Peter Berger\'s The Sacred Canopy-Book report_Regent College

REGENT COLLEGE THE SACRED CANOPY: ELEMENTS OF A SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY OF RELIGION BY PETER BERGER INDS 581: CHRISTIAN FAITH AND PRACTICE IN A (POST) MODERN WORLD CRAIG M. GAY, PROFESSOR A BOOK REPORT BY ANDREW GIDDINGS OCTOBER 30, 2000 Peter Berger begins his argument in The Sacred Canopy by revisiting a model he developed previously in The Social Construction of Reality. Man is a world builder and a social being.1 It is, therefore, in our nature to construct social worlds.2 Berger argues that the self externalizes as a matter of his very nature.3 The sum of man’s externalizations produces society, which becomes an objective reality that in turn acts on the individual.4 As the individual internalizes the effect of society, his or her internal, subjective reality is affected. This affects the individual’s future externalizations. Society and the individual exist in a dialectic, self-perpetuating relationship. This system works best (preserves order5) when the dialectical nature of an individual’s relationship to society is taken for granted, providing such an individual with a meaningful world of existence. The social world is a bulwark against anomy (chaos).6 Even so, humanly constructed worlds are constantly threatened by their creators’ “self interest and stupidity.”7 Therefore, the social order requires internal supporting structures. The process of legitimation is the most important such structure in Berger’s argument. He defines legitimations as answers to the “why” questions concerning “institutional arrangements.”8 Legitimations belong to the objective side of our dialectic social relationship diagramed above. Through repetition and their objective status, legitimations continually reinforce the what’s and why’s of society for the new (children) and the forgetful as well as during periods of collective or individual crisis where the veil between meaning and chaos grows particularly thin. Just as legitimations reinforce social institutions, so plausibility structures uphold those legitimations. Plausibility structures are specific social processes that continually reinforce and reconstruct both the legitimating world and the legitimated world.9 When a plausibility structure is strong, the legitimations can be simple. When a plausibility structure is weak, the legitimations must be stronger and more sophisticated. Religion has shown the ability to respond to both situations.10 Objectivation Society objective subjective Self Externalization Internalization 2 For Berger, “Religion is the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established.”11 This means that the world is replete with sacred mystery and power. The genius of religion as an agent of legitimation is its power “to ‘locate’ human phenomena within a cosmic frame of reference.”12 Through religion, the supports for social institutions are given a cosmic, universal status that transcends the here and now of everyday life.13 This gives a socialized individual peace and security in his role in society, the world, and the universe. For an individual to live outside the religiously legitimated world is to “make a deal with the devil.”14 “Religion has been the historically most widespread and effective instrumentality of legitimation.”15 Part of the reason that religion has been such a widespread method of legitimation is that it is also a very powerful agency of alienation.16 According to Berger, alienation is when an individual forgets that he is co-creator of his world.17 It is “an overextension of the process of objectivation” in the dialectic relationship between self and society (above).18 By objectifying legitimations, alienation renders them virtually unassailable as long as an alienated conscious can be maintained. It is not until the plausibility structures start to crumble that de-alienation is even plausible.19 The greatest task of religious legitimation is the issue of theodicy. Berger defines theodicy as explanations of suffering, evil, and death in terms of religious legitimations.20 He considers all theodicy to be irrational in that all theodicies entail a surrender of self to the ordering power of society.21 Christian theodicy (the primary theodicy in his Western focus) is based on God suffering for us. The plausibility of Christian theodicy has been called into question over the last several centuries over natural disasters and wars, turning the question from how could God allow this to how could man do such a thing (anthropodicy).22 In addition to external assailants of religious plausibility structures, Berger argues that Protestantism itself carried the seeds for its own destruction.23 In demystifying the world of Catholicism, much like Israel did for the Egyptian/Mesopotamian world, Protestantism created a more rational, individualistic world divided into secular and sacred spheres.24 As the secular sphere expanded to encompass everything outside of the church, Christianity became marginalized in a pluralistic society. 3 For Berger, “‘Pluralism’ is a social-structural correlate of the secularization of consciousness.”25 In addition to Protestantism, industrialization tends to lead the political order away from the influences of religion.26 This process compartmentalized religion into the private world27 creating a pluralistic market situation28 where there was no longer an over-arching idea of truth and Protestant churches were left to compete with Catholic churches as well as other religions and even recreational activities. As conflicting plausibility structures competed for attention, the plausibility structure for religion and everything else became relativized.29 The relativation of the religious plausibility structure creates a crisis for theology.30 While liberal theology conceded different points to the secular culture to remain relevant,31 an orthodox reaction took place that asserted the objectivity of Biblical revelation.32 Berger considers orthodox resurgences to be merely interruptions in the secularization process.33 Though he does not end his book with an outright prediction that religion will go the way of the Dodo bird, its survival and health is hardly implied. Berger’s overall descriptive analysis is valuable and instructive. Though I understand his argument for the necessity of “methodological atheism” in the study of social processes, I do not agree with him.34 Rather, I side with C.S. Lewis who argues that the very fact that man has consistently looked for meaning indicates that there is indeed meaning inherent to the universe.35 To discount that in one’s thinking on the nature of meaning, especially concerning religion, strikes me as irresponsible. Additionally, I was perplexed by Berger’s implication that alienation is bad, although it seems it is desirous for a cohesive, ordered society.36 If “all socially constructed worlds are precarious…constantly threatened by the human facts of self-interest and stupidity,”37 and if an individual alienated as to his own identity and operating with a “bad faith”38 understanding of his social roles is most likely to make a choice that is good for social order,39 why is it better to be de-alienated? It seems that his thinking is somewhat inconsistent concerning the desirability of alienation and “bad faith.” 4 ENDNOTES 1 Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967; New York: Anchor Press, 1990), 7. 2 Ibid. 6-7 3 Ibid. 8 4 Ibid. 14-15 5 Ibid. 21 6 Ibid. 23 7 Ibid. 29 8 Ibid. 29 9 Ibid. 45 10 Ibid. 47 11 Ibid. 25 12 Ibid. 35 13 Ibid. 36 14 Ibid. 39 15 Ibid. 32 16 Ibid. 87 17 Ibid. 85 18 Ibid. 85 19 Ibid. 92 20 Ibid. 53 21 Ibid. 54 22 Ibid. 78-79 23 Ibid. 129 24 Ibid. 123 25 Ibid. 127 26 Ibid. 130 27 Ibid. 134 28 Ibid. 138-139 29 Ibid. 151 30 Ibid. 156 31 Ibid. 160 32 Ibid. 163 33 Ibid. 166 34 Ibid. 100 35 Clive Staples Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Collier Books of Macmillan Publishing, 1960), 46. 36 Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967; New York: Anchor Press, 1990), 87. 37 Ibid. 29 38 Ibid. 93 39 Ibid. 87