The Line Between Religion and Magic

Elizabeth Bruenig, a Washington Post religion columnist, went through life's hardships lately and wrote about it.

Her reflection is very personal yet thoughtful.

 

She narrates her story in a simple manner but frames it to deal with the question of "the line between religion and magic".

The line between religion and magic, I learned in school, isn’t clear. But many scholars of religion agree that one important division is that while magic is private and crisis-oriented, religion is public and its rituals have no specific, short-term, earthly goals.

As a Catholic, she explores ways to cope with sufferings through prayer and confessions.

 

But throughout this all she ponders over the medal with broken clasp. Fixing it was in the back of her mind but she never did.

 

I guess, the medal represents the magic part in this reflection.

For a while during the long, hot summer I entertained the superstitious idea that things would not look up for my family until I had the clasp of my medal repaired. I did not think I was being punished for breaking it, but I thought I had damaged some trust by doing that, and that I couldn’t fix it until I did some penance by way of cost and trouble.

She, at least, entertained some magical ways of coping, it seems.

 

 

 

Along the way, she's dealing with the question of "losing faith," too.

What does it mean to lose faith for a well-educated Catholic?

 

I guess she's dealing with this question against the backdrop of, possibly, postmodern situation.

In my dream, I wandered down the aisle of some kind of noisy, crowded theater. At the front, where a stage should have been, were confessionals. I went inside one to repent and there was no priest there, only a screen with the face of a priest. I said to him: “Father, I’ve lost my faith.”

All in all, Elizabeth gave us an interesting story to think about. 

 

Thankfully, it's without much heavy theological discussion-though she's capable of doing that way if she so chooses.

Story-telling rather than theologizing. Isn't it more postmodern thing to do?

Religiocification、とは何か?

聞いたことありますか?

Religiocification、は名詞形ですから、動詞であれば、religiocificate、となるでしょうがいずれにしても辞書に登録されていることばではありません。 

「religiocification」をググルと気がつくように、シカゴ大のマーティン・マーティー教授が長年に渡り「アメリカの政治社会（公共圏）に姿を現す“宗教的装い”」現象を叙述するのに用いてきた造語です。

（とまあ、そうは書きましたが）まだそんなまとまった風に書けるほど関連記事を読んだわけではありません。 

たまたまマーティー教授が自身の名前を冠した研究所（シカゴ大のMartin Marty Center）が発行するオンライン誌

「Sightings (Religion in Public Life)」 

に「2016年を振り返って」まとめている記事、The Religiocification of Hate、（2016年12月12日）に使っていて「ほー、どんなニュアンスなんだろう?」と思ったことがきっかけでこの記事を書こうと思った次第です。

2016年は「憎しみ」の年!!

さて、マーティー教授は「今年は憎しみ（hate）が取り分け目立った年だった」と振り返りながら「憎しみ」の病理的な性格がどのようなメカニズムを持つか二人の識者の洞察を改めて紹介します。

For the second time in this year of hatreds—and the third in 15 months—we quote Else Frenkel-Brunswick, specialist on the “ethnocentric personality,” who observed that in the case of the hater, “even his hate is mobile and can be directed from one object to another”; and John Dewey, who noted that people “do not shoot because targets exist, but they set up targets in order that throwing and shooting may be more effective and significant.”

（1）エルゼ・フレンクル-ブランズウィック・・・憎しみはターゲットを特定しない。憎しみの矛先は浮動的だ。
（2）ジョン・デューイ・・・人々が憎しみを表に出して（誰かに）ぶつけるのは対象となる相手が存在するからではなく、ぶつけることによって憎しみが威力を発揮し意義深くなるからだ。

それからピュー・宗教調査センターの「差別」に関する調査結果の数字を関連させるのですが、
　・モスレム、82%
　・黒人、76%
　・同性愛者、76%
というようになっていくわけですが、特にモスレムへの差別が目立って増加した（前年比12%増）ことを受けて「差別→憎しみ→浮動的」と捉えたみたいです。


さて実は筆者にとっての今回の記事の本題は、人種差別とか宗教に絡んだヘイトではなく、「religiocification」の用い方なのです。

この用語を使う方はマーティー教授の他に余り見られないので個人的専門用語として置けばいいのかもしれませんが、せっかくですからマーティー教授が他のどんな現象にこの語を使っているか簡単に見てみたいと思います。（以下は順不同、ランダムです。）

　（1）政治権力崇拝（the worship of political power, the religiocification of patriotism ）
　（2）黒人宗教指導者による公民権運動
　（3）米大統領就任式（the "religiocification"of the presidential transition）

などです。


以上の使い方から見られるのは、政教分離政策を取る米国において、公共圏での「宗教的」な面がかなり目立つようになる現象を特に「religiocification」を使って注目するのだと思います。

※つまり世俗化するヨーロッパと少し異なり、米国では宗教が公共圏にしっかり付着してくる事象が結構多いんだよ、ということでまさに「サイティングス」の必要を主張しているみたいですね。

ということで締めくくりをしますと、The Religiocification of Hate、とは本来浮動的なヘイトが今年は特に（宗教グループである）モスレムに際立って向かった年だった、ということになるかと思います。

※以下はオマケです。（ある方がドイツ語のSakralisierungに相当する英語を探している、という質問サイトでのやりとりです。それを見るとsanctificationなどに並んでマーティー教授の造語であるreligiocificationを連想したのですね。）


[おまけ]

Sakralisierung?

Actually, I have not even found an exact German word, but it is about: to make something "sacred" (= with religion related), i.e. With religion. See also "secular" - "secularization"
I do not know if it would be called in German "sacrification", "sacralization" or "sacralization" or so ...
Is there a word in English (preferably AE)? Or how would the word "tinker"
"Sacrification"? "Sacralization" or something else?

religiocification
M. E. Marty, A Nation of Behavers, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976, p. 14.
"the religiocification of secular humanism"
See also http://books.google.com/books?id=Q8OclZWNgE0C...

Martin E. Marty, "Context", January 1, 2002, Volume 34, Number 1.
Sometimes people from the world of science resist the religiocification of science in
the name of both science and religion. Here Jerome Groopman, M.D. writes on the
“curious coupling of science and religion”:
http://www.contextonline.org/samples/ct020101.pdf

Martin E. Marty, "We're no Holier for our Holy War", New York Times, July 22, 1981
.2,2CHICAGO - One year into its holy war, the United States, is not, and stands small chance of becoming, a holier, happier, more civil, or more moral nation. Last summer, during the election campaign, citizens began to see what in the black movement used to be called the ''religiocification'' of politics. Now, the unpromising language of the crusade or jihad corrupts the news media and disrupts society. It is time for a cease-fire.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/times... 

This is a neologism that Marty ascribes to Alfred B. Cleage. It probably expresses what you want. A Google search reveals 38 hits, and all of them seem to stem from Martin E. Marty.

Another possibility: desecularization (once you've established what you mean by "secularization")

"sacralization" is a possibility but also refers to ossification of the sacrum. I suffer from partial sacralization because the left side of my sacrum has fused to my pelvis.

"sanctification" refers to the process of making something holy (@#4 one "c" too many)