Robbins, Joel (2012). Transcendence and the Anthropology of Christianity: Language, change, and individualism. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthological Society, Vol:37(2), pp. 5-23.
Keywords: Christianity, individualism, language, morality, transcendence, Westermarck
Is there anything like a unique anthropological understanding of the nature of Christianity? Although still quite new, over the last decade the anthropology of Christianity has become a robust field of discussion and debate. Given its rapid development, the time has perhaps come to consider this question. Perhaps surprisingly, a clue toward an answer can be found in Westermarck’s work. In his book on Christian Morality, Westermarck focuses on the way in which this morality constitutes a transcendent ideal that is far removed from what human beings can in reality expect to morally accomplish. Though I do not take his full argument on board, in this lecture I argue that Westermarck was right to point to Christian ideas about transcendence as one of this religion’s key features. Indeed, a focus on the nature, variety, and cultural consequences of Christian notions of transcendence is emerging as a distinctive feature of the anthropological approach to the study of Christianity. Building on this point, I suggest that exploring differences between various Christian approaches to transcendence is a key to synthesizing the most important early debates in the anthropology of Christianity. These debates have centered on 1) the ways Christians, and Protestants in particular, understand the nature and ideal uses of language; 2) the role of Christianity in fostering self-conscious efforts toward bringing about radical cultural change; and 3) the tendency of Christianity to foster various kinds of individualism among its converts. By gathering these debates together through a focus on transcendence, we can develop a specifically anthropological understanding of Christianity that not only allows for productive cross-cultural comparison, but that also helps us raise broader questions about the relation of transcendence to social life of importance across many fields of anthropology and the social sciences more generally.