Hi Nort,

The sacred center is a common reference point for a people and provides an umbrella of trust under which safe and secure social interactions can occur. As I mentioned earlier the axis mundi acts as an antenna for goodness or love. One way to destroy a people, break apart their trust for one another, and instill fear, is to destroy the center. The Romans did it with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. A similar attack on a sacred center occurred at the turn of the last century, when the British bombed a large earthen mound that the famous Nuer prophet Ngundeng (d.1906) had constructed. All the Nuer clans were asked to participate in the building of the mound. In constructing the mound, Ngundeng was constructing a new cosmology. The mound represented a new hierarchy of gods with the free-deity, Deng, at the top. Ngundeng's effort served to consolidate the Nuer clans in resistance against British incursions in the region, although the RAF finally triumphed in the end. The British also destroyed the sacred center, or kaya, of the Giriama in south coastal Kenya. It was supposed to be a show of force in order to break the back of the Giriama 1914 uprising. Although destroyed, the the idea of the kaya has lived on among the Giriama in myth and ritual, and continues to support, I would argue, their sharing economy which has survived alongside a global capitalist economy in which they also participate.

Tad

Hi Tad,


I am familiar with Mircea Eliade's idea of the sacred center. The ancestor pole is one such center. It evolves into the temple in more complex societies. Jesus offered himself as the center, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." The cross is the axis mundi for Christians connecting each believer to God. It is portable and does not need a fixed place. In one's faith, one is always at the center , wherever one goes. A more portable faith comes with the destruction of the sacred center, as happened with the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The unintended consequence of such destruction is that it freed the faith to travel, which would allow for wide dissemination. Also, the faith is no longer tied to land or territory. "My kingdom is not of this earth!" The faith is no longer bound and in service to one people, or earthbound government.


Nort

Hi Nort,

Away for the weekend and returned late yesterday. Very interesting to read about John Calvin's theology. We have an entirely different take on him in the social sciences with his ideas coming to us via Weber. Calvin's understanding of the Law would fit in nicely with my theory. I would add here that my field of affect has a spatial structure to it, as well, which we can call "cosmology". A good example of this cosmology is what I mentioned in my last post, i.e., the ancestor pole. I first read about the ancestor pole among the Ndyuka, a group of runaway slaves in French Guiana and Republic of Suriname in South America. I am sure you can find it among West African societies, too. According to the Dutch ethnographer Thoden van Velzen, the pole is used to establish village status. He refers to it as a "flagpole" and it no doubt acts in a similar way as a symbol of group identity. It also acts as a stake to lay a claim to the surrounding territory. It is a physical marker connecting the lineage to the land. This connection is apparent in the Tiv word tar, which has been translated as "land," "ground," and "country". According to the anthropologists Paul and Laura Bohannan, tar is the spatial dimension of the lineage, but is also the term used to refer to the lineage. The territorial and social segment are considered one and indivisible. There is a political dimension, too, as the welfare of the tar is an important preoccupation of segment leaders whose prestige depends on their efficacy in "repairing the tar." Tar is a perfect word for my concept of a field of affect with its spatial, social, and political dimensions, as well as, emotional and mystical ones. To go back to the ancestor pole of the Nyduka, I see the pole acting as an antenna channeling affect from the supernatural realm of the ancestors to the community. In Durkheim's understanding of religion, the pole would be a symbol of the group, but it is more than that--and this is where I diverge from Durkheim's theory and the reductionism one finds in social science, in general, which is blind to the realm of affect. The pole is a source of feeling. Victor Turner gets at this with his idea of the ontological pole of a symbol. However for Turner the symbol acts to connect the cognitive with the emotional realm. I would argue that symbols have a generative effect. They create an emotional bond and realm, which is so very important for social life. Affect is a legitimate and autonomous realm in its own right and it is time social scientists recognize this. Any attempt to explain social behavior without seriously considering feelings is reductive, meaningless, and I have to say, ignorant!

Tad

Hi Tad,

Sorry, I have been out of town and have just returned. I did read your email before I left and the hiatus gave me some time to think it over and now respond. I am intrigued by your idea of the cosmology of love, or structure of affect, both good terms. You have mentioned before how kinship is one such structure, but now reveal that there is a supernatural dimension to this structure. Of course, being a religious person, I would agree with that. You might be surprised to learn that John Calvin had a similar view. He saw Scripture and the Law as structures that shape human disposition and agency. Others might emphasize liturgy and worship as well. They all form us and create a true self in God's divine image. Calvin argued that this formation process is not necessarily guaranteed and would take time, a process he called sanctification. The sacraments of Baptism and Communion are especially believed to have supernatural, or as you might say, cosmological effects, plugging us into a divine realm that forms us. An appropriate analogy might be a holograph. We are to be divine images formed by God's divine light, Jesus Christ.

Nort

Cosmology of Love

Hi Nort,

You asked for my first installment of my ethnology of love! I would like to start with this notion of the structure of love which I mentioned earlier in my thesis statement in a previous email. I will use the Tiv as an example. The Tiv are farmers who live on the Benue River, a tributary of the Niger in Central Nigeria. They were studied by Paul and Laura Bohannan. The Tiv have a word tar that refers to both the land occupied by a kin group, the kin group, and the apical ancestor from whom all in the group are descended. Tar is multi-referential term that denotes what I call a field of affect, one which we might construe as "love". Some African cultures make use of a visible symbol to connect the kin group, land, and ancestors; called an "ancestral pole." The planting of the ancestral pole is a ritual act that establishes a village and lays claim to land around the village for cultivation purposes. The ancestral pole is an axis mundi that connects the spiritual realm of the ancestors with the earth, on which people live and make a living. As I mentioned before, if we understand kinship as a field of affect then we see in the symbol of the ancestral pole an important connection between feelings of kinship and a spiritual dimension. The ancestors not only represent a historical connection to the land, but also represent and define the kin group, a realm of mutual affect. The kinship structure connected to the spiritual realm becomes part of a cosmology of love. I would venture to say that affect is supported by belief in a spiritual, non-material realm. This would make some sense because feelings are immaterial.

Tad

Hi Tad,

We might be at an impasse here. Perhaps it is futile to continue the conversation as is. We seem to be rehashing old arguments. I suggest that we take the next step in our dialogue, one which you have already suggested. Let us leave behind for now our personal accounts and instead discuss love from established theological and anthropological perspectives. I will try and contribute the former perspective and you are in a good position to provide the latter, your so-called ethnology of love. I look forward to reading your different cultural accounts of love! I will dig out my old seminary notes and also look through my library for the theology of love. What do you say?

Nort

Nort,

No I do not suggest that we love God erotically. Nevertheless Eros should not be discounted. It is one tributary in a river of God's love; one stream that leads us to the ocean of God's love! That I am convinced. We discount Eros because in our patriarchal society we discount women. We want to make distinctions between different kinds of love and rank them from lesser to higher loves, thus discounting the former. However, it is hard to cookie cut love. We risk losing love altogether. Tillich has us start with what we love most as an entry into the divine. We have to start with our feelings, otherwise we are hypocrites talking about love but feeling nothing.

Tad

Tad,

Perhaps I am trying to draw a fine line! However, the Law requires it! I do not believe that God loves us the way lovers love each other. Erotic love occurs between human beings and not between God and humans. Eros is sanctioned by marriage wherein it is supposed to be contained. It is not supposed to spill out onto the streets. Unfortunately it does and it is cheapened by it. God asks us to love each other ultimately in a different way. At the end of the Gospel of John when Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him, an interesting use of words occurs which is lost in the translation. Jesus uses the word agapas (Agape), whereas Peter responds, "Yes, I do love you," using the word philo, meaning "fondness" and "affection". The third time, Jesus relents and asks Peter, "Do you love (philo) me?" using Peter's more familiar term. In his book, The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis admits that he does not know much about Agape, or what he calls "charity", the last and most important of the loves according to him. What is this Agape, the love that Jesus calls us to have?

Nort

Nort,

You are carving a fine line, I am afraid, between love and passion! Be careful you do not kill the patient! God was not passionate about the loss of God's son? There was an earthquake for heaven's sake? There is a danger of domesticating love, confining it within the four walls of the home. We lose our feelings for fellow persons and ultimately lose love altogether. We love kin and the familiar but in distinction come to hate the other and what is strange, or different. Surely, God's love knows no boundaries and wants us to love the same. We are all God's children.

Tad

Hi Tad,



The word "passion" originally meant "suffering". Only later has it come to mean "strong emotions" and "love". My thoughts are we should heed the original meaning! I believe passion is a misconstrued love, a love of love. We are most passionate about things we cannot have, objects that are separate and distant from us. I do not believe one can be passionate about God, unless one is feeling cut off from God, or has false idea of God. There is a level of anxiety evoked in the word "passion". Love implies connection and a relationship. Passion is like a search light in the dark looking for a lost object of affection. It is a desperate emotion. When I hear someone say that they are passionate about something, my sense is that they do not know what they are talking about! They have no real understanding of what it is they are supposedly passionate about, otherwise they should be able to articulate something about it. Albeit passion may be a necessary drive to get us across the gap, but once the connection is made there should be some peace, no? You may still be seeking.



Nort

Hi Nort,

Human beings are passionate creatures made in God's image! Surely that is why God loves us so much, for our passion! God is a passionate being and wants us to love him passionately. Unfortunately our passions are misplaced onto the countless idols that stand in the way. God took on the fury of all those misplaced passions in Jesus Christ. Why else do we call Jesus' suffering, "The Passion"? Take away the false love object of people and they will hate you! Misplaced passion is ultimately destructive. I read Calvin, too, in seminary. He was passionate. He understood how the law does not inhibit passion but redirects it in fruitful ways beneficial to all. We are not supposed to throw out our passion with our idols, but to passionately love God!

Tad