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Semelhante a "Losing my Religion": The Rhetoric and Poetics of Religious Deconversion Narratives
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"Losing my Religion": The Rhetoric and Poetics of Religious Deconversion Narratives
- 1. “Losing My Religion”: The Rhetoric and Poetics of Religious De- Conversion Sally Edith Green Program for Writing and Rhetoric University of Colorado at Boulder
- 2. WRTG 3020, “Rhetorics of Faith” “Rhetorics of Faith” vs. “Rhetoric of Faith” Preliminary choices in teaching religious rhetoric
- 3. In the modern era, with its multivalent progress toward human freedom, it is ironic that so many individuals willfully choose to follow restrictive religions. Est. 4 in 10 Americans belong to conservative Protestantism Est. 3 in 10 believe the Bible is the literal word of God 46% believe in Creationism
- 4. And yet many believers do, in the end, resist fundamentalism.
- 5. WHY??? • Intellectual Questioning • Moral Criticism • Life Crisis/Personal Epiphany • A meaningful relationship of unconditional acceptance with a tolerant outsider. Anita Freeman, website
- 6. “To arrive at a warrantable belief in religious truths, we may use rhetorical processes– indeed, this is our only pathway unless vouchsafed a mystical vision.” Patricia Bizzell
- 7. “For many evangelicals, conversion was “incomplete”- unrecognized- until it was formed and structured through the rhetoric of conversion discourse; the “experience” of conversion was consummated only by their ability to speak the language of conversion.” The Self and the Sacred, Conversion and Autobiography in Early American Protestantism, Rodger M. Payne
- 8. Booth’s Conversion Story Variables •Truth Claims •Distance Travelled •Dramatic Irony •Instrument and Pace of Conversion •Consequences •Audience •Coherence of Stated Values with Implied Values of the Story •In conversion fiction, the quality and desirability of the post-conversion world that is offered.
- 9. “In one sense, every conversion is a deconversion and every deconversion a conversion. The “turning from” and “turning to” are alternative perspectives on the same process of personal metamorphosis, stressing either the rejected past of the old self or the present convictions of the reborn self.” John D. Barbour, Versions of Deconversion, Autobiography
- 10. Deconversion •Intellectual doubt or denial of the truth of a system of beliefs •Moral criticism of the system’s way of life •Emotional upheaval, including grief, guilt, loneliness, and despair •Rejection of the community to which the autobiographer previously belonged Barbour
- 11. “My problem for decades, then, became that of finding some new story, not just about Joseph Smith and the Mormons, but about the world, about my own path through life. … How could I hope to find a story equal in power to the glorious tales I had now discarded?”
- 12. “It is often said of liberal rhetors that they are policy wonks who lack ‘an emotionally compelling vision.’” Sharon Crowley, Toward a Civil Discourse, Rhetoric and Fundamentalism
- 13. “…liberals gain little by trying to convert apocalyptists to liberal beliefs or policies by means of reason. Rather, a would-be rhetor should focus her persuasive efforts on the arousal of passion and desire.” Sharon Crowley
- 14. “It was like tearing my whole frame of reality to pieces, ripping to shreds the fabric of meaning and hope, betraying the values of existence. It was like spitting on my mother, or like throwing one of my children out a window. It was sacrilege. All of my bases for thinking and values had to be restructured.“ Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists “My relationship with God was connected to everything– my family, my friends, my sense of justice, my vocation, my way of being in the world. I lost more than belief.” Sarah Sentilles, Breaking Up With God, A Love Story “But…” or, the Problem of Audience
- 16. The Problem of Audience, con’t. “I never understood how you could believe any of that shit in the first place.” “I’m very happy in my church. You just took everything way too far.” “You’re going to hell.”
- 17. But it’s o.k. if you were in a cult “I've called my group a cult for three years and what it really is, is a mainstream Christian group. But I definitely want to have backing on it when I do say that because it could get violent. At least emotionally. I've been in therapy for a few months now to discuss the hate and violence just from my blog, alone. ” “From my experience with another TV network they didn't even want [me] to mention the word church or Christianity at all. I had to use the word cult and not church…. It took me awhile to wrap my head around that--this is for entertainment after all and they want to stay out of trouble so it's safest if they don't get into the
- 18. “I had nothing to love.” John Ruskin “Evangelical religion, or any religion in a violent form… divides heart from heart. It sets up a vain, chimerical ideal, in the barren pursuit of which all the tender, indulgent affections, all the genial play of life, all the exquisite pleasures and soft resignations of the body, all that enlarges and calms the soul, are The Victorian Aesthetic Revolt
- 19. “[In the remote mountainous location of the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse]… leaning on the window sill I said… something about the effect of the scene outside upon religious minds. Whereupon, with a curl of his lip, ‘We do not come here,’ said the monk, ‘to look at the mountains.’ Under which rebuke I bent my head silently, thinking however all the same, ‘What then, by all that is stupid, do you come here for at all?’” John Ruskin, quoted in Barbour
- 20. “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Audre Lorde “After I broke up with God, I still had all the language of my faith– salvation, resurrection, crucifixion, savior, sin, grace, Christian, priest– but I couldn’t make it mean anything anymore.” Sarah Sentilles Rhetorical-poetic-metaphorical invention or constraint
- 21. Some writers use the same religious language to describe their deconversions. Gosse does so ironically Frederick Douglass’ “signifyin’” Rhetorical-poetic-metaphorical invention or constraint, con’t
- 22. Others scrupulously avoid religious language or imagery. Mary Daly invents new language entirely Sarah Santilles uses the extended metaphor of a love relationship gone sour Rhetorical-poetic-metaphorical invention or constraint, con’t
- 23. “I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” Frederick Douglass “If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” Gloria Steinem “On a trip to Kings Canyon one summer, Eric took me on a hike to see a waterfall. It looks like a cathedral, was my first thought, and then, No, a cathedral looks like this.” Sentilles “Who would Jaysuz Bomb?” Ex-Christian.net Usefulness of Disarticulation, Rearticulation
- 25. “Those of us who want to preserve a space for secular negotiation and discussion would do well to construct and tell exemplary stories about America’s founding that serve those purposes.” Crowley “If religious faith meant the end of doubt and of longing for further understanding, it would be better not to have faith.” Barbour
- 26. Barbour, John D. 1994. Versions of Deconversion: Autobiography and the Loss of Faith. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Barker, Dan and Richard Dawkins. 2008. Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists. Ulysses Press. Bizzell, Patricia. 2007. “Religion and Rhetoric: Reason, Emotion, and the Sensory in Religious Persuasion. In Sizing Up Rhetoric. Ed. Zaefsky and Benanka Booth, Wayne C. 2004. In Comprehending Fundamentalisms. Ed. Marty and Appleby. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. Crowley, Sharon. 2006. Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism. Pittsburgh: U. of Pittsburgh Press. Freeman, Anitra L. 2002. “A Psychological Analysis of Fundamentalism.” www.anitra.net Garver, Eugene. 2006. “How Can a Liberal Listen to Religious Argument? Religious Rhetoric as a Rhetorical Problem” in How Should We Talk About Religion? Perspectives, Context, Particularities. Ed. White. Notre Dame: U. of Notre Dame Press. Jacobs, Janet Liebman. 1989. Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Payne, Rodger. 1998. The Self and the Sacred, Conversion and Autobiography in Early American Protestantism. Knoxville: U. of Tennessee Press. Roof, Wade Clark and J. Shawn Landres. 1997. “Defection, Disengagement, and Dissent: The Dynamics of Religious Change in the United States.” Religion and the Social Order, Vol. 7. Ratcliffe, Krista. 1996. Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions: Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich. Carbondale: SIU Press.
Notas do Editor
- Faith genre of most interest to me, deconversion narratives. Today I will talk about my research that applies to my teaching.
- Was able to do some research in support of my interest in teaching “Rhetorics of Faith,” whose regular instructor has left the program. Inspired by Kathy Pieplow’s genre research to take a genre approach to it. a genre analysis approach would help illuminate the areas of misunderstanding among religions, how they recognize or valorize some genres of ritual, profession, teaching, and so on, over others. holy books, prayer, sermons, the language of various rituals, etc. What is exciting about this is that it takes the comparative oomph away, creates some distance and definitely provides an advanced rhetorical framework rather than content-based place from which to approach one’s analysis of and response to different religious moves or performances First, though, approach the rhetoric of faith singular. How do people move in and out of faith systems? Particularly interested in the movement out of fundamentalism. Had the opportunity to present at conference Ege University Izmir, Turkey, Biennial Cultural Studies Symposium. Intrigued by title of call for proposals, “Confinement and Freedom”
- The often voluntary nature of the choice to submit to fundamentalism (unless one is raised in a conservative religious family) is fascinating. The NRMs of the 60-70-80s are on the wane, just in time to see an increase in the draw of fundamentalist belief in a variety of religions and denominations. My focus today is mostly on Christian Protestantism, which strongly foregrounds the conversion narrative, My observations also hold true for some flavors of American Catholicism, some fundamentalist Jewish groups, and some flavors of Turkish Islam, as well.
- This is the most psychologically, rhetorically, and poetically interesting phenomenon to me. I couldn’t find really good numbers on this, but it is certainly true that people do, in fact, leave.
- Contemporary reasons for leaving fundamentalism include: Intellectual: inabiity to accept Biblical literalism, the rejection of Darwinian evolution, etc. Moral: Condemnation of gays, molestation of children by people in authority, moral inconsistencies Live crisis that may incorporate the above categories: Personal loss, death, illness, new experiences, transformations Women in particular often come to a feminist consciousness that encourages them to see the religion differently What is the relationship of rhetoric to religious deconversion, or even to religion in general?
- Thinkers increasingly recognize the permeation of religion by rhetoric, after decades of seeing rhetoric as the servant of theology, or religious thought– Lots of interest in intersections of religion and rhetoric, Burke, Booth, Water Jost, Sharon Crowley, etc. Bizzell also says, “Religious truth, or perhaps we should say rhetorically warranted religious belief.” Plenary at RSA,2006, published in Sizing Up Rhet, 2008 Augustine established so many motifs of confession, conversion and deconversion, of course highly rhetorical. I am particularly jnterested in how Booth addresses questions about the role of narrative in religious rhetoric and how Sharon Crowley politicizes them, in light of the last few decades of the growing influence of the religious right in the U.S.
- To talk about narrative in religion, we must talk about conversion stories, which are ubiquitous. Payne analyzes conversion narratives of the 17 and 1800s, including the Great Awakening in the U.S., waves of evangelical fervor that swept the country. The convertor’s ability to articulate his or her story served several functions: Made them member of the community Validated the conversion experience and religious identity of listeners Reinforced the values and norms of the community, the “text” of conversion as an entirety Indeed, even at the time people complained that the narratives were predictable, imitative, made the same rhetorical moves, followed morphological models At the same time, the speaker always bemoaned the inadequacy of language to capture the experience adequately– one of the tropes of the genre.
- Wayne Booth emphasizes the importance of a good story in his chapter about the role of narrative, particularly conversion narratives, in his chapter on conversion narratives in Fundamentalisms Comprehended, multi-volume study of Fundamentalism out of U of Chicago. Must be “true” describing the journey from “bad land to home land,” its distance, its arduous nature, pace, and consequences. Story is framed depending on the audience receiving it, particularly whether they are insiders or outsiders to the faith. He also looks at fictional depictions of conversion, weighing them by the same standard he applies to other fictions: what is the appeal of the world being offered to the reader to enter? Does the “better world” of the fictional work depict a desirable, ideal place? He makes the interesting point that many conversions to Catholicism, Judaisim, and Islam present a slow, inner reasoning that unfolds into conversion, while the Protestant conversion narrative tends to rely on dramatic revelation, mirroring the road to Damascus experience of Paul.
- The only book-length treatment of de-conversion narratives, Barbour’s Versions of Deconversion, considers many deconversion narratives to be actually or also conversion stories, and vice-versa. And so Augustine, again our most famous early example of the genre, describes how he left Manicheeism, turning to the version of Christianity he helped forge. Likewise Bunyan and Newman describe losing faith in one version of Christianity only to find it in another version. Barbour does acknowledge and differentiate what he calls “secularization” narratives, which describe a less dramatic, pathos-laden process, which is also generally slower. I see his point but I do think that, particularly contemporarily, people do dramatically deconvert from fundamentalism, without turning to some other readily labelable religious state.
- What _is_ deconversion, then? What are the salient elements of this experience? Not fun.
- It’s hard for deconversion narratives to stand up to these demands for a good story. What morphological norms is a deconversion story supposed to follow? There isn’t a community of non-believers waiting to cheer the new joiner as he or she lays out the familiar tropes. As Booth poignantly points out, what kind of stories could he tell himself about his new, post-Mormon life, that could possibly compare to the stories his family and church regaled him with during his childhood. The story itself is not about arrival, but departure. If it’s a traveller’s tale, it involves a fair amount of wandering around, not necessarily arriving at some lovely destination until perhaps years later.
- This may be one reason these narratives are rarer, and harder to write. But there are popular, public, civic implications to this issue of the difficulty of expressing the story of arrival at DIS-belief in fundamentalism and its attendant changes in values, assumptions, and political outlook. This lack of emotional affect, of narrative pull, is one of the main points Sharon Crowley makes about why it is so hard for rational, liberal discourse to confront the religiously-based arguments of political fundamentalism. Religiously-motivated civic argument in the U.S., which has only gotten worse since she published her pre-Tea Party book, values pathos, conviction, passion, drama, over “proof.” It values a good story. Reminds me of Dukakis debate performance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF9gSyku-fc
- This clip and its impact on Dukakis’ political career illustrates Crowley’s cogent analysis: Liberal reasoning sets aside emotion in favor of reason, expects both opponents to seek understanding and compromise, expects both opponents to see the other as a “worthy adversary,” values objectively verifiable proof, and is willing to change its mind. None of these is true of fundamentalist thinking, which operates in a closed system, with a tightly woven web of values, responses, and stories, _narratives_, that reinforce each other, resonate, and affect their believers viscerally. Apocalyptists, as she calls them, those who believe in the impending second coming of Christ, go even further, seeing secular adversaries as clueless tools of Satan. Non-fundamentalist argument needs to make other kinds of appeals, which it may even find awkward or embarrassing, but on the other hand, we see how well Dukakis’ bloodless response went over.
- So, if we acknowledge that there is an important place for emotionally engaging, affective, pathos-driven narratives of deconversion, there is a new problem. These are often wrenching stories, without fairy-tale endings. To borrow Booth’s geography, the narrator goes “backwards,” from homeland to badlands, and, as I said before, it may take quite some time to get to the beach, or the sunset. More like a war story or a tragic tale than the predictable happy ending of a conversion story.
- And who _is_ the audience for these? Even though they are exit stories, they may reminds secular listeners of their own discomfort with or disinterest in Christianity.
- These stories may leave many kinds of audiences cold. No wonder so many leavers of fundamentalism talk and write very little about it.
- A quick specifically rhetorical footnote: It’s o.k. if you were in a cult. “Sect” works too. NRM departers often have dramatic exit narratives, sanctioned by the mainstream. It’s trickier, the closer the religious experience is to the mainstream. Lisa Kerr, My Cult Life, considers the group she left to be a mainstream religiousorganization, but in all her conversations with TV producers, they want her to call the organization she left a cult, and not to label it as Christian. Also the severe, hateful backlash that I referred to at the bottom of the last slide. Transition: Particularly useful for contemporary deconverters to know the history of the genre. There have always been deconverters, and not in Barbour’s sense that they converted from one thing to another, but that they actually brought themselves to a healthily secular place of thinking.
- Victorian era saw a surge in religious deconversion. Barbour cites a study by Susan Budd, of 350 Victorian deconversion narratives On the whole, they rejected Puritanism on the basis of its utter lack of appreciation of the beauties of art or the world. John Ruskin , English author, art critic, Oxford prof. b. 1819 On his frequent trips in Europe, he delighted in the landscape and works of art, especially medieval and Renaissance. To Ruskin the relationship among art, morality and social justice was of paramount importance, surpassing the role of religion in governing the human heart. Puritanism emotionally bereft. b. 1849 Gosse was the only child of the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse. Grew up in a strict religious household, Plymouth Brethren he surreptitiously studied nonreligious literature, becoming a writer, autobiographer, translator of Ibsen.
- Real rhetorical challenge to these narratives. This is not an easy thing, finding new words after, perhaps decades spent immersed in a very constrained rhetorical system.
- Gosse compares himself to Old Testament characters, uses Biblical stories– When his father says he feels like Job dealing with him, Gosse counters that he himself is Job. In My freedom and my bondage Frederick Douglass engages in what Henry Louis Gates calls “signifyin’, “a distinctive African-American system of rhetoric and interpretation that uses ironic repetition of terms in white discourse to question and critique their meaning.” Thus Douglass refers to himself as a devil, embraces the images of falling away, turning them around to be positive, given his ultimate critique of American Christianity as hopelessly complicit in the maintaining of slavery.
- Some use metaphors of imprisonment, illness, crushed plants, etc., to describe their previous religious lives. Mary Daly leaves behind the language entirely. In her book on Daly, Adrienne Rich, and Virginia Woolf, though Daly was also a theologian, political scientist, historian, feminist theorist, rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe posits Daley as primarily a rhetorician, engaged in multiple strategies addressing semantics, style, logic, slang, punctuation, and so on, to reveal and move beyond patriarchal language. Patriarchal Sad-Ritual Syndrome, which groups and analyzes genital mutilation, suttee, witch-burning, foot—binding. Also on word level, Dis-covering, Gyn/Ecology, spinning, hag, revolting, etc. Sarah Santilles was a Phd seminary student at Harvard, preaching in a church as an intern, when her faith unraveled, in part as a response to seeing the Abu Ghraib photos. Book combination of autobiography, survey of Christian theological studies. Extended metaphor of the break-up story. believed in male god, loved him, broke up with him. To my mind, one of the most useful strategies for deconversion narratives comes from Cultural Studies, the work of Antonio Gramsci, as elaborated by Stuart Hall.
- articulation: the act by which cultural texts and practices create/negotiate/define meaning. Texts and practices are not “inscribed” with meaning. There is a struggle in cultures to articulate (rearticulate, disarticulate) texts and practices for specific political and ideological uses; meaning is the site and result of struggle Sharon Crowley points out that a way to successfully persuade a fundamentalist, is by “prying loose” a node or locus or argument from the closed web of fundamentalist argument and rearticulating it with another value, image, story, etc. Also helps survivors of deconversion find a new way to talk to and about themselves Abortion as a blessing “Who would Jesus bomb?” Deliberate misspelling of “Jesus” Etc.
- Disarticulation of visual rhetoric Disarticulating cross from abstract elements of belief such as sin, guilt, confession, redemption, to its secular, literal definition as an instrument of torture
- Crowley urges rhetors arguing with fundamentalists to tell their own stories about motives of the founding fathers and mothers To articulate their vision of the fairness and beauty that would come with the integration of gay couples and families into society, Or why some non-Christian stances are morally imperative. These stories need to be heard–For example, it is critical for the environmentalist to successfully counter the argument that the Earth is a fallen thing which will ultimately be left behind or magically made new by divine power. I argue that compelling deconversion stories in particular play a part here, to represent the multiplicity of American perspectives on religion and how they influence political participation. It is important for fundamentalists to hear why people leave their midst. Looping back around to the classroom, I see a not terribly large, but important place for a look at narratives like Ruskin’s, Douglass’, or Daly’s in a Rhetorics of Faith class. The starting place of such a class needs to incorporate not the presumption, but the question of faith itself the movement in and out of it as a first assumption, The understanding that belief is a choice handled in many ways in an open and diverse democratic society.