The Transformation

As you read chapter 6, "The Transformation," look for the following points. These conclusions will guide Wade’s (very brief) analysis of the early history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in his next chapter, “The Tree of Religion.”

From your own reading, do you agree with the following points?

(1) As hunter gatherers settled into communities, their primitive religions were transformed.
More complex societies required specialization of labor.
Some people acquired property rights and status; powerful men became leaders.
Trade developed, along with the need for more advanced arithmetic skills.
These much larger communities would need more organization and regulation to survive.

(2) The new religions of settled societies bore two legacies from their ancestors:
Neural circuitry predisposed people to learn religion.
The same neural circuitry provided fertile ground for revolts against established religion.
The schisms that result from religious enthusiasm can revitalize a culture or seriously weaken it.

(3) So how did political leaders establish legitimacy in these emerging settled societies?
Most societies co-opted religion, source of authority and cohesion in hunter gatherer societies.
Priesthoods were established to control the old rituals; dancing and trance were suppressed.

(4) Settled communities become dependent on central ecclesiastical authorities.
People could no longer gain access to the deity through ecstatic forms of worship.
In ancestral societies, the group’s beliefs were shaped through community agreement; new communications needed to be approved by the whole community.
In settled communities only religious authorities interpret supernatural communications.

(5) Hierarchical religions always struggle with ecstatic religion:
People have an ingrained desire to communicate directly with their gods.
There are always some who question leaders’ claim to exclusive access to the gods.
The institutional church always tries to control manifestations of religious enthusiasm.
Ecstatic religion has continued to threaten established churches into the modern era.

(6) Challenges to orthodoxy often follow a similar pattern:
Upstarts evoke the old ecstatic methods that the priesthood has suppressed.
Some parts of the new inspiration then become institutionalized.
After institutionalization, personal spiritual experiences are again discouraged or banned.

(7) Judaism, Christianity and Islam all follow this pattern:
The founding prophet received sacred messages and proclaimed these messages to followers.
When the founding prophet was gone, the communication channel fell silent.
The prophet’s words and deeds were then remembered and put into writing.
The sacred texts were then re-shaped in various ways by followers and ecclesiastical authorities.
The sacred texts were then closed to further revision.

(8) The new prominence of sacred texts matched a shift in emphasis from ritual to intellectual belief.

From your own reading and life experience, do you agree with these points?