Daniele Hervieu-Leger as a Chain of Memory • V Religion as a Chain of Memory O c) Da n iele Hervieu -Leger For most of the last twenty years, sociologists have studied the decline of religion in the modern world—a decline they saw as a defining' feature of modernity, which promotes materialism over spirituality. The revival and political strength of varying religions traditions around the world, however, has forced sociologists to reconsider. In Religion as a Chain of Memory, Hervieu - Leger undertakes a sociological redefinition and reexamination of religion. For religion to endure in the modern world, she finds, it must have deej) roots in traditions and times in which it was not defined as irrelevant. This reasoning leads her to develop the concept of a “chain of memory”—in which individual believers become part of a community that links past, present, and future members. Thus, religion may be perceived as a shared understanding with a collective memory that enables it to draw from the well of its past for nourishment in the increasinglv secular present. Ilervieu-Leger also argues that the modern secular societies of the West have not, as is commonly assumed, outgrown or found secular substitutes for religious traditions; nor are they more “rational” than past societies. Rather, modern societies have become “amnesiacs,” no longer able to maintain the chain of memory that binds them to their religious pasts. Ironically, however, even as the modern world is destroying arid losing touch with its traditional religious bases, it is also creating the need for a spiritual life and is thus opening up a space that only religion can fill. Religion as a Chain of Memory Translator’s Note I should like to thank Grace Davie for the generosity she showed me and the help and encouragement she gave me during the time that I was working on this book. Religion as a Chain of Memory Daniele Hervieu-Leger Translated by Simon Lee Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey First published in France as La Religion pour Memoire © Editions du Cerf, Paris 1993 First published in the United States 2000 by Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey First published in Great Britain 2000 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd Published with the assistance of the French Ministry of Culture—Centre National du Livre Copyright © 2000 by Polity Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data and British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data are available upon request ISBN 0-8135-2827-5 (cloth) ISBN 0-8135-2828-3 (pbk.) Printed in Great Britain Contents Foreword by Grace Davie viii Introduction 1 Part I Doubt about the Subject Matter 7 1 Sociology in Opposition to Religion? Preliminary Considerations 9 From religious sociology to the sociology of religion 9 Science opposed to religion 13 Undermining the subject? 18 2 The Fragmentation of Religion in Modern Societies 23 The future of religion in the modern world: the classical sociological approaches 24 Constructing a new perspective 27 Defining religion: a new look at an old debate 30 Religion and systems of meaning: an inclusive approach 33 In contrast: a much more restrictive framework 35 A false opposition 36 One way out of the dilemma? 39 Contents VI 3 The Elusive Sacred 42 The sacred: an impossible concept 42 The genealogy of the sacred: Isambert’s contribution 48 Emotional experience vis-a-vis religion 51 Between the sacred and religion: the example of sport 53 The sacred opposed to religion: the emotional culmination of secularization? - 57 Part II As our Fathers Believed ... 63 4 Religion as a Way of Believing 65 Metaphorical religion, following jean Seguy 66 Towards an analysis of the transformation of belief in contemporary society 72 Religion as a way of believing: the example of apocalyptic neo-rural communities 75 5 Questions about Tradition 83 Tradition opposed to modernity 83 The creative power of tradition 86 Religion as folklore 89 The religious productions of modernity: is this concept meaningful? 92 Back to the question of definition 97 6 From Religions to the Religious 101 A second look at sport as a religion 102 Two ways of thinking 106 Is the notion of a religious sphere still a helpful one? 108 From the sociology of religion to the sociology of the religious: a political example 111 Part III A Break in the Chain 121 7 Religion Deprived of Memory 123 Memory and religion: a structural connection 124 The crumbling memory of modern societies 127 Secularization as a crisis of collective memory: the example of French Catholicism 130