World of the Spirits: A Christian Perspective on Traditional and Folk Religions

This work first appeared in 2000, but its reprinting in 2005 shows that the approach taken by the author still has considerable currency. It represents a substantial revision with a new title of the author’s Unearthly Powers (MARC, 1988), taking account of Burnett’s own further thinking as well as increasing attention to traditional religions by the scholarly community.ContentThe opening chapter includes a useful survey of developments in anthropological thinking and methodology, moving from earlier paternalistic approaches by Western analysts of “primitive” societies to more recent approaches that respect the societies and faiths being studied, allowing them to speak for themselves rather than being expressed through the prism of western and Christian frameworks. Burnett emphasises the importance of terminology, preferring the term “traditional” religions rather than “primitive” religions or “animism”. The second chapter undertakes a searching critique of Western, and Christian, scholarly writing on traditional religion perspectives of supreme deities and lesser spirits. The author suggests that Westerners are frequently prisoners of their own worldviews: “it is not surprising that Western scholars have too often formed … oral accounts into a pattern that reflects a Western analysis rather than the dynamic accounts of the people themselves” (29). Chapter 3 examines three traditional societies and their views of human nature. These societies place an emphasis on community; the view of the soul is complex; they embrace the “soul-stuff” idea where certain physical aspects are connected with deeper spiritual functions. The author contrasts these views with the Western understanding of human nature where “a clear duality has … emerged between the material body and the mind.” (47) This is followed by a broad sweep of traditional societies, surveying the widespread belief in ghosts and ancestral spirits. The author also examines biblical teaching, pointing to evidence of belief in such a supernatural realm by certain biblical personages, e.g. Job. Also considered are “forbidden things” in traditional religions: taboo, pollution and sins, offering some cross reference to the Bible. Chapter 6 surveys developments in anthropological thinking with regard to three kinds of ritual in traditional religions: lifecycle rituals (birth, puberty, marriage, death); calendar rituals (harvest, Christmas, Easter etc.); and rites of crises (sickness, disease, war, disasters etc.). The author considers debates among Christians regarding whether Christian converts should participate in the rituals of their original faiths. Chapters 7 to 11 address various aspects of the spiritual realm in traditional religions. Burnett asks a key question: how do adherents of different religions deal with multiple options? While secular societies have developed various management techniques, traditional societies uses divination of different forms: mechanical methods, such as cowrie shells, throwing strips of leather onto a skin and so forth; augury, such as reading animal entrails and throwing lots; and spirit mediumship, such as the ancient Greek Delphi oracle. The author points out the rising popularity of divination in the modern world through astrology. Chapters 8 and 9 consider witchcraft, sorcery and magic, all highly complex phenomena. Traditional societies consider these phenomena as means to identify the causes behind misfortunes: why did the crops fail, why did a child die? Also considered is the issue of witchcraft through Christian history, as seen in the witch-hunts of medieval times. Various missionary responses are presented, from a more secularist denial to Pentecostal demonic delivery approaches. In a helpful discussion of sorcery, Burnett identifies three aspects to this phenomenon: the evil eye, a widespread phenomenon throughout the Muslim world; curses; and magic rites. While anthropologists typically take a relativist position towards spirit possession, medical practitioners and missionaries are often called upon to address it as a problem. Burnett points out a key distinction between spirit possession as an affliction and spirit possession where the afflicted gains control over the spirit and uses it to heal, thereby becoming a shaman. An extended discussion of the latter phenomenon is presented in chapter 11. After painting a portrait of the broad features of traditional religions across diverse societies, Burnett changes the mood in chapter 12 by addressing the fraught topic of the impact of European expansion upon traditional societies. In this chapter he considers conquest, the effect of European diseases, European slave trade, and colonisation. The final four chapters turn their attention to different results of the interaction between European and traditional societies. The first is religious conversion, initially considered by colonial era scholars as a change from primitive towards “higher” world religions, but from the 1940s treated with more sensitivity and respect for the traditional religions being discussed. Chapter 14 addresses Allison’s contrast between High and Low Religion, with fascinating Hindu, Islamic, and Buddhist case studies from village India, village Java, and Sri Lanka respectively. Chapters 15 and 16 focus on various new religious movements arising from the intermixture of European and traditional faiths, from phenomena as diverse as Haitian Voodoo, various millenarian movements and cargo cults of the Pacific, to a number of new expressions of Christianity, including the African independent churches and various movements within mission Christianity.AssessmentThere are a number of weaknesses in this work that could be addressed in a further edition. The first relates to a certain stereotyping of “the West”. It is surprising that an author so concerned to emphasise diversity in the Other – traditional societies in this case – can so evidently stereotype of “the West”. Many examples exist; one will suffice: “… even Western society with its strong adherence to materialism still retains some belief in ghosts.” (59) Such a statement ignores the dynamic variation within Western societies such as the author presents so effectively for traditional societies. Of course, such negative stereotyping of the West is extremely common in modern scholarship, resulting in no small part from the wave of anti-westernism that developed from influential writings such as Edward Said’s “Orientalism”. Another common stereotype that has assumed “sacred cow” status in scholarly discourse relates to portrayals of European colonialism. This can be seen in Chapter 12, the weakest chapter in an otherwise commendable volume. The broad-brush approach adopted by the author neglects the great variety of European colonial policies; for example, the policies of the British in Malaya were hugely different from those of the Spanish in Latin America. Burnett sees European colonialism as unique: “Although through history larger nations have impacted and conquered smaller communities, what happened with the European expansion was essentially new in its extent and impact”(196). Such a statement is a furphy, of course, and understates the extent and impact of previous great empires, such as those of ancient Greece, Rome, China and Persia. Furthermore, no mention is made of Muslim imperial expansion in the 7th-9th centuries, which was arguably the most successful case in history of empire, where the vast majority of the conquered came to identify themselves, ethnically, linguistically and religiously with their Arab conquerors. Today the Arab world stretches from Morocco to Yemen; in the 7th century the term only applied to part of the Arabian peninsula. Another area that could be addressed in a further edition is the Insider/C5 Movement approach to extreme contextualisation. Burnett does engage with contextualisation at various points of this study, as well as with the concept of religious syncretism, so consideration of the Insider Movement would be appropriate. A hot topic one decade after this book was written, it was already very present as a debate in 2000 so its omission is surprising. Finally, the book suffers from several unfortunate typographical errors at key points. For example, Maori is misspelt as Moari (36) at an important point of discussion of this particular community. Furthermore, the Muslim clerical figure of imam is misspelt as iman (237). Notwithstanding the above criticisms, any assessment of this book should first and foremost measure the content against the author’s three stated aims (25-26): first, to build respect for the societies and faiths beings studied; second, to help Christians understand the faiths and societies being studied in terms of their own belief system; and third, to show the patterns of transformation experienced by traditional societies in recent centuries. Burnett achieves each of these aims admirably. But the work has other qualities as well. It serves as a very helpful introduction to the field of anthropology, especially for mission studies students. It succeeds in using a chatty style while also being sufficiently scholarly to gain the confidence of the reader. The author is energetic in engaging with a wide range of previous scholarship, as well as a wide array of religious traditions. As such, this work is a rich resource in itself, demonstrating the impressive breadth of knowledge by author. It would be well suited as a textbook at early undergraduate level for students in theological colleges and seminaries.Peter G. RiddellMelbourne School of Theology