Abstract
This address examines the complex processes whereby cultural understandings of the sacred and, consequently, religious identity are negotiated in the contemporary social world. Two key processes of negotiation are delineated, namely, religious evanescence and religious evocation. Religious evanescence reflects efforts to deemphasize or sever connections to the sacred. By contrast, religious evocation consists of activities that emphasize or enhance linkages to sacred things. Groups actively manage their relationship to the sacred, and thus their religious identities, by engaging in evanescent or evocative practices. Moreover, the rejection of sacred things (evanescence) and the affirmation of them (evocation) are not mutually exclusive processes. They can be enlisted strategically, selectively, and even in combination with one another to suit a wide variety of social contexts and normative expectations. Boundaries in relation to the sacred are, therefore, sites for contradictory and innovative social processes. The contested and fluid boundaries that define the genre of “Christian rock” serve to illustrate these processes.
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Notes
Quotes recalled from these concerts (“field notes” of a sort) were checked against Youtube recordings to verify their accuracy. The sound quality of the Youtube recordings is somewhat uneven depending on the recording device used.
The argument could be made that Stone Sour’s performance on the Avalanche Tour also was punctuated by echoes of the sacred in style if not in substance. To begin, the call-and-response strategy of engaging concert-going audiences (even in a back-and-forth chant of the F-word), is stylistically akin to call-and-response forms of ecstatic worship found in many congregations. Moreover, during the San Antonio concert, Stone Sour lead singer Corey Taylor dedicated the song, “Bother,” to the late bassist Paul Gray from his previous band, Slipknot. Gray died of a drug overdose at age 38 in 2010. The day that Stone Sour played in San Antonio would have been Gray’s thirty-ninth birthday. During the song that Corey Taylor dedicated to Gray, Taylor broke down weeping and nearly could not finish the song. The San Antonio Metal Examiner reported, “With the stage belonging to Taylor and his guitar, the frontman went into ‘Bother,’ pausing a couple of times to wipe tears. When it looked as if he wouldn't be able to make it through the song, the crowd uplifted him with chants of ‘Corey, Corey, Corey!’” (Blabbermouth.net 2011). This incident was eerily reminiscent of the experience I recount at the Parkview Evangelical Free Church earlier in this address. Thus, traces, hints, and shadows of the sacred can even be found in the most secular of places.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to those who offered comments on this project prior to its publication, including attendees at the 2012 Religious Research Association Presidential Address and Stephen Bartkowski.
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Bartkowski, J.P. Finding the Sacred in Unexpected Places: Religious Evanescence and Evocation. Rev Relig Res 56, 357–371 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-014-0178-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-014-0178-x