Ashley N. Lathrop
ANP 422
Exam 1
PART I
Jerry Falwell used language and ritual to shift fundamentalists to produce
modernity from their opposition of modernity. He used his abilities to lead people and
create a new movement that allowed for a real change and evolution in Protestantism.
According to Harding, she believed that conversion is the process of obtaining the
language or dialect. Once the listener’s mind is occupied by the Christian tongue, one’s
life is narrated in Christian terms (Harding, P. 34). With this being said, Falwell had a
way of introducing Christian language as the narrator of all life. He believed that his
words were God’s words and that God’s perspective was his perspective. These
intricacies endorsed his words as the word of God.
The language of the Moral Majority was the language of Falwell’s ministry as a
whole. He formed an alliance through rituals which were “routinized public events that
reproduce implicit cultural assumptions, points of view, and social relations” and also in
“some circumstances, as a result of changes in ritual form, content or context, rituals
become sites of more cultural transformation than reproduction” (Harding, P. 129). This
means that through the continuous change that happened during the push for reforming
fundamentalism, Falwell was able to encourage a cultural movement. Due to these “ritual
crucibles”, the Moral Majority born-again Christian alliance was created.
Also, Falwell used language from other religions to create a relationship between
modernity and fundamentalism. He used the commonalities in the religions to bring the
Christian right together. Ideals concerning abortion and feminism allowed for Falwell to
reel like minded individuals in. Falwell talks about abortion and if a baby is aborted, it
does not have its first birth which then does not allow the infant to get to its second birth.
Ashley N. Lathrop
ANP 422
Exam 1
He was able to create an outlet to show why young women should give their children up
for adoption so their infants can achieve that second birth. He also spoke very much to
his male audience in which he appropriated feminist terminology to create discourse that
women need to be saved, controlled and that they need guidance, but he does it in a way
where he is speaking from a woman’s perspective.
Initially, Falwell was brought up to believe that the secular world and the
religious world needed to be kept separate. He talks about how it was a struggle to go
back on that teaching and have his followers believe the same. Falwell definitely
achieved that in various ways including publically supporting presidential candidates,
founding a college and becoming a prominent public figure on television. Liberty
University adopted creation science. Fundamentalists were behind creation science
because then they could tell evolutionists they had proof too. There was also the Institute
opened in 1977 which was the first museum dedicated to creation and earth.
These actions taken created a cultural shift in which the biblical world intersected
with the secular world. The language and rituals created a culture where many people
who were focused on the morality of the nation were able to feel part of. Falwell, with his
ability to use his stature and voice, created a culture shift which married ideals from
many denominations and backgrounds.
Ashley N. Lathrop
ANP 422
Exam 1
PART II
Clifford Geertz took an interpretive approach to religion by focusing on symbols
and the impact religion makes on society. Geertz focused more on the meaning of
symbols and how they make sense of life and the surrounding world. However, Geertz
was critiqued and even ridiculed for his westernized definition of religion. His definition
describes religion as a “system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, evasive, and
long-lasting moods and motivation in men by formulating conceptions of a general order
of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods
and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz, p. 59).
Geertz believed that symbols are the most significant player in religion as they
both represent things in society while also shaping things in society. Symbols are models
of reality and models for reality. When looking at models of reality, it is a manipulation
of structures that is based on reality like creating the hydraulics theory to understand how
dams work. Looking at models for reality, it looks at non-symbolic systems, which are
based on doctrines or theories like building dams based on the theory of hydraulics. So
therefore, symbols both give us an ethos view, meaning how we should live while also
giving us a worldview of how the world really is.
Furthermore, this system gives individuals a sense of direction. Geertz felt that
people were motivated by religion and that moods are inspired by these motivations.
Motives are an endpoint or an obligation while moods influence the act which; moods are
not consistent. As Geertz said, “man is motivated by religion” (Geertz, p. 62) while
moods can shift depending on the terms of where these sources come from. Ethos is made
of moods and motives, according to Geertz.
Geertz addresses the purpose and importance of religious symbols by saying that
they “provide cosmic guarantee not only for their ability to comprehend the world, but
also, comprehending it, to give a precision to their feeling, a definition to their emotions
which enables them, morosely or joyfully, grimly or cavalierly, to endure it” (Geertz, p.
Ashley N. Lathrop
ANP 422
Exam 1
66). In other words, symbols are here so that humans can make sense of the word. They
are also here to create order and link life to these symbols, which allows for reassurance.
Geertz also believed that symbols and rituals were linked together. Rituals are the
consecrated behaviors where symbols are acted out. Geertz felt that in a ritual, “the world
as lived and the world as imagined, fused under the agency of a single set of symbolic
forms” (Geertz, P. 70). Religious rituals symbolically fuse ethos and worldviews together
and allow for cultural performances to show their religion. Although, Geertz felt that to
perform rituals, one had to believe in the meaning of symbols.
The final part of Geertz’s definition focuses on how realistic the motivations and
the moods are. Geertz believed that, “ordinary life varies with the religion involved, with
the particular dispositions induced in the believer by the specific conceptions of cosmic
order he has come to accept” (Geertz, P. 73). With this, Geertz believed that religion
created a reality for those that felt motivated by it and through rituals and religious
symbols, were able to show their beliefs and create unity.
With Geertz’s definition came much criticism, from other anthropologists. Tamal
Asad believed that religion cannot have an universal definition and that Geertz’s
definition was very westernized and showcased his Christian beliefs. He also criticized
religion because according to Geertz’s view, it is a static thing where it has not evolved at
all and he compares it to having the “same essence today as it had in the Middle Ages”
(Asad, P. 111). Tamal’s most influential argument in my eyes, is his calling Geertz’s
definition of religion to be dualistic. Geertz seems to separate everything and Tamal did
not agree with that. Asad believed that you couldn’t differentiate symbols and rituals or
moods and motivations. These systems are intertwined and furthermore, cannot be
identical to all people.