Faith in politics: Religion and liberal democracy (original) (raw)

Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective is an important and much needed volume to fill out the all too sparse ethnographic literature on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Chris Hann and Herman Goltz have done an excellent job in collecting essays from researchers on the cutting edge of research into this oft-ignored stepchild of religious studies. All of the essays included in this volume are written by scholars who have done extensive fieldwork among Eastern Christian populations in the contemporary world and who have emerged with insights and critical analyses that serve to complicate many preconceived notions and stereotypes about the 'Western' origins of Christianity. Indeed, classic anthropological investigations into the theological biases of Christianity (such as Talal Asad's 1993 Genealogy of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam) completely disregard the existence of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a faith to which over 200 million people adhere. Indeed, the lucid introduction of this book is titled 'The Other Christianity', and alludes to the common tendency of post-colonial scholars to uncritically homogenize European Christendom as synonymous with Catholicism and Protestantism. If this timely anthology accomplishes nothing else it certainly challenges contemporary scholars of religion to complicate their perhaps too-narrow view of Christianity as the culturally imperialist harbinger of modernity and secularism. The essays encompassed in this volume cover Russia, Greece, Romania, Syria, and a variety of other post-Soviet states and borderlands. Hann and Goltz have carefully selected 14 ethnographically rich examinations into the daily practices and intimate theologies of Eastern Orthodox believers. The primary focus of this volume is on praxis and how Orthodox Christianity is lived in the daily lives of ordinary men and women, from icon veneration to seeking both spiritual and cultural authenticity on Orthodox pilgrimages. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this collection is the subtle investigation of individualism versus collectivism that is apparent in various Orthodox rituals, a critical decentering of the 'I' in favor of the 'we' that marks much of Eastern Orthodox religiosity. Whereas Protestantism apparently privatized faith and supposedly reduced religion to an individual's private relationship with God, Eastern Orthodoxy seems to encourage a spirit of communal sacrifice and collective endurance. The book is divided up into four sections: 1) 'Image and Voice: The Sensuous Expression of the Sublime'; 2) 'Knowledge and Ritual: Monasteries and the Renewal of Tradition'; 3) 'Syncretism and Authenticity: (Shared) Shrines and Pilgrimages'; and 4) 'Person and Nation: Church, Christian Community and Spectres of the Secular', followed by a thoughtful epilogue by Yale anthropologist Douglas Rogers. Each of the sections elucidates the unique aspects of Eastern Orthodox beliefs and practices, discussing, for instance, the veneration of icons, the multiple means of monasticism, and the ritual experience of lay people on pilgrimages. In particular, the last section focuses on the interrelationship between religious and national identity in Russia and Greece, carefully examining how Western notions of individuality and personhood are often perceived to be foreign