Abstract
The category of “belief” has been at the forefront of the philosophy of religion. Nonetheless, a number of scholars of religion have recently repudiated the category of “belief” as exclusively cognitive, and as such, yielding a reductionist and distorted view of religions. The problem with this conclusion is that it takes for granted that belief is nonmaterial. I argue that this presumption contributes to the disaggregation of “religion” and “race,” the obfuscation of Christianity’s relationship to racism and the perpetuation of American anti-black racism. In what follows, I make a case for the materiality of belief, outline the interests that drove its dematerialization, and articulate the stakes of continuing to presume that belief consists in a mental state of affirmation. To make this case, I draw from recent works which both portray American anti-black racism as a religion and offer a materialist interpretation of belief that resonate with and substantiate lesser known theories of belief from a range of disciplines. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of this argument for a revised “ethics of belief” for the philosophy of religion.
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Notes
- 1.
See Vásquez (2011). Vásquez’s materialism is, he insists, non-reductive. By “materialist,” Vásquez is referring to “lived religion,” that is, religion that is temporal, contextual, situated, interested, though the various aspects of religion (discourses, practices and institutions) may very well represent themselves as eternal or transcendent.
- 2.
- 3.
See, for instance, Lawrence Torcello (2016, esp. 31); Torcello refers to S.F. Aiken and R.B. Talise Why We Argue (And How We Should): A Guide to Political Disagreement (New York: Routledge, 2013).
- 4.
It is the perception as to the facticity of race that prompts scientists to examine the genetic factors for African American women’s higher death rates from breast cancer (Victor 2016).
- 5.
Aspects of Cantwell Smith’s argument are echoed, in turn, by Dorothea Weltecke in her (2008) study of belief in the central and late middle ages; she points out that “infidels” are not those who fail to hold certain convictions, but who are disloyal; this includes non-Christians (loyal to neither to God nor King), heretics and blasphemers (disloyal to baptismal vows) and schismatics (disloyal to Pope and the Church of Rome); see esp. 109–110.
- 6.
- 7.
Lopez does not acknowledge that “ideology” can be defined as a “credo” or “set of beliefs” and thus does not clarify what he understands by “ideology” and “belief,” respectively.
- 8.
Lopez’ aim is, then, the opposite to that of Terry Godlove. Both recognize that religious belief is a form of commerce amidst others forms of commerce. Although Godlove appreciates that we must be critical as to which of these exchanges gets tagged as “religious,” he is convinced that it is imperative to determine which forms of commerce are authentically religious and that only adherents’ can “authorize” which of these circuits of exchange qualifies as “religious.” Lopez advocates an abiding skepticism as to the labelling of certain economies of exchange as “religious belief.”
- 9.
Note that Latour does not presume that belief is internal or ideational. As he contends, “Belief is not a state of mind but a result of relationships among peoples” (Latour 2010, 2).
- 10.
Of course, not all political entities will be populated by or converted to believers in religion qua belief. These (heretical) entities are routinely castigated as pre-modern, uncivilized and violent. Conflicts will continue to flare between believers and unbelievers in the construction of religion as mere belief.
- 11.
For an elaboration of these arguments, see Pritchard (2014).
- 12.
These public proclamations obscured the numerous reports of and inquiries into miracles; see Jane Shaw (2006).
- 13.
As Malcolmson and Kendi (21, 32) document, differences in skin color and appearance were also attributed to differences in climate.
- 14.
It bears repeating that the biblical curse on Canaan is not explicitly connected with skin color in the text, nor is it placed specifically on Ham. In addition, nowhere in the text does God endorse this curse (indeed, elsewhere God makes a covenant with the nation of Egypt through a woman slave, Hagar; see Williams 1993). Nonetheless, this racialized reading of the curse of Ham has been surprisingly influential. Given the prominence of Christianity among freed slaves and the felt imperative to trace the history of Africans within what was widely considered the history of humanity, i. e. the Bible, African American Christian leaders insisted on their descent from Ham (Johnson 2004).
- 15.
Martin Luther King, Jr. denounced the racialization of the curse of Ham as a “blasphemy” that contradicted the fundamental tenants of Christianity (King 1956). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints publicly distanced itself from Joseph Smith’s racialization of the curse of Ham when it finally recognized the priesthood of African and African-American men in 1978.
- 16.
At least one early twentieth century US citizenship case entailed conflict over the “race of Hindus.” The debate was whether persons from India were Aryan and thus white or, as Hindus, espoused a “barbaric caste system” utterly at odds with “white civilization.” See Joshi 2006, 214–15.
- 17.
All kinds of persons may have been welcomed to the saving baptismal waters, but in some instances, the baptized would have to be “washed white;” see Kendi 76.
- 18.
Frederickson writes, “Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain is critical to the history of Western racism because its attitudes and practices served as a kind of segue between the religious intolerance of the Middle Ages and the naturalistic racism of the modern era. The idiom remained religious, and what was inherited through the “blood” was a propensity to heresy or unbelief rather than intellectual or emotional inferiority;” see Fredrickson (2003, 40).
- 19.
Evangelical Christians, under the banner of a revamped “Racial Reconciliation,” have sought to convert racists so that they would come to recognize and finally disown their false, hurtful and destructive beliefs. Such beliefs would be replaced by the belief in the dignity and equality of all humans. Evangelical conversion efforts have focused on transforming one heart at a time through confession and forgiveness services, healing rallies, and the cultivation of friendships across race. Many proponents regard these efforts as a conversion to Christian teaching properly understood. In other words, racism is understood as sin (Emerson and Smith 2001, 127ff.). Nonetheless, such efforts have been criticized for ignoring the structural elements of racism, for individualizing the problem, and for lacking the necessary sacrifices (of white privileges) that need to be made to eradicate racism (Thandeka 2000; Emerson and Smith, 52ff.).
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Pritchard, E. (2021). Belief that Matters: Religion, Anti-Black Racism and the Future of the Philosophy of Religion. In: Eckel, M.D., Speight, C.A., DuJardin, T. (eds) The Future of the Philosophy of Religion. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44606-2_7
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