with an unseen order. In both cases, the practices are the same; observers cannot tell the difference. We have to focus on the belief associated with the practice in order to know what is religion and what is mere bodily exercise or a hollow traditional performance.

By focusing on the practice as such we cannot tell the difference. The very essence, the „DNA“ of religions resides in the beliefs, in the ideas which are passed down from generation to generation. Practices are nothing but the „phenotype“. Therefore it is misguided to focus on practices in order to tackle the question „What is religion?“.

Ironically, Prof Smith implicitly acknowledges the primacy of ideas when he presents and discusses what he calls „the deep culture“: the basic ideas, categories, assumptions and premises any culture is built on. Very often they are religious in nature, even if people no longer recognize this because those basic ideas are taken for granted or remain out of sight. Since it is impossible to understand 'deep culture' in terms of practices, those cannot be the essential building blocs or elements of religions.

But the most serious shortcoming and lacuna of the book (imho) is the almost total absence of the evolutionary perspective. Landmark books like „Darwin's Cathedral“ by D.S. Wilson or „In Gods we trust“ by Scott Atran are not even mentioned, let alone discussed. The fundamental question „Is religion a mere by-product of human cognition or is it a kind of adaptation?“ is not discussed.

Chapter 4 is called „Why are Humans religious?“ Why-questions like this can lead to proximate or ultimate causes. The former are being dealt with by psychologists or sociologists, the latter are the domain of evolution. The answers Prof Smith presents are only proximate causes: Humans are limited in their capacities (like all living beings), so they look for ways to overcome their limitations; because they are imaginative and capable of abstract thought … they somehow invented superhuman agents.

But the following important reasoning is absent in the book: Religious practices are costly, some of them very costly (time-consuming rituals, ascesis, tithes, sacrifices, offerings, even martyrdom). But superhuman powers do not exist, they cannot provide the help needed. So what are the evolutionary benefits to outweigh the real costs? (The so-called „costly signalling theory“ that gives a plausible explanation for this paradox is not even mentioned in this book).
Imagined benefits won't pay the bill. Prof Smith presents positive „emotional energy“. But this currency is not valid in evolution. Nature does not care if animals are happy and flourishing as „persons“. The only valid currencies are survival and reproduction. So how did and does religion affect survival and reproduction of Homo sapiens? Or is religion neutral in this regard? My opinion is that an author who promises a general theory of religion should put his sociologist's blinkers aside for a moment and should address these questions. Otherwise the whole theory is suspended in midair.

How is it possible to write a comprehensive book on the sociology of religion without addressing the old problem of „religion and violence“? This topic is totally absent in this book. (Instead we get 20 pages of introduction in the new religion of „Wicca&ldquo The reason for this conspicuous absence? I guess it's because „violence“ is disruptive and destructive and does not fit easily into the utilitarian framework of Prof Smith's definition of religion as a set of practices to get good things and avoid bad things with a little help from nice superhuman powers. (By the way: Lots of ghosts, spirits and gods in the history of religions are and were quite nasty and evil. How do they fit into the picture of „Humans imagined superhuman powers in order to get help from them“?)

To sum it up: The book was written by a scholar , destined for fellow scholars. Style and discussion are academic. Again and again, Prof Smith discusses topics and aspects of religion only of marginal interest to the wider public (for instance the long and winding discussion about „secularization“ towards the end of the book). Maybe this book will become a standard text in sociology of religion classes and inspire future academic research (Smith dedicates 10 pages in the back of the book to research questions).- -
For readers outside of academia, the litmus test for books like this is the question: Is there anything interesting I learned from it? Any fresh insight to take away? A new perspective? I'm afraid the answer in this case is no.