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MORE THAN BELIEF
A Materialist Theory of Religion
MANUEL A. VASQUEZ
OXTORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2011
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
V^squez, Manuel A.
More than belief: a materialist theory of religion / Manuel A. Vdsquez,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-518854-7 (pbk.) - ISBN 978-0-19-518853-0 (hardback)
1. Religion—Philosophy. 2. Religion and sociology.
3. Sociology. 1. Title.
BL51.V38 2010
200.T1—dc22 2010001273
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Portions of chapter 11 originally appeared in Method & Theory in the Study
of Religion 20/2 (2008); 151-84. African Studies 68/2 (2009): 273-86,
and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77/2 (2009): 434-45.
For Anna, Gabriel, Eva, and Rafael, who have taught me the joys,
creative power, and challenges of embodiment
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Contents
Introduction 1
Part I Embodiment
1. The Rise of Foundational Dualism and the Eclipse of the Body
2. “Body Am I Entirely, and Nothing Else”: Non-Reductive
Materialism and the Struggle against Dualism 43
3. Toward a Materialist Phenomenology of Religion 59
4. The Phenomenology of Embodiment and the Study of Religion
5. Religious Bodies as Social Artifacts 123
6. Holding Social Constructionism in Check: The Recovery
of the Active, Lived Body 149
7. A Cultural Neurophenomenology of Religion: Enter
the Embodied Mind 173
Part II Practice
8. The Eclipse of Practice: Textualism at Large 211
9. “Ceci nest pas un texte”: From Textualism to Practice 231
Part III Emplacement
10. Expanding the Conversation on Emplaced Religion 261
11. Mobility, Networks, and Ecology 291
By the Way of a Conclusion 321
Notes 329
References 349
Index 374
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MORE THAN BELIEF
Introduction
To theorize is not to leave the material world behind and enter the domain
of pure ideas where the lofty space of the mind makes objective reflection
possible. Theorizing ... is a material practice.
—Karen Barad (2008: 55)
Why write yet another theory book, especially at a time when Terry Eagleton, a
prominent exponent of the genre, has declared that “the golden age of cultural
theory is long past” (2003: 1)? Eagleton quickly qualifies his claim, stating that
“[i]f theory means a reasonably systematic reflection on our guiding assump
tions, it remains as indispensable as ever.” Further, because cultural theory has
tended to ignore or dismiss religion, he argues that theorists must reflect sys
tematically on its global visibility.
In my case, theorizing comes out of a practical need. This book grows out of
my frustration in the classroom. Trying to engage students about the religious
creativity, cross-fertilization, and fluidity that accompany globalization, partic
ularly about the ways in which transnational immigrants transform both their
countries of origin and settlement by generating hybrid identities, practices,
and spaces, I have found that the dominant “canon” in religious studies is for
the most part unhelpful. Emerging from Protestant Biblical hermeneutics, reli
gious studies has tended to focus on the great sacred texts, or the theologies of
the Niebuhrs, Barths, and Tillichs of the world, or the symbolic systems of var
ious self-contained, territorialized cultures. Up until very recently, our disci
pline has taken for granted the view that religion is primarily “private and
interior, not shamelessly public; mystical, not ritualistic; intellectually consis
tent and reasonable, not ambivalent and contradictory.” It is “transcendent,
not present in things. Religion is concerned, tautologically, with religious mat
ters, not with what Sartre has called the ‘equivocal givenness of experience’”
(Orsi 1997: 6). This understanding of religion offers few resources to explore
the constant movement, contestation, and hybridity involved in what has been
called popular religion—religion as it is lived in the streets, workplaces, and
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