Today I attended a lecture by Stanley Fish and ended up eavesdropping on a conversation between my former advisor (a wonderful human being and the chair of the brand new Religious Studies program at UCI), Mark C. Taylor, and Jack Miles. What was the topic? Mormons! Specifically, Joseph Smith and the Mark Hoffman forgeries and murders. The subject of the conference was religion and modern philosophy (which has generally thought religion all but irrelevant until fairly recently), but still it was surprising to encounter Mormonism first thing.

UCI’s got one of the best critical theory programs in the U. S. I won’t even pretend to understand what critical theory is, except that it seems to be a loose umbrella term for a variety of philosophical critiques of modernism. There’s a lot of “posts” in there, like post-colonialism, post-structuralism, and everybody’s favorite, post-modernism. Anyhow, Derrida used to hang out all the time in the comp lit department, and even after his death some of the big names in modern philosophy come to UCI to philosophize. Recent visitors include bell hooks, Judith Butler, Alain Badiou and Richard Rorty (who is the modern heir to my namesake, John Dewey). It’s an odd kind of fame–most of these names are probably meaningless outside of a relatively small part of the population. But they are hugely influential among the elite group of people whose commerce is in words and ideas. Some join or build on their arguments, and others feel compelled to defend against them. Eventually it all trickles down to the masses.

Until recently, my main contact with these theorists was through little splashes from my Mormon friends in the Humanities. Now I’m trying to turn the spigot, to see if I can drink in a steady flow. I’m starting with essays by Foucault and Bourdieu, and attending lectures when Big Names come to visit the campus. I guess this as much a part of my Pilgrimage as churches and scriptures and rituals, because these philosophers are concerned with how we interpret the world and make meaning. This suits me fine, because I share those concerns.

One example: Mark Taylor said today that scholars are afraid to ask “what is religion?” I agree with his assessment of academic temerity on the subject. It’s an important question that’s not asked enough. Here’s my answer: Religions are memetic complexes of ritual, relationships, myths and histories and meta-narratives, social and political institutions, ethics, psychology, pedagogy, symbol and language and value systems (structures), and what Rudolph Otto called the mysterium tremendum–that which is simultaneously experienced as awesome and awe-full. Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did.

My answer to Taylor’s question drives a lot of my writing here on this site. Anyone who simplifies religion down to a characteristic or two (say “God”) isn’t talking about religion. I think that one of the main purposes of mindonfire is to reflect upon and to explore this complexity. On the one hand, Mormonism and Christianity try to force on me what I consider to be caricature of religion. On the other, the forces of secularism, rationalism, and modernism try to seduce me into dismissing the whole of religion. I will resist both of these temptations and continue my pilgrimage.