Aspiring to Fullness in a Secular Age. Edited by Carlos D.Colorado and Justin D.Klassen. Pp. 296, Notre Dame Indiana, Notre Dame University Press, 2014, $39.00 (original) (raw)

2017, The Heythrop Journal

Lynch here criticizes modern individualistic and rationalistic tendencies to dismiss collective passions and traditions. This approach misses inevitable aspects of social life and so 'fails to understand the true nature of collective. .. morality' (2). Further, it is dangerous, tempting us to glibly ignore collective passions and their violent potential. Central to Lynch's critique is the phenomena of 'the sacred', and he aims to illuminate its social role by distinguishing it from traditional religions. Lynch follows Durkheim's functionalism in defining the sacred as a sphere of experience and behavior-namely, that which is 'set apart or forbidden' (23). So anything may be sacred; indeed 'flags, war memorials, bills of rights and child protection procedures' all function as sacred in modern society (24). The sacred is experienced as 'non-contingent' and (note) 'unquestionable' (26). It is discovered not by our disposition to call an object sacred, but in the powerful responses the object elicits, especially when confronted with the profane, a kind of 'evil' which threatens to 'pollute' the sacred (26-27). The sacred, then, creates emotionally powerful social dynamics by reinforcing collective identities in ritual and symbol. Because of the sacred's binding role, 'as a matter of theoretical principle. .. society without the sacred is impossible' (35). This argument is a priori, which perhaps explains the lack of cross-cultural illustrations. Lynch shows the transience of sacred forms with a whirlwind survey from prehistory until the present. Pre-modernity's hierarchical sacred forms collapsed under the Reformation's deinstitutionalization, which separated religion from social life. Modern societies needed other unifying symbols and forms and predominantly settled on nation and humanity as sacred. These should not be understood as secular 'quasireligions,' though (102). Unlike traditional religions, they shape society not as distinct phenomena but in a complex interplay. Moreover, these sacred forms both affect and are affected by traditional religions. Despite the word's connotations, the sacred is not unambiguously positive. It demarcates out-groups and produces powerful collective sentiments. It tends to create 'moral blind spot[s]' and can motivate violence against the profane (120). This unveiling of the sacred's dark side is the heart of the book. Lynch suggests that theology can provide even the nonreligious with resources to correct these violent tendencies. The theme of transcendence reminds us that our sacred forms are not equivalent to moral reality, and the theme of universal sinfulness protects against self-righteousness. These help us see others as human beings rather than sacred/profane symbols. Repeatedly, however, a number of related problems appear which threaten Lynch's main definitions and distract from his normative argument. Recall Lynch's insistence that the sacred is 'unquestionable'. It follows by definition that critical reflection on the sacred, including Lynch's, undermines sacred commitments, thus threatening 'relativism' (14). But why think that the sacred is unquestionable? Lynch thinks we must 'defend ourselves from the unsettling recognition' (41) that 'what we take to be unchanging, universal sacred realities are in fact continually undergoing gradual change' (40). But this conflates ontology with epistemology. Torture can be universally wrong, notwithstanding medieval mores, just as water was H 2 0 before modern chemistry discovered the fact. Lynch himself grants this (14, 152) but nevertheless suggests that 'we can never fully allow ourselves to experience' our understanding of the sacred as evolving 'if those sacred meanings are to have any purchase on our lives' (41). This claim's plausibility rests on the vital-seemingly constitutive-role emotion plays in the sacred as Lynch defines it. Reflection often seems to dispel emotional zeal. But we can apprehend the same object (say, humanity) as valuable with or without certain emotions (though not without any). One can find pedophilia absolutely impermissible without feeling murderous rage. Indeed, Lynch wants this sort of result (146). But Lynch's criterion for identifying the sacred relies on strong reactions (25-30). Does this imply that without gut reactions we can hold something only as 'valuable', not as 'sacred'? This would confine the sacred mostly to negative phenomena, especially since shared values can plausibly bind communities together (another supposed mark of the sacred). Without conceptually clarifying the relations of emotions and values to the sacred, its explanatory and normative value will be unclear. Despite these reservations, Lynch provides an engaging introduction to Durkheim's thought and its recent appropriations (especially by Yale's