This is a revised version of a paper I presented at the Association for the Sociology of Religion conference, August 20, 2016, Seattle, Washington.
An
Interactionist Perspective of Reality Structures and Religiosity
Introduction
As Berger and Luckman (1966) tell us, the
social construction of reality is one of the most basic activities engaged in
by human beings. Indeed, it could be
argued that the attribution of meaning on to the world “out there” is a
distinguishing characteristic of the species.
The activities of the religious are based on beliefs that fall outside
the realm of empirical investigation. Behaviors
within religious settings, then, are perfect for observing the social
construction of meaning. Interactions
within religiously defined situations are dramatic examples of a basic social
process (Glaser & Strauss 1967). In
this paper I use data collected from observations of religious performances in
Washington County, Utah, to discuss ways the religiously inclined create
reality structures that verify their perceptions of themselves as morally
righteous people.
Methods
When one thinks of religion in Utah
generally, and Southwest Utah specifically, one thinks of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints. And since
roughly two-thirds of the state’s population is LDS, this is a legitimate
assumption. However, St. George and its
surrounding communities host a plethora of weekly worship services in addition
to the Sacrament Meetings of the LDS Church.
For the past 14 months I’ve engaged in fieldwork among religious
congregations in Washington County, Utah.
I attended a different religious service
each week for one year beginning in June, 2015.
In that year I attended services with two different Episcopal churches,
a Bible church, two different Assemblies of God churches, three Baptist
churches, a Methodist church, a Calvary Chapel, two different LDS wards (in the
same building), a Presbyterian church, a Foursquare fellowship, two Catholic
churches, a meeting of Quakers, a Reformed Jewish congregation, five different
Lutheran Churches representing three different synods, a Center of Spiritual
Living, a Muslim congregation, a Church of Christ Scientist, a Unity
congregation, three non-denominational Evangelical churches, a Church of
Christ, a Unitarian gathering, a Buddhist gathering, and a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom
Hall service.
The sizes of the congregations I visited
varied from 700 or more at the St. George Catholic Church on Easter Sunday, to
200 or so attendees at the Washington City 7th Ward of the LDS
Church (keep in mind that there are 236 Wards in Washington County) (“Temples
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”), to 3 at the meeting of
the Southern Utah Friends. Most services
lasted about an hour, with some as short as 40 minutes and others as long as 2
hours. Some services followed a strict
liturgy with no improvisational activities at all while others seemed to be
more extemporaneous.
Some of the services I attended were in
buildings owned and operated by the religious organization performing the
service. For instance the Grace Episcopal
Church, the St. George Catholic Church, and the Christian Science Society all
owned their buildings. A few
congregations met in rented buildings:
the New Beginnings Christian Fellowship and the South Mountain Community
Church fall in this category.[1] Some were granted space in the extra rooms of
already existing churches: Beit Chaverim
Jewish Congregation meets in the back classrooms of the Good Shepherd
Presbyterian Church while the Unity Center of Positive Living meets in the
small chapel of Grace Episcopal Church.
The Muslims of St. George meet in a classroom at Dixie State University,
the Southern Utah Friends “rent” a room from a private arts center. A number of groups have “storefront”
residences: the Center for Spiritual
Living and Desert Ridge Baptist Church are two.
Finally, the Dixie Drive District SGI Buddhists met in the house of one
of their members.
I also interviewed nine religious
“leaders” as part of my research; “leader” being whoever was directing the
service of a particular congregation that I attended. My interviews included preachers/pastors from
Grace Episcopal Church, South Mountain Community Church, Grace Baptist Church,
New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, the Southland Bible church, the Center for
Spiritual Living, Solomon’s Porch Four Square Church, a reader from the Church
of Christ Science, and the Rabbi at Beit Chaverim. The Christian Science reader later asked that
I not use material from our interview in my writing and presentations, so I
deleted that one from my data base.
Eight interviews is not a lot, I understand, but it does add a layer to
my understanding of what it means to be religious in Washington County, Utah.
The next stage of my research started in
June, 2016, when I began a research residency with Redemption Lutheran Church. A member of the Wisconsin Evangelical
Lutheran Synod, Redemption Lutheran is a relatively new member of the
Washington County religious community.
The church was planted by Pastor Michael in 2015, it rents a second
floor space in an upscale business office building, and has a regular
attendance of 15-20 people. I have
attended Sunday services, Thursday Bible lessons, and Morning Refreshments at
Redemption for the duration of this past summer.
In my year of “church hopping” I gained a
solid understanding of what religious services in Washington County look
like. I’ve found that, yes, there are a
lot of LDS wards with many members who meet regularly, but underneath this
veneer of a dominant religion is an active and diverse religious
community. Importantly, I’ve gained an
understanding of some interactional activities that are common in typical
religious services and the meanings these activities hold for congregants.
Reality Structures
In this paper I focus on a few theoretical
concepts found in the data that cluster around symbolic interactionist ideas
about self, identity, and the maintenance of social structure. I’ll first discuss some general theoretical
ideas and then support them with empirical data from my fieldwork.
We are born into worlds that are populated by people
who have ideas about reality. They are
more or less convinced that their ideas about reality are correct. We, being newly born, have no ideas about
reality at first. The people who inhabit
our new world have vested interests in convincing us that their versions of reality
are the correct ones.
Our parents, for instance, have a vested
interest in convincing us that their form of parenting – their rules, their
arrangement of furniture in the house, their dinner time – is correct. They’ve invested a lot of time and energy
into accepting this way of doing things as the right way and to suggest otherwise
is to challenge their moral compasses.
Adherence to the norms and values of a situation is adherence to a moral
order. Our parents do things a certain
way because they believe it to be the right way.
The same notion holds true for other
segments of “society.” We believe that
our ways of educating our children are the right ways and, therefore, other
ways of educating children are wrong because morally righteous people educate
their kids our way. We believe our
economic system is the best not just practically, but morally, and that other
systems are morally wrong. We believe
that our ways of choosing political leaders are right and other ways are wrong.
Our understandings of our selves are
wrapped up in our understandings about reality.
As Peter Berger suggests in The
Sacred Canopy (1967) we project our
internal/psychological beliefs onto the world out there. Included in these projected beliefs is a
place for ourselves. In attaching moral
beliefs upon one’s vision of reality one attaches the same beliefs upon one’s
own existence. Thus we have vested
interests in actively maintaining our visions of reality because we have vested
interests in maintaining our visions of our selves.
The vested interests we have in
maintaining our perceptions of reality work at many interactional levels. This is what sociologists mean when they say
that culture is shared. We align our
perspectives with others in order to maintain a reality and a moral order. Social order is always maintained at an
individual level. I maintain my view of
reality in my individual acts. Others
help me maintain this reality because they want to maintain their place within
what they perceive to be a moral order.
Importantly for our perceptions of this moral
order reality structure are our perceptions of the interconnectedness of
everything. We like to think that not
only do we as individuals have a place within the order, we think that everyone
else does too. We believe there is a
“purpose” to it all and that “proper” behaviors are self-evident in accordance
with this purpose and “improper” behaviors are self-evidently not in accordance
with it. To this end we construct ideas
like “nature” and “science” and “religion” to legitimate our perceived moral
order reality structures.
The discussion thus far is too simplistic
for real life. My job as a sociologist
is to document the myriad ways by which we interactionally construct and
maintain this order. It’s also my job to
document the order that people say they perceive, because this perception is
what they’re trying to maintain. In this
way, as Howard Becker (2014) suggests, I want to describe complexity, not theorize
simplicity.
Religiosity
Some the questions I seek to answer in this research
include: In what ways does religion
serve as a moral order reality structure?
More accurately, in what ways do people use their perceptions of
religion to legitimate their own moral order reality structures? More precisely, how do people see their
religions as moral order reality structures and how do they perceive these
orders as legitimating their worlds and their places within them? To answer these questions I’ve observed
people interacting with each other in situations they define as religious: church, prayer services, meditations, and
bible studies.
From an interactionist perspective of religion, to call oneself
a member of a particular religion is to declare oneself a believer in a set of
cultural norms and values. One is
expressing one’s interest in adhering to a set of shared rules of conduct
guided by a shared set of ideals. Such
allegiance is a presentation of oneself as holding a certain worldview and,
concurrently, acting as if this world view is true.
To declare oneself a member of one religion or another is self-
and other-labeling that comes with assumptions.
To call oneself a “Mormon,” for example, calls out in oneself and in
others a set of belief and action assumptions:
no coffee drinking, no cussing, getting married in a temple, no ‘R’
rated movies, garment wearing, going on a mission, and believing that the Book
of Mormon is really another testament of Jesus Christ. To say that a self-labeled member of the LDS
Church calls out the same behaviors in herself as she calls out in others is to
say that she has internalized the cultural assumptions of the label. A woman who labels herself a Mormon expects
herself to act like a Mormon and believes her actions to be morally correct. She also believes the interactional structure
of her church to be morally correct.
Georg Simmel (1997) uses the term “religiosity” to refer to a
state of being in which individuals internalize certain cultural ideas about
religion. The first step toward
internalizing religion – being religious - is that this religiousness must be
individually and culturally recognized.
That is, no one knows that it is possible for one to be religious unless
there is a cultural label, a word, pointing it out. People must talk to each other about the idea
that “being religious” exists. Once this
label is created, then people can start pointing out (to self and to others)
that some people are religious and others aren’t. Some people are seen as being of one type of
religion and others of another. Some
people are considered members of one congregation, others of another. Some people are understood to profess to be
religious with their lips but not with their hearts.
A couple stories from my conversations with Pastor Mike of
Redemption Lutheran can help with understanding this act of interaction identity. In one Sunday service Pastor Mike made a
special point to emphasize how God has revealed His entire plan in the
Bible. The whole story is there. Nothing else needs to be told. He then said that “here in Utah” some people
don’t get that; the “here in Utah” being a thinly veiled reference to the LDS
Church. That LDS theology suggests the
story of God’s plan is not fully revealed is not Christian from Pastor Mike’s
Lutheran perspective.
Another story comes from a Morning Refreshments conversation I
had with Pastor Mike. I asked him if he
knows much about Rastafarianism, he said “not much.” So I told him what I know, including the bit
about how Rastafarians believe that God was manifest in both Jesus and Haile Selassie,
the late emperor of Ethiopia. Pastor
Mike stopped me and said, “Then they aren’t Christian.” Christianity, according to Pastor Mike, is
tightly defined by the accounts of the Bible.
God may be Father, Son, and Spirit, but not the emperor of Ethiopia.
Significantly, Pastor Mike insisted upon reading this manuscript
that it isn’t his place to judge either LDS or Rastafarian people. He simply feels his understanding of theology
is in line with truth, while others are misguided. But it is up to God to judge, not mere
mortals.
The point of these two stories is to highlight the importance of
distinction in defining one’s religious reality structure. One way of knowing one’s culture and,
therefore, knowing who one is, is to point out to self and others who one
isn’t. In refuting the accuracy of LDS
and Rastafarian theology, Pastor Mike is affirming the perceived accuracy of
Christian Lutheran theology.
Once a religious label is constructed and
accepted among some group of people then some in that group will feel that
they, themselves, are religious. Some
within the group will internalize the idea that they are religious; religious
becomes a perceived quality of their being.
But how does anyone know that any particular person is more or less
religious? By the way they act. Religious people must act as if they are or
no one believes them.
This sets-up Simmel’s distinction between need and fulfillment. Those who
internalize the idea that they are religious develop a need to be religious because even they don’t know they are unless
they act as if they are. One only learns
one is religious once one acts religious according to cultural labels of being
religious. So, those who are labeled
(especially by self, but probably by others) as religious develop a need to act
religious so that they and others can accurately apply the religious label to
them.
Need
fulfillment happens in numerous ways.
One obvious way is through participation in recognized religious
services. Going to church every Sunday
(or some semblance of) shows to self and others that one is of some sort of
religious nature. Knowing the hymns and
prayers at church by heart, for instance, also shows to others and self that
one is of some type of religious nature.
Having a well-worn Bible and being able to actively engage the pastor in
knowledgeable conversation at Bible Study serves the same purpose. Born again stories provide need fulfillment
as well. When someone recounts the day,
time, and exact circumstances when the spirit moved her to become Christian,
she is fulfilling a need to present herself as a type of person who believes in
a kind of reality structure.
Cultures provide ways for the religiously
labeled to fulfill the action requirements of being so. That is, there are, in Robert Merton’s (1968) terms, appropriate and
available means for attaining one’s needs within a culture. Communities provide meeting spaces for religious
services, access to religious literature, pews, prayer rugs, advertising space
in local publications, and political opportunities. In these ways those that seek a religiously
active life and, thus, a religious culture and sense of self, have the
resources to do so.
To summarize, through social interaction
people construct reality structures that justify their perceived moral
orders. They negotiate present
definitions of situations with self and others based on the beliefs they bring
to their interactions. Others believe
the situation to be something, self believes the situation to be something,
too. The negotiations are based on the
individuals in the situation trying to convince each other of their beliefs
about what is going on.
Peoples’ beliefs about definitions of
situations are their realities. Their beliefs about definitions of situations
are claims to self importance. Therefore
peoples’ beliefs about definitions of situations, about reality, are beliefs
about morality. Perceived realities
validate individuals’ claims to legitimate existences, therefore individuals’
have vested interests in convincing others to accept a given reality.
Reality confirming events create cohesion or, rather, the desire
for membership in cohesive groups is a driving force behind reality confirming
events. Religious services are reality
confirming. The rituals contained within
them, and the participation of the congregants in doing the rituals, create a
sense of cohesion, or attractedness to the group. This attraction comes from the belief that
others acting like one acts within the service believe the same things that one
does and thus confirm one’s sense of reality, purpose and dignity as a moral
being.
Conclusion
Religious activities are a form of reality
construction. Religiously active people
create versions of reality among themselves that maintain perceptions of what
is true. Such reality maintenance
necessarily supports individual’s ideas concerning what is true about their
selves. Namely, their versions of
religious reality support their own perceived existences as morally righteous
individuals.
References
Becker,
Howard S. 2014. What about
Mozart? What about Murder?: Reasoning from Cases. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social construction of Reality. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books.
Berger,
Peter. 1967. The Sacred
Canopy: Elements of a Sociology of Religion.
New York: Anchor Books.
Glaser, Barney G. and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction.
LDSChurchTemples.Com. “Statistics: United States: Utah: Washington
County.” Retrieved August 30, 2016. (http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/statistics/units/united-states/utah/washington/)
Merton, Robert. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.
Simmel,
Georg. 1997. Essays on
Religion. New Haven: Yale University.
[1]
Both have since moved. New Beginnings to
a new rental space and South Mountain now owns their own building.
