World Religions: The Heretical Imperative - Essay Example

World Religions: The Heretical Imperative Born in Australia, Dr. Peter L. Berger is a famous American Sociologist. “He is currently a professor of religion and sociology, and the director of The Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston University”, [Xia99]. Renowned in the world of academia, he is the celebrated author of a great many pieces of work relating to sociology and religion, one of which is The Heretical Imperative. The purpose of my essay is to elucidate on his theory of heretical imperative. In order for us to understand what that is we must first understand the key concepts of secularization, modernity, and religion, since they play an important part in Mr. Berger’s theory of the heretical imperative. Dr. Peter Berger has written a lot regarding sociology of religion. Therefore, now the question arises, what is religion? According to Berger, “Religion is the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established...sacred here, meaning a quality of mysterious and awesome power, other than man and yet related to him, which is believed to reside in certain objects of experience”,[Pet90]. Religion is universally agreed to be born of faith in something that is bigger than anything we can ever conceive. A set of guiding rules are established from this faith. Religion helps us by making use of these rules, to create a sacred world for us; sacred because it’s a world of mystical occurrences, not directly linked to us but a big part of us. A person can be sacred; an institution; a book or perhaps a statue too. Anything or any being with which we attach a mystical and awesome power is, in all essence, sacred. And that sacredness is what Berger believes to be religion. In his book, Berger explains the other two vital concepts; of modernity and secularization. In sociology, modernity is something that arose post industrial era. It is the phasing out of feudalism by people and their entering into the world that is similar to ours. Closely linked with modernity is secularization. In Berger’s perspective - and in most sociologists’ as well - secularization marks the movement of the world from living with a close affiliation with religious beliefs to non-religious beliefs and secular states. Berger believes that it is pluralism that caused modernity and secularization. So what do these concepts have to do with the concept of heretical imperative? “Religion itself becomes a matter of choice; of necessary choice insofar there are few taken-for-granted religious ‘facts’ to fall back upon. In other words, religion becomes a heretical imperative”, [Kne01]. Here Knepper writes a review by using some of Berger’s own words to describe what a heretical imperative is. We live with a heretical imperative because of the pluralism that exists in our lives. The great numbers of institutions, religions, theories, paradigms give us too many choices. Religion itself is a matter of choice now. “Berger argues in his book that to face up to the relativity of theological knowledge requires that one affirm certain elements of the tradition and reject others; that is the heretical imperative”, [Woo01]. According to Woodhead, Peter Berger has explained in his book that in traditional cultures (of the pre-modern man) people were exposed to a certain set of fundamental principles and rules. It is true that the so many cultures existing today are based on different religious and mythological epistemologies but each culture, according to Berger, has an internal, underlying consistency; it must have it if it wishes to survive. To challenge this underlying mythology is called heresy. Berger explains heresy to mean to choose for one's self. The irony here, obviously, is that one will be heretical whether they choose traditional values or not. This is because when one chooses any values, or makes any kind of decision regarding religion, the substitutes and other choices are taken into equation, just like the concept of opportunity cost in economics. The knowledge that alternatives and choices exist is, in fact, the essence of heresy. “If the typical condition of the pre-modern man is one of religious certainty, it follows that that of modern man is one of religious doubt”, [Pet79]. Even though this is not a generalization, it can be taken to be exactly that because of the evident changes in the pre-modern and modern eras. It can be safely deduced that both operate in almost complete opposites. For instance, in the past, people were filled with religious certainty, ergo, now they must be filled with religious doubt. This doubt, which has been born of religious pluralism, has led us to live in a heretical imperative. Religious pluralism is the acceptance and affirmation of the applicability of all other religions and not just one’s own. Most modern societies strive to co-exist and be tolerable of one another. Religious pluralism teaches exactly that; to be lenient of other religions. This helps people understand a vital concept; that each and every religion of the world is correct in some way and in some aspect. But is that not a contradiction? Being faithful to your own religion while believing in the legibility of others? Berger, in his book ‘The Scared Canopy’, explains that “religion is like a sacred canopy that protects us from facing our own existential angst”,[Pet90]. The problem about “heresy” is that it is a universal entity and, therefore, a great threat to religion as even in religion there is a choice. According to Berger this is nothing short of a catastrophe, one which can only be avoided through Induction, Deduction, and Reduction. “It is enlightening to ponder the three key terms Berger has employed in The Heretical Imperative – Deduction, Reduction, and Induction”,[Gae81]. In the Deduction Approach we attempt to reassert religious certainty within the hearts of the people, whereas in the Reduction, we take a different approach from that of Deduction. “We attempt to critically evaluate religion in a social context”, [Pet79]. This enables us to see religion as a product of its material culture. Then there is the Induction Approach. This is a phenomenological approach to religion. It takes into account the religious and sacred experiences of people, and then attempts to describe and understand them in a philosophical way of phenomenology. These, according to Berger, should help overcome the problem of the heretical imperative. References Xia99: , (Xiao, 1999, p. vii), Pet90: , (Berger, 1990, pp. 3-28), Kne01: , (Knepper, 2001), Woo01: , (Woodhead, 2001, pp. 1-9), Pet79: , (L.Berger, 1979, p. 24), Gae81: , (Gaede, 1981, pp. 181-196), Pet79: , (L.Berger, 1979, pp. 28-36), Read More