Kenneth MacKendrick delves into thanatology (death studies) from the
perspective of a critical theory of religion. Basing his framework on Tony
Walter (thanatology), he argues that there are three ideal typical attitudes
toward death: traditional, modern and neo-modern (the last of which is
comprised of late modern and postmodern). Whereas traditional attitudes to
death are rooted in the community, in the modern attitude there is a ratio-
nalization of death in which death becomes institutionalized. Postmodern
attitudes toward death, which are paradoxical, are a reaction toward mod-
ern ones. The disenchantment of death creates the need for reenchantment.
MacKendrick takes the work of Jürgen Habermas and superimposes it over
this schema. The linguistification of the sacred represents a move toward
postmetaphysical thinking. Being more true to the idea of critical theory than
even Habermas himself, MacKendrick synthesizes postmodernism within
critical theory.
The last five articles (Goldstein, Lundskow, Wright and Rawls, Langman,
and Gay, Goldstein and Campbell) are applications of the critical theory of
religion. In my own article, working off a framework provided by Max Weber,
Karl Kautsky and Ernst Bloch, I apply a conflict approach to biblical history.
What I find is not only class-based conflicts but conflicts between elites and
with other nations. These conflicts were part of a dialectic whose tensions
caused ancient Jewish society to be dynamic. In this analysis, I maintain a
critical distance from the biblical text.
In George Lundskow’s article, he continues the critique of rational choice
by focusing on Rodney Stark’s Rise of Christianity. Lundskow questions the
validity of taking a cost-benefit analysis within the context of a religious mar-
ket and applying it to the Roman Empire. In its place, he offers a critical the-
ory of religion which looks at religion in relationship to class structure.
Especially after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire, religion
was only a matter of choice for the elites; for many others, it was imposed
upon them and despite this, other religious traditions (i.e., Paganism and
Judaism) endured.
Bonnie Wright and Anne Warfield Rawls engaged in ethnographic research
focusing on the practices of two Assemblies of God churches in Detroit,
Michigan. Basing their argument upon Marx, Durkheim, Mills, Goffman and
Garfinkel, they establish that there is a dialectical relationship between belief
and practice. While religious beliefs are based on practices, once they arise
Introduction • 5