21AR26-39

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AR 26:39 - The sorry state of "mysticism" in academia

In this issue:
MYSTICISM - "there is hardly a more beleaguered category" in religious studies

RACISM - "it grants an all-purpose excuse"

Apologia Report 26:39 (1,544)
October 7, 2021

MYSTICISM
Ever since the umbrella term "Eastern Mysticism" grew popular back in the mid-1980s, mysticism has been one of the most broadly applied and favorably received terms in the vocabulary of non-conservative religious expression. In "The Changing Meaning of 'Mysticism,'" Livia Gershon documents (JSTOR Daily, Aug 24 '21) the history of the term in reference to the observations made by historian of religion Leigh Eric Schmidt.

"Schmidt writes that 'mysticism' arrived in the English language in the eighteenth century as a derogatory term for Christian fanatics. ...

"It was only in the middle of the nineteenth century that people began using 'mysticism' to describe their own direct efforts to experience the divine. ... Ironically, some of mysticism's biggest advocates there were Unitarians.... Starting in the 1830s, Unitarians associated with the Transcendentalist movement began embracing mysticism. Among them were theologian and abolitionist Theodore Parker, writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, and feminist journalist Margaret Fuller. This was a cosmopolitan group eager to try out varied practices from other cultures in the service of a universal spirituality. ...

"The focus on direct personal experience helped liberal Protestants imagine a future free of sectarianism and - at least in theory - equally open to all of the world's religions. ...

"At a time when scientific rationalism was challenging many religious claims, Schmidt writes, the intuitive, irreducible nature of mystical experience was also an 'intellectual shield' against a purely materialist worldview. ...

"Schmidt writes, since the 1970s, the concept of mysticism has faced new criticism. Scholars like Wayne Proudfoot and Grace Jantzen warned that it irresponsibly removes religious experience from historical and cultural contexts, and from political analysis of power."

And by 2003, Schmidt noticed that "there is hardly a more beleaguered category than 'mysticism' in the current academic study of religion." (Hmm. How about trying "racism" on for size?) <www.bit.ly/3tJpMvW>

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RACISM
"Critical Witchcraft Theory" by Peter W. Wood (president, National Association of Scholars) -- finds significant comparisons between CRT and the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Wood begins by noting that William Stoughton "was the chief justice who presided over the Salem witchcraft trials that sent 20 people to their deaths." Stoughton's court admitted "'spectral evidence,' which referred to the testimony of witnesses as to what they had seen in their dreams. If a witness said that he dreamed of a neighbor engaging in witchcraft," that was good enough to be used "as evidence against the neighbor."

Even Cotton Mather, the colony's leading theologian, "thought spectral evidence was useful but insufficient. Cotton Mather's father, Increase Mather, the president of Harvard, thought spectral evidence was untrustworthy.... It took the royal governor, William Phips, to outlaw spectral evidence altogether in legal proceedings. ...

"Contemporary Americans tend to scoff at the credulousness of those Puritans in Salem who leveled deadly accusations based on the phantoms of their own imaginations. But here we are, in the age of critical race theory, still doing it."

Cotton Mather's view lay not far from how Ibram X. Kendi <www.bit.ly/ar-chive> views systemic racism: "one of the fastest-spreading and most fatal cancers humanity has ever known.... There is nothing I see in the world today, in our history, giving me hope that one day antiracists will win the fight, that one day the flag of antiracism will fly over the world of equity.' ...

"Failure to endorse his edicts, in Kendi's views, is itself racist. ... Superficially this is a sociological insight.... 'systemic racism' is not a sociological theory. It is theology, or more precisely it is a demonology.... All it has is a Salem-esque panic based on the pseudo-authoritative declaration that it exists."

Contemporary America "has many self-professed wiccans. So in some sense witches do exist, but generally we allow these to be either harmless delusions or acts of self-advertisement.

"Systemic racism, by contrast, serves perfectly well as a realistic description of some societies, such as the antebellum states in which slavery was permitted. ... [S]ystemic racism, involving the complicity of law, the approval of society, the power of economics, and the reinforcement of culture is just gone. It was officially undone generations ago, and we have since vigorously cleaned out its vestiges.

"That leaves the proponents of systemic racism chasing after spectral evidence." Few illusions are as destructive as systemic racism, "which invites America down a path of social division that makes old-fashioned witch trials look like the wholesome models of judicial restraint."

Wood writes that, as "an anthropologist who has read broadly in world ethnography, I will gladly forfeit any idea of American exceptionalism when it comes to readiness to credit the existence of witch-like malevolent powers. ... Atheistic societies are far from immune. Stalin and Mao had their equivalent imaginary categories of unseen wreckers and cultural traitors. ...

"Systemic racism allures because it grants an all-purpose excuse for ... failures, disappointments, and unhappiness.... [I]t allures whites who long for the rewards of contriteness and penitence, which are no less real. ...

"From where, then, should we look for our Phips? I don't know, but I expect he will be someone who can call us back to our abiding ideals without spending too much time reminding us how foolish we have been in indulging these collective recriminations." <www.bit.ly/2XfKwz6>

Also see "Wokeness: An Evil of Our Age" by Victor Davis Hanson (Senior Fellow, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution) <www.bit.ly/3liFTwJ>

"Evangelicals and Race Theory" from the February issue of the ecumenical monthly First Things, is a review by Carl R. Trueman (biblical and religious studies, Grove City College) on "how deep the disagreement on CRT in Southern Baptist circles now runs."

"Critical race theory, like other critical theories - postcolonialism or queer theory, for example - is self-certifying. Its basic claims ... are axioms, and they cannot be challenged by those who do not agree with them. Those who dissent or offer criticism are, by definition, part of the problem. ...

"Nothing brings out the elitist paternalism of intellectuals on the left more quickly than the fact that those it seeks to liberate from oppression so often fail to support progressive causes. ...

"Critical theory, whatever form it takes, relies on the concept of false consciousness - the notion that the oppressors control society so completely that the oppressed believe their own interests are served by the status quo. ...

"As a former colleague used to quip: same horse, different jockey. Critical race theory is the Marxist horse, ridden by the jockey of identity politics rather than the jockey of class warfare.

"Compare the logic of critical race theory with Chairman Mao's infamous circular of May 16, 1966, a foundational document of the Chinese Cultural Revolution....

"Critical race theory is American in its origin and content, but Black Lives Matter has given it currency worldwide. ... In this we see the latest act of American pop-cultural imperialism, emanating from elite university seminar rooms rather than Disney World. ...

"[C]ritical race theory is extremely seductive. Who wants to be guilty of standing on the side of the oppressors rather than in solidarity with the victims of injustice? The theory is likewise hard to oppose, since it denies the legitimacy of arguments that call it into question. ...

"How has it come to pass ...? ... Part of the answer can be found in Jemar Tisby's book The Color of Compromise [1]. Tisby's account of American evangelicalism contains much that is true. ...

"Tisby forces evangelical readers to face the dark side of their heroes and engage in some soul-searching. He concludes with suggestions for how today's Christians should address the past: making Juneteenth a federal holiday, reparations, and the establishment of black-only seminaries. ...

"Yet the evangelical race debate is moving beyond the hard challenges Tisby outlines. He and others now insist that racism is of the very essence of white American evangelicalism. ...

"White Christians have to face the possibility that everything they have learned about how to practice their faith has been designed to explicitly or implicitly reinforce a racist structure. In the end, White Too Long seems to present a stark choice: Hold onto white Christianity or hold onto Jesus. It cannot be both.

"Everything taught in Sunday School and proclaimed from the pulpit is antithetical to true Christian faith? That is a very dramatic statement. ...

"Tisby is not merely claiming that the outward aesthetics and doctrinal emphases of white Christianity pose problems for black Christians; he is effectively claiming that Christians who are white cannot be Christians in any true sense. ...

"[T]here are signs that these kinds of all-or-nothing judgments are making inroads into mainstream evangelical thinking."

Trueman cites <www.bit.ly/3u7xKzc> The Gospel Coalition article "Why I Hate August," by K. Edward Copeland, an African-American pastor. "Copeland's passion is justified. But his approach is troubling. He insists that we must rule out from the start any thought of moral complexity....

"Copeland worries that some will respond to his thoughts with lazy cries of "critical race theory!" or "cultural Marxism!" The worry is well-founded. The evangelical world increasingly features reckless rhetoric on both sides of the critical race theory debate, rhetoric intended to foreclose the conversation before it has begun. ...

"Critical theories define central injustices as systemic. This means that everyone is complicit, even if no one in particular is responsible. ... This analysis generates a strong tendency toward a flattened moral register without scale or hierarchy. ...

"An article in Christianity Today follows the same pattern...." Here Trueman refers <www.bit.ly/3zBNSde> to "The Shocking Necessity of Racist Violence," by Christina Barland Edmondson, which refers to "different degrees of moral complexity" and the "axiomatic assertion about 'white Christianity,' [as] a category that remains undefined. ...

"Categorical statements and condemnations of the sort encouraged by CRT are hard to square with a faith whose founder ordered that we judge not, lest we be judged. ...

"The two sides of the race debate are now well-established in American Christianity, especially among evangelicals. But they do not contend on equal terms. Edmondson talks of social power but seems unaware that social power is a complex matter these days. ...

"This brings me to the most serious problem with the way today's conversation about race is happening: It is not happening. ... There is no conversation because organs such as Christianity Today fail to promote respectful and thoughtful engagement. ...

"It is not surprising, therefore, that a theoretical framework that allows for easy identification and denunciation of evil is appealing. But when that framework flattens our moral judgment and erases distinctions, makes 'the system' the culprit, and guards its assertions with a self-certifying account of what must be affirmed, the scene is set not for Christian reconciliation but for cultural intimidation, as all dissent is denounced as racist."

Trueman laments that "evangelicalism is not having a conversation on race; it is reciting a liturgy," and "Evangelical leaders need to count the cost of letting rhetorical assertions of the sort made by Edmondson and others go unchallenged." Yet Trueman sees signs of hope - for example, Race and Covenant [2], a new collection of essays from the Acton Institute edited by Gerald McDermott, [which] faces the hard questions but avoids shrill simplifications." Contributors include Timothy George, Alveda C. King, Glenn C. Loury, James M. Patterson, Carol M. Swain, and Robert L. Woodson, Sr. (The book receives an extensive and positive review <www.bit.ly/3DjiYZF> by Ben Peterson at the Theopolis Institute website.) <www.bit.ly/2YtHV5y>

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - The Color of Compromise, by Jemar Tisby (Zondervan, 2020, paperback, 256 pages) <www.bit.ly/3ABNRqZ>

2 - Race and Covenant: Recovering the Religious Roots for American Reconciliation, Gerald R. McDermott, ed. (Acton Institute, 2020, paperback, 318 pages) <www.bit.ly/3Be0mJW>

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